Web Systems Integration

Ever wonder how Amazon.com works? You\u27ll have a better idea when this workshop is over. Ever heard of web services? Ever seen them work? If you ever plan on working with, for, or against IT people, this workshop is for you. In this workshop you learn about and build real technologies that real companies are using in real situations. The focus of this workshop is on systems integration specifically building knowledge on top of the development skills learned in analysis, design, database, programming, and networks. Because interoperability was one of the guiding principles behind the Internet, web systems integration provides a strong technology base for integrating diverse applications. To highlight this interoperability and integration, the presentation illustrates Web Services, one of the ultimate integrated technologies on the Internet. This workshop is intended to teach faculty members who are interested in a web systems integration course for their departmental curriculum. The course is hands-on and requires attention to detail by instructor. From an instructor’s perspective, this course consistently has students from Information Systems, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering. This is useful for boosting departmental enrollments and creating connections between university departments. From a student’s perspective, the course consistently rates highly as useful for critical thinking, systems thinking, and job searching. This workshop illustrates the tenets of the course and points in the right direction for getting this course up and running

Is it Egalitarianism or Enterprise Strategy? Exploring a New Method of Innovation in Open Source

This research article explores a new way of innovation found in open source communities. No longer is innovation closed where research and development is kept internal to the firm. Instead, it is becoming more open, where ideas, inventions, and intellectual property are readily traded in a global marketplace. Our research observed open source communities as something different from the received view on open source. We observed open source communities as highly organized platforms for strategic innovation where profit-seeking firms are actively involved in governance, strategic direction, and technology development. We explore the evolving relationship between firms and communities and provide insight into how these communities are organized. Our research depicts Open Innovation and open source in a new light – Federated Innovation – where open source communities are now acting as platforms to drive for strategic innovation._x000D_ This work has been funded through the National Science Foundation VOSS-IOS Grant: 1122642

Ubiquitous Computing: Surfing the Trend in a Balanced Act

Ubiquitous computing often presented as a third wave of computing, a departure from its predecessors—mainframe and personal computing. We examine this claim and argue that ubiquitous computing is not a departure from traditional computing but rather an evolutionary and natural step, which is in-sync with the global trends influencing the development of information technologies. Using two interrelated analytical prisms—megatrends and equilibriums, this paper provides a new point-of-entry for understanding ubiquitous computing from a perspective that accounts for human nature and the technology they use. We demonstrate that, together, megatrends and equilibriums provide a foundation for understanding information systems, and in particular ubiquitous computing systems. As an illustration, we provide systems architects and mangers with a set of four megatrends and another set of four equilibriums, which must be understood to better develop, implement, and manage ubiquitous computing environments

Designing Tailorable Technologies

Tailorable technologies are technologies that are modified by users in the context of their use and are around us as desktop operating systems, web portals, and mobile telephones. While tailorable technologies provide users with limitless ways to modify the technology, as designers and researchers we have little understanding of how this should affect design. In this paper we present principles from four designers to strengthen inquiry into tailorable technologies. We then apply the principles to the case of the design of a web portal. We conclude that designers need to more consciously build reflective and active design environments and gradients of interactive capabilities in order for technology to be readily modified in the context of its use

Secondary Design: A Case of Community Participation

Online communities often rely on the loyalty and time of community members to donate energy and expertise in processes ofsecondary design. The focus of this paper is regarding a breakdown in the processes of secondary design at such an onlinecommunity. We follow a case of change at an established online community, Digg.com. Changes in technology componentsby Digg administration and the effects this has had on the Digg community members affected how members contributed toprocesses of secondary design. This case warrants investigation as organizations are increasingly attempting to leverageonline communities in the design and development of systems. The case contributes to theorizing about secondary design andcommunities of practice

Understanding Open Source Communities as Complex Adaptive Systems: A Case of the R Project Community

Open source communities evolve. This evolution is, at times, driven by corporate engagement with those communities. In these corporate-communal contexts, open source foundations often serve as facilitators in the evolution process and make these arrangements more stable over time. This paper expands the application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory to understand the role of open source foundations as facilitators in the evolution of corporate-communal arrangements. We present the case of the R Project community and how we can leverage complex adaptive systems as a way to understand the evolution of the community as driven by corporate engagement and facilitated by open source foundations. We develop the theory of CAS by enhancing the understanding of attractors in the evolution of CAS

Designing Tailorable Technologies

This paper provides principles for designing tailorable technologies. Tailorable technologies are technologies that are modified by end users in the context of their use and are around us as desktop operating systems, web portals, and mobile telephones. While tailorable technologies provide end users with limitless ways to modify the technology, as designers and researchers we have little understanding of how tailorable technologies are initially designed to support that end-user modification. In this paper, we argue that tailorable technologies are a unique technology type in the same light as group support systems and emergent knowledge support systems. This unique technology type is becoming common and we are forced to reevaluate existing design theory, methods of analysis, and streams of literature. In this paper we present design principles of Gordon Pask, Christopher Alexander, Greg Gargarian, and Kim Madsen to strengthen inquiry into tailorable technologies. We then apply the principles to designing tailorable technologies in order for their design to become more coherent and tractable. We conclude that designers need to build reflective and active design environments and gradients of interactive capabilities in order for technology to be readily modified in the context of its use

Design history: exploring corporate communities

A design history is a narrative involving a multitude of social groups, interpretive flexibility, and eventual stabilization of shared understanding. Design history surfaces the practices that help shape and define engagements and can increase not only our theoretical understanding of what design is, but also our capacity to realize this understanding in practice. We use a design history perspective to examine how corporate technology initiatives establish and support open source communities and the crafting of relevant design practices that enable their advancement. We foster an evolving expression of design research that treats artifacts not as stable objects to be singularly evaluated, but as evolving systems contingent on historical trajectories