Technology infrastructure in information technology industries

Abstract not availableeconomics of technology business administration and economics

Information Technology as Coordination Infrastructure

Business information technology is traditionally viewed as information provision technology. In this view, organizations use their IT to implement databases that provide people with information when they want it. This view is persistent even though information provision is never an end in itself but always has the further purpose to support the coordination of activities of people. The role if IT as coordination technology became more prominent in the 1980s with the advent of network technology, that allowed activities across different businesses to be coordinated. This trend has accellerated since the growth of Internet usage, and today IT is used to support an increasingly varied range of processes performed by a variety of partners that do not all have a hierarchical relation to each other. This makes it difficult to analyze requirements for IT support and specify IT solutions: Business processes may not be well-defined, and interests of different businesses may clash. This report argues that to deal with this in requirements engineering and IT solution specification, business information technology should not be viewed as IT support for business processes but as IT support for the coordination of activities in one or more businesses. We will identify three basic coordination mechanisms, namely coordination by price, by management, and by shared norms, and for each of these mechanisms, we will identify requirements for IT support. The advent of flexible and standardized networking technology has facilitated the creation of novel coordination mechanisms within these three general paradigms, and we will give an inventory of generalized coordination mechanisms made possible by current IT. Finally, we will draw conclusions for requirements engineering methods for IT support for each of the coordination mechanisms identified by the framework

On the enterprise modelling of an educational information infrastructure

In this report, we present the outcomes of exercising a design trajectory in respect of the modelling of an educational information infrastructure. The\ud infrastructure aims to support the organisation of teaching and learning activities, independently of any particular didactic policy. The design trajectory focuses on capturing invariant structures of relations between entities in educational organisation into Enterprise object models that underlie the design of the intended educational infrastructure.\ud An early-developed prototype of the infrastructure has emphasised the need for an Educational Model Space to determine the modelling and problem domain context apriori to modelling. In this space, educational requirements have been elaborated towards the Open Distributed Processing (ODP) Enterprise Viewpoint object models expressed in terms of the Unified Modelling Language (UML).\ud Recursive structures have been used to capture the dynamic needs of education. Furthermore, these structures are uniform for the planning, performance and evaluation activities of education. The Enterprise models developed can be used to derive the Information Viewpoint models and to further optimise the prototype of the infrastructure. In this work, we have managed to fruitfully combine educational and computer science modelling inputs by using ODP and UML as a bridge for this interdisciplinary collaboration

Post-disaster Information Infrastructure: The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

Government reports and members of the media blame information systems as the culprit of what has been characterized as faulty responses to disasters such as Virginia Tech and Hurricane Katrina. In the process they propose information and communication technologies (ICTs) as solutions to disaster response. Calls for new ICTs following recent American disasters reveal a poor understanding of the socially situated nature of ICTs. Disaster-related research does not expound a sophisticated understanding of ICTs either. As a consequence, information systems are seen as an unproblematic means of informing the right people with the right information at the right time. In my dissertation, I will challenge these simplistic notions of information systems as solutions to disaster response by proposing two case studies of ???information environments??? from the period following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I will introduce an analytical framework from the social studies of information which situates information systems in the social environment. The theoretical construct, the ???information environment,??? is meant to overcome the limitations of studying ICTs from a purely technical perspective

Improving sustainability through intelligent cargo and adaptive decision making

In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange

MANAGING IT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT. THE ALBANIAN CASE

Information has become an important element without which society cannot achieve its objectives. The term “information society” is increasingly used nowadays, instead of the terms “production” or “consumption society”, because of the importance and necessity of information in today's dynamic environment. Since IT became commercial in the early 1990s, it has diffused rapidly in developed countries but generally slowly in developing ones. The ICT development requires preparation, largely in the form of investment in network infrastructure, skills and regulatory frameworks. So the physical infrastructure of information systems is one of the important components of the information society. The aim of this paper is to identify ICT infrastructure indicator and to find what factors Albania need to take in consideration for managing ICT infrastructure to compare with other countries for building an information society. Many technological changes have brought new developments in IT infrastructure, such as data and digitalization, packet switching and broadband networks, as well as increased role of wireless and Internet. Albania, as a developing country have tried do benefit in maximum from these developments, focusing in the IT infrastructure management as one of the elements for building information society.ICT, physical infrastructure, e-readiness, IT services