Australian Computer Society: ACS Digital Library
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Women in the Australian IT Industry: where are we now?
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to assess the status of women in the IT industry in 2001 relative to their position in 1996 and in comparison to their status in other industry sectors. To achieve this a special tabulation of 2001 and 1996 Australian census data relating to women’s position within the Australian IT industry is analysed. The issues of participation, pay equity and representation at senior management levels are examined. This reveals a fairly negative picture and indicates the need for an intensified effort to rectify the situation. It is shown that women participate in the IT industry at much lower rates than women in many other industries and that they have not achieved pay equity with men. Also, women are not well represented in senior management roles
Requirements Engineering and Software Project Success: an industrial survey in Australia and the U.S
Get PDFBecause requirements engineering is recognized as critical to successful software projects we surveyed a number of software practitioners regarding their software development practices during recent software projects. Relationships between requirements practices and software project outcomes enable us to better understand requirements issues and their relationship with project success. We asked three sets of questions directly related to requirements issues: 1) requirements practices, 2) the sponsor and customers/users, and 3) project management. Our respondents were from business organizations in the U.S. and Australia, and were almost exclusively involved in in-house software development. The most significant factors from each question set were: 1) the requirements were good, 2) there was a high level of Customer/User involvement, and 3) the requirements were managed effectively. Overall, the best predictor of project success was that the requirements were good together with the requirements were managed effectively (93% of projects were predicted correctly). Our survey shows that effective project management is fundamental to effective requirements engineering
Diffusion of Innovation - The Adoption of Electronic Commerce by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES)- A Comparative Analysis
Get PDFThis paper explores the issues that influence the diffusion of innovation as it relates to the adoption of e-commerce by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It seeks to identify factors facilitating and inhibiting such adoption across contexts – regional, small city and large city. This analysis is cross cultural so the impact of differing economic and cultural issues also will be identified in this research.
Whilst it is generally accepted that the strategic use of information technology (IT) is vital in the marketplace, the rate of such uptake between small and large businesses varies. This research seeks to identify the reasons for this variation. It is critical to understand such factors so that steps can be taken to redress inequity of uptake that might be identified. The paper endeavours to explore factors that are needed to facilitate and encourage IT adoption and so positively influence user acceptance and use of IT innovations in SMEs. Reasons for such uptake as well as strategic approach to the adoption of e-commerce, and variations regarding same also will be considered.
The paper examines existing theory as it pertains to the diffusion of innovation acknowledging the perspective of regional and urban SMEs in various cultural contexts. Empirical investigation exploring this diffusion, the rate of and approach to the uptake by SMEs is planned using a case study methodolog
The Effect of GST on Farm Management Information Systems and Business Management Skills
Get PDFIn 1989 New Zealand farmers were confronted by the introduction of a GST. Despite the short to medium term difficulties, many farmers have benefited from the experience. The introduction of the GST forced many New Zealand farmers to improve their record systems as they were required to submit more extensive and accurate information to comply with their new GST requirements. This increase in sophistication of their record systems also meant that farmers had a larger store of more accurate information available to support their farm business management decision-making. It is expected that the introduction of GST and PAYG reporting requirements in Australia is also acting as a catalyst in the evolution of dairy farm record systems and increase in dairy farmer’s store of business management skills. This paper reports the results of a survey that describes the characteristics of dairy farm management information systems and indicates the business management skills that dairy farmers perceive they need to acquire in the short term in order to improve their farm management information systems and comply with their GST requirements. Overall, the importance of bookkeeping/ accounting skills is strongly related to BAS. However, the results also show that as the level of sophistication of dairy farm record systems grows the demand for business skills shifts from accounting/ bookkeeping skills to computer and analytical skills
A Tale of Two Projects: why IT projects fail (and why they sometimes actually succeed)
Get PDFThis Case describes two similar outsourced IS projects that took place in Wellington, New Zealand (NZ) during the period 1992-99, with emphasis on the reasons why one project failed (the prime contractor repudiated the contract and the project was abandoned) and why the other succeeded. The same prime contractor was used for both projects and there were a number of other similarities, yet the outcomes were totally different. The Case provides lessons in some of the fundamental aspects of IS/IT project management, including scope, time, risk, human resources, procurement and quality management
Requirements Engineering: a close look at industry needs and a model curricula
Get PDFResearch endeavours in software development have found that failures and deficiencies of software systems are often rooted in the requirements activities undertaken. One possible cause for poor requirements activities is the appropriateness of the education of those engaged with the requirements component of software development. This education is largely based on model curricula used as guidelines. This paper examines the requirements component of model curricula in the disciplines of computer science, information systems and software engineering. These are compared to the opinions of a small but representative group of practitioners, assembled through personal interviews. The results reveal that the model curricula address to a high degree the expectations on the formal education preparing for requirements activities practitioners have mentioned. However, the results also show that practitioners see shortcomings in formal education, particularly with respect to more generic skills, such as communication and team skills
Altered Images: the relations between design representation and design practice
Get PDFAs information systems move out of the office into the wider world and are merged with mobile appliances, buildings and even clothing, the representations traditionally used in any one discipline may not be adequate for understanding these new domains. Design representations are ‘ways of seeing and not seeing’. Despite the central role representations play in design, the information systems design community has little understanding of the relation, ideal or actual, between design practice and design representation. This paper reports on an extensive design case study that aims at increasing understanding of the nature and affordances of representations in the design process and argues for the need for information systems as a discipline to open up discussion of the design representations that may be required to effectively design systems that mix traditional IS with disciplines such as industrial design, architecture and fashion design
Researching Human Experience: video intervention/prevention assessment (VIA)
Get PDFHuman experience is a critical subject for research. By discussing Video Intervention/Prevention Assessment (VIA), a patient-centered health research method where patients teach their clinicians about living with a chronic condition through the creation of visual illness narratives, this paper examines the value of qualitative inquiry and why human experience rarely is investigated directly. An analysis of a sample VIA data is presented to demonstrate how, by utilizing grounded theory and qualitative analysis, one can derive rich and unique information from human experience
Painting With and Without Numbers: the use of qualitative and quantitative methods to study social learning
Get PDFThe Enterprise Social Learning Architecture (ESLA) team of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), conducted a four-year research study investigating social learning within the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO). The immediate aim of this research was to understand the issues inherent in building learning, adaptive and sustainable systems. The long-term objective was to develop architectures that would support the development of information systems to guide and enhance organisational learning and facilitate knowledge management. In this paper we will discuss the methodologies used by the ESLA team to gain understanding into effective social learning and the organisational and cultural factors that support such learning. Also, the paper will discuss the lessons learned from methodological approaches to this study as well as support tools used to analyse large volumes of qualitative data.
There has been an increasing emphasis in the past decade on investigating the social and organisational factors that may underpin successful information system development and usage (Butterfield and Pendegraft, 1996; Davenport and Prusak, 1992; DeLone and McLean, 1992). Investigation of these issues necessitates a sound understanding of organisational culture, human social interactions, communication and relationships, and reflects an increasing awareness of the importance of the social aspects of socio-technical systems that people work and operate in.
This paper describes the process by which the qualitative methods in this study of knowledge processes were expanded to include quantitative methods. It focuses on how this combination of data collection methods evolved, and the ways in which it was capitalised on to provide a much more enriched set of findings than would have been the case if qualitative or quantitative methods had been used alone. The paper also focuses on pitfalls that arose in the use of the various methods, including those associated with the use of software for qualitative data, and the means by which a successful methodological blend can be achieved with research relating to knowledge and its management
Securing XML Documents
Get PDFXML (extensible markup language) is becoming the current standard for establishing interoperability on the Web. XML data are self-descriptive and syntax-extensible; this makes it very suitable for representation and exchange of semi-structured data, and allows users to define new elements for their specific applications. As a result, the number of documents incorporating this standard is continuously increasing over the Web. The processing of XML documents may require a traversal of all document structure and therefore, the cost could be very high. A strong demand for a means of efficient and effective XML processing has posed a new challenge for the database world. This paper discusses a fast and efficient indexing technique for XML documents, and introduces the XML graph numbering scheme. It can be used for indexing and securing graph structure of XML documents. This technique provides an efficient method to speed up XML data processing. Furthermore, the paper explores the classification of existing methods impact of query processing, and indexing