Australian Computer Society: ACS Digital Library
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The Trichotomy of Processes: a philosophical basis for information systems
Get PDFThe principle of trichotomy from the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce can be used to categorize processes into the triad of transactional, relational, and informational. The usefulness of these categories is explicated by a comparison with structuration theory and control theory, and elaborated with a consideration of democracy in a knowledge economy. These three example applications of the process triad show the generality of the conceptual categories and provide a natural way of bringing ideas from social and ethical theories into information systems design. Modeling the world and understanding business applications through the use of the Trichotomy of Processes should facilitate the development of more valuable information systems
Information Systems Development as a Research Method
Get PDFThis paper takes the stance that some cases of information systems development can be considered knowledge creating activities, and, in those cases, information systems development can be a legitimate research method. In these cases not only is knowledge created about the development process itself but also a deeper understanding emerges about the organisational problem that the system is designed to solve. The paper begins with a brief overview of research in the design sciences and a comparison of research methods that are concerned with the design, and use, of information systems. This is followed by an assessment of the way systems development as a research method deals with the scientific research processes of data collection, analysis, synthesis and display. A case study, where the systems development research method was use, is described to illustrate the method and give the reader a better understanding of the approach
E-Commerce Experiences in the Real Estate Industry: a preliminary study in regional Queensland
Get PDFComputer systems have become commonplace in most SMEs and technology is increasingly becoming a part of doing business. In recent years, the Internet has become readily available to businesses; consequently there has been growing pressure on SMEs to take up e-commerce. However, e-commerce is perceived by many as being unproven in terms of business benefit. This research aims to determine what, if any, benefits are derived from assimilating e-commerce technologies into SME business processes. This paper presents three in-depth case studies from the Real Estate industry in a regional setting. Overall, findings were positive and identified the following experiences: enhanced business efficiencies, cost benefits, improved customer interactions and increased business return on investment
Market Makers' Recognition of Key Success Factors in Electronic Marketplaces
Get PDFThis study examines the recognition and use of critical success factors by market makers in electronic marketplaces. A content analysis of e-marketplace websites enabled an examination of how these factors have been incorporated into marketplace sites. Evidence of market makers’ awareness of the success factors was found in all the sites although there remain questions and issues to be addressed. Awareness of the need for critical mass and privacy were very evident, but the key factors of security, technological infrastructure and neutrality were identified as areas of concern. Evidence of an awareness of the importance of trust by market makers was found, but more effective signalling of trust to buyers and sellers within the marketplaces is required
Vernacularism in Software Design Practice: does craftsmanship have a place in software engineering?
Get PDFConvention dictates that an information discipline matures from an informal shared practice to a defined and repeatable process through the externalisation and formal expression of its underlying theory. The inevitability of this progression should not be allowed to over-shadow the essential values, skills and knowledge transfer mechanisms of the superseded vernacular or craft-like practices. This paper examines the tension between software engineering’s professionalisation of the software design role—exemplified by the software architect—and its antithesis, the software craftsperson, a characterisation that continues to emerge despite attempts to suppress reliance on individual skills and abilities through software engineering process. In other design disciplines, the professionalisation of design marks a distinct progression from ad hoc, unrepeatable, unselfconscious craft to a self-conscious, demarcated type of design found in most forms of engineering. Software engineering has partially failed to make this transition and this failure undermines the exclusivity of the engineering metaphor and engineering-based process models as a model of practical software design. Software methods must acknowledge and find ways of incorporating vernacularism and informality if the creative act of design is to be correctly characterised, supported in methods, and taught
Continuous Integration and Quality Assurance: a case study of two open source projects
Get PDFA decentralized variant of continuous integration can be defined in terms of two fundamental rules: (1) Developers’ access to add contributions to the development version at any time, and (2) developers’ obligation to integrate their own contributions properly. Decentralized, continuous integration may adapt well to organizations where developers work relatively independently, as in many open source projects. The approach raises the issue of how these organizations can exercise central control, as attaining the benefits of continuous integration requires that contributions are useful and satisfy the project’s definition of successful integration. We have investigated the use of continuous integration in FreeBSD and Mozilla. Our account of quality assurance activities in the two open source projects distinguishes between Mintzberg’s three complementary forms of central control: Standardization and control of work output, work processes, and worker skills. Our study indicates that two major challenges face projects using decentralized, continuous integration: (1) To balance the access to add contributions against the need to stabilize and mature the software prior to a release, and (2) to consider the developers’ limited time and resources when interpreting their obligation to integrate their changes properly
Information Systems Development Contracts: an exploratory study of Australian legal practitioners' and Information Systems professionals' perceptions
Get PDFIS professionals are primarily concerned with the development of a project to meet the goals of a client. Unfortunately, IS professional do not always pay close attention to the contract or to its management and are often unaware of the legal implications of the contracts to which they are assenting. Legal advice can be sought during pre-contractual processes to help ensure that the contract meets the expectations of all the parties. If the project does not meet stakeholder’s expectations, thus causing a contract to come into dispute, lawyers may be called in to review the contract and to seek a settlement. This paper reports an exploratory study of the differences in perceptions of IS development contracts that exist between IS professionals and legal practitioners
Software Engineering Practices and Tool Support: an exploratory study in New Zealand
Get PDFThis study was designed as a preliminary investigation of the practices of software engineers within New Zealand, including their use of development tools. The project involved a review of relevant literature on software engineering and CASE tools, the development and testing of an interview protocol, and structured interviews with five software engineers. This paper describes the project, presents the findings, examines the results in the context of the literature and outlines on-going funded work involving a larger survey
Supporting Topic Map Creation Using Data Mining Techniques
Get PDFThere is an increasing interest in automating creation of semantic structures, especially topic maps, by taking advantage of existing, structured information resources. This article gives a preview of the most popular method – based on RDF triples, and suggests a way to automate topic map creation from unstructured information sources. The method can be applied in information systems development domain when analysing vast unstructured data repositories in preparation for system design, or when migrating large amounts of unstructured data from legacy systems. There are two innovative methods presented in the paper – Term Crawling (TC) and Clustering Hierarchy Projection (CHP), which are applied to build a topic map based on free text documents from local repositories and those downloaded from the Internet. The methods originate from data mining techniques for knowledge discovery. A sample tool, which uses described techniques, has been implemented. The preliminary results that have been achieved on the test collection are presented in concluding sections of the article