Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly
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Ethnographically Derived Socio-technical Analysis for Information System Support in Intensive Home Care
Get PDFDeveloping information systems and collaboration support in the field of intensive home care is faced with challenging conditions of empirical work for requirements elicitation. On the one hand, the huge variety of aspects and situation-related characteristics require a deliberate analysis and close interaction with caregivers and relatives to identify the needs and constraints of technical support. On the other hand, the relevant places are hardly accessible. To be able to visit and observe the clients in situ, consent is needed by the caregiver, the client, and the relatives living with them, and a high level of privacy and confidentiality has to be maintained. Based on an ethnographical data gathering and analysis, this article provides a comprehensive categorization that characterizes the work of caregivers in intensive home, to make the work of information system designers in this field more efficient: activities, interpersonal interaction, documentation, qualification, interaction with technology, client autonomy, history of medical records, and feedback on intensive home care. Finally, these categories are compared with related work of socio-technical design of health care information systems
Selected Topics on Enablers for Next-Generation Information Systems Development: Editorial Introduction to Issue 25 of CSIMQ
Get PDFThe 25th issue of CSIMQ presents four articles that investigate novel enablers for information systems development. Three of the selected articles focus on conceptual modeling methods, whereas the fourth one investigates the readiness of SMEs for Industry 4.0 adoption. Model-driven engineering was both tailored (on method level) and applied in two of the papers, taking a Design Science approach to develop proofs-of-concept for the notion of “technology-specific modeling”, a particular flavor of domain-specific modeling – more precisely, technology-specific modeling languages reflect the specificity of a technological ecosystem or pattern (e. g. REST APIs, MVC Web development frameworks). The third paper's contribution may also be seen as a modeling method, although it is not framed as such – it focuses on a design viewpoint and its theoretical applicability in business scenarios. This method proposes a chemistry-inspired technique for optimizing enterprise collaboration patterns based on their KPI effects. Finally, the last paper takes a systematic literature review approach to investigate Industry 4.0 adoption at SME level through the lens of a modified version of the IMPULS assessment model
Ecosystem Architecture Management in the Public Sector – From Problems to Solutions
Get PDFBased on our research concerning enterprise architecture (EA) in the Finnish public sector, we discuss how EA concept and tool need to be developed to support government business ecosystem and organization design. Our research context indicates, beyond a federal government or a state one, that even a single municipality, like a city concern, can be perceived as an ecosystem of its sectoral domains, subsidiaries and such. We outline a vision of an overall ontology-based, shared EA repository for the-whole-of-government current state descriptions and specify the central design principles and functional requirements for such a system, illustrating some potential use cases of it. Based on interview data from four smart city cases in Finland, we suggest a management model for the government ecosystem architecture target state design, specifically a design process for co-creating new services in the ecosystem. Further, we outline some principles for government ecosystem architecture management
Enterprise Architecture Oriented Requirements Engineering for the Design of a School Friendly Open Data Web Interface
Get PDFOpen Data is considered a key to scientific innovations. These freely available datasets can also be used as a foundation to enhance the digital and data literacies among the younger generation of school pupils. This article presents the design and prototype of an Open Data web interface based on the Enterprise Architecture Oriented Requirements Engineering (EAORE) approach for Open Data usage as an educational resource in Danish public schools. We first systematically review the literature on Open Data use in educational fields and selected 14 research articles with a particular focus on the use of Open Data in the educational domain after prescribing an inclusion/exclusion criteria on 101 research articles identified initially. The review indicates that there is a gap between Open Data opportunities within the educational domain and in exploring the use of Open Data as a source to develop twenty-first-century skills, specifically digital and data literacies among younger school pupils. To fill this gap, we propose an EAORE approach that represents how Enterprise Architecture (EA) models can guide the overall Requirements Engineering (RE) process for the use of Open Data in Danish public schools. Based on these EA models, we designed the prototype of an Open Data web interface for schools
Discussing Hierarchic Viewpoints Theoretical Considerations and a Practical Example
Get PDFEnterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) systems are key to managing risks threatening modern enterprises from many different angles. Key constituent to GRC systems is the definition of Controls that are implemented on the different layers of an Enterprise Architecture (EA). Controls become part of a “Concern” of the EA, which allows to use an EA viewpoint to cover Control compliance assessments. In this article we explore this relationship further, derive a metamodel linking Control and EA, and elicit how this linkage give rise to a hierarchic understanding of the viewpoint concept for EAs. We complement these considerations with an expository instantiation in a cockpit for Control compliance applied in an international enterprise in the insurance industry
A Methodology for Operationalizing Enterprise IT Architecture and Evaluating its Modifiability
Get PDFRecent contributions to information systems theory suggest that the primary role of a firm’s information technology (IT) architecture is to facilitate, and therefore ensure the continued alignment of a firm’s IT investments with a constantly changing business environment. Despite the advances we lack robust methods with which to operationalize enterprise IT architecture, in a way that allows us to analyze performance, in terms of the ability to adapt and evolve over time. We develop a methodology for analyzing enterprise IT architecture based on “Design Structure Matrices” (DSMs), which capture the coupling between all components in the architecture. Our method addresses the limitations of prior work, in that it i) captures the architecture “in-use” as opposed to high level plans or conceptual models; ii) identifies discrete layers in the architecture associated with different technologies; iii) reveals the “flow of control” within the architecture; and iv) generates measures that can be used to analyze performance. We apply our methodology to a dataset from a large pharmaceutical firm. We show that measures of coupling derived from an IT architecture DSM predict IT modifiability – defined as the cost to change software applications. Specifically, applications that are tightly coupled cost significantly more to change
Deriving Cyber Security Risks from Human and Organizational Factors – A Socio-technical Approach
Get PDFCyber security risks are socio-technical in nature. They result not just from technical vulnerabilities but also, more fundamentally, from the degradation of working practices over time – which move an organization across the boundary of secure practice to a place where attacks will not only succeed, but also have a significantly greater impact on the organization. Yet current risk analysis and management methodologies are not designed to detect these kinds of systemic risks. We present an approach, devised in the field, to deriving these risks – using a qualitative research methodology, akin to grounded theory, but based on preset coding descriptors. This allows organizational and individual behavior identified during interviews, observations or document research to be thematically analyzed, collated and mapped to potential risks, linked to poor working practices. The resulting risk factors can be linked together forming “risk narratives”, showing how the degradation of working practices in one part of the organization can contribute to undermining its ability to respond to cyber security threats in another part of the organization
Situation Analytics and Model-based User Interface Development: A Synergetic Approach for Building Runtime-Adaptive Business Applications
Get PDFSituation analytics can be used to recognize the changing behavior, emotional state, cognitive load and environmental context of a user during complex task processing. This article discusses the SitAdapt 2.0 architecture that combines a situation analytics platform with pattern- and model-based user interface construction tools in order to build runtime-adaptive interactive business applications with enhanced user experience and task-accomplishment characteristics. The article focuses on the software components and tools for observing and tracking the user, data types for modeling situations, recognizing situations, and modeling structural changes and actions for generating the dynamic adaptations. The situation recognition capabilities and adaptive functionality of the system are demonstrated for web-applications for long-distance travel booking and a beauty products web-portal
Applying Socio-technical Thinking in the Competitive, Agile, Lean, Data-Driven World of Knowledge Work and Smart, Service-Oriented, Customer-Centric Value Creation Ecosystems
Get PDFThis article responds to a need for a socio-technical systems (STS) perspective that fits in a world that has changed greatly over the decades since the socio-technical movement began. This article identifies conditions and paradoxes that limit traditional STS approaches in current business practice. A newer work system perspective (WSP) combines aspects of work system theory (WST), WST extensions, and the work system method (WSM). This WSP frames socio-technical thinking in a straightforward way that helps in describing and discussing socio-technical systems. It also provides many ideas that can help in negotiating and designing improvements. After summarizing WSP and some of its possible applications to work systems, this article uses the various topics in its title to indicate how WSP-based socio-technical thinking might be more suitable for today’s world
A Modeling Approach for Getting to Win-Win in Industrial Collaboration under Strategic Coopetition
Get PDFInterorganizational coopetition describes a relationship in which two or more organizations cooperate and compete simultaneously. Actors under coopetition cooperate to achieve collective objectives and compete to maximize their individual benefits. Such relationships are based on the logic of win-win strategies that necessitate decision-makers in coopeting organizations to develop relationships that yield favorable outcomes for each actor. We follow a strategic modeling approach that combines i* goal-modeling to explore strategic alternatives of actors with Game Tree decision-modeling to evaluate the actions and payoffs of those players. In this article, we elaborate on the method, illustrating one particular pathway towards a positive-sum outcome – through the introduction of an intermediary actor. This article demonstrates the activation of one component in this guided approach of systematically searching for alternatives to generate a new win-win strategy. We also present a meta-model for relating i* models and Game Trees. A hypothetical industrial scenario focusing on the Industrial Data Space, which is a platform that can help organizations to overcome obstacles to data sharing in a coopetitive ecosystem, is used to explain this approach