636 research outputs found
The role of SDMs in preserving the organisational strategy during BPR: lessons from SA MHEIs
No full textProfessionals in system development have recognised and recommended the use of System
Development Methodologies (SDMs) in South African organisations (Huisman and Iivari 2003,
Huisman 2004). Professionals in BPR have also raised concern over the negative impact that BPR
has on the organisational strategy (Mavetera 2012, Hammer and Champy 2005). There has
therefore been a call for the use of SDMs during BPR to try and lessen the burden BPR bears on
the organisational strategy (Hammer and Champy 2005, Muthu, Whitman and Cheraghi 1999
and Giaglis 2009). This study aimed to bring to light the role of SDMs in preserving the
organisational strategy during BPR. The motivation behind this study is informed by past
research in BPR, organisational strategy and SDMs. To be able to gather more evidence that
support the ideas behind the past research and assist in establishing the purpose of the study in
practice; interviews were done with South African Merged Higher Education Institutions
(MHEIs) and literature on this topic was also used. This study was qualitative in nature and
applied unstructured interviews and literature analysis of which results found that BPR has an
effect on the organisational strategy in several ways and SDMs are either being applied or
recommended in for BPR project
Empirical investigation of systems cost estimation models in the Limpopo Province of South Africa: a requirement modelling problem
No full textThere are many factors believed to be important to systems development cost estimation. However an in-depth analysis demonstrates requirements as central cost drivers. The various transformations requirements go through from candidate requirements to released response is the most intricate part of systems development cost estimation. Requirements exist independent of systems development methodologies. Requirements may be viewed from bespoke or market driven perspectives. The former assumes a traditional economic agent theory view where a client organisation requests for a service from the systems development organisation. The later, market-driven requirements elicitation entails predicting requirements by the systems development organisation based on market research output. Irrespective of the perspective the systems development cost estimation is imperative. The study investigates adoption and usage of cost estimation models by the systems development companies in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The paper introduces a requirements transition state diagram and pinpoints informal cost estimation models as predominant. In this article we also present the results of our survey findings and the discussion of those results as well as the recommendations for further wor
The practice of applicability checks in information systems research: an empirical confirmation
No full textThe practice of applicability checks1 can be considered a relative new concept in the field of
Information Systems (IS) research. It is, however, an appropriate method to ensure the practical relevance of
research. The discipline of information systems is in essence a practical science, with research required to be
applicable in the real world. Whether research is classified as design science, where a specific artifact is
developed, or behavior science, where the human behavior regarding the use of artifacts are explored, practical
relevance continue to be elementary. Furthermore, research in general has its own challenges regarding time and
finance, requiring the effective use of resources by focusing research efforts on examining problems relevant to
practitioners. Dialogue between practitioners and researchers are regrettably limited in the field of IS research,
unlike the academic disciplines of law and medicine, where co-operation between academics and practitioners
are well established. To explore the possible usefulness of applicability checks in assuring research relevance
and to improve the co-operation between researchers and practitioners, applicability checks were carried out by
the authors. This was performed in a research project specifically focused on identifying factors that influence
the use and effectiveness of Systems Development Methodologies (SDMs) in Health Information Systems (HIS).
The area of health care can be identified as a field in critical need of affordable, effective and high quality
information systems. This need is not unique to South Africa, but general to all countries. Ensuring practical
relevance of the research performed was therefore essential. Results obtained by the use of applicability checks
in the study were favorable, with advantages including improve research relevance, better co-operation between
academics and practitioners, more exposure of researchers to practice and improve dialogue (richness) between
practitioners and academics. Applicability checks are therefore endorsed by the authors as a valid and reliable
method of assuring practical relevance. It is therefore recommended that IS researchers include applicability
checks as a standard phase of the IS research life-cycl
Investigating factors that influence the socially orientated instructional technology adoption rate in an open distance learning institution
No full textSIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, UNA LECTURA TRANSMODERNA
No full textFraming it in her own memories and from a personal prism, Magda initially approaches the figure of Beauvoir considering the author in the autobiography of her work, and dwelling on her relationships and the tandem formed with Sartre. Once the person is considered, Magda turns to the author, entering into a discussion of "The Second Sex", and critically reviewing many of the positions adopted by Beauvoir in this work. Lastly, Magda analyzes the situation of a “transmodern feminism” examining its link with movements such as Existentialism and highlighting the challenges that still remain today regarding the conceptions that shape the image of women.Enmarcándola en sus propios recuerdos y desde un prisma personal, Magda se acerca inicialmente a la figura de Beauvoir considerando a la autora en lo autobiográfico de su obra, y deteniéndose en sus relaciones y en el tándem formado con Sartre. Una vez considerada la persona, Magda se vuelve hacia la autora adentrándose en una discusión de “El Segundo Sexo”, y repasando críticamente muchos de los posicionamientos adoptados por Beauvoir en esta obra. En último lugar, Magda analiza la situación de un “feminismo transmoderno” examinando su vinculación con movimientos como el Existencialismo y subrayando los retos que hoy en día siguen pendientes en torno a las concepciones que configuran la imagen de mujer.
Abstract
Framing it in her own memories and from a personal prism, Magda initially approaches the figure of Beauvoir considering the author in the autobiography of her work, and dwelling on her relationships and the tandem formed with Sartre. Once the person is considered, Magda turns to the author, entering into a discussion of "The Second Sex", and critically reviewing many of the positions adopted by Beauvoir in this work. Lastly, Magda analyzes the situation of a “transmodern feminism” examining its link with movements such as Existentialism and highlighting the challenges that still remain today regarding the conceptions that shape the image of women
A Semantic-Enabled Framework for E-Government Systems Development
No full textThe ultimate goal of e-Governance is to reach the stage of seamless service delivery in one-stop e-Government.
This raises the engineering issues of integration, reusability, maintenance, and interoperability
of autonomous e-Government systems of government departments and agencies. Therefore, appropriate
methodologies that consistently address the aforementioned engineering issues throughout clearly defined
e-Government development phases are needed. This chapter provides the design and specification,
of a framework that amalgamates features from maturity models, software engineering and Semantic
Web domains for semantic-enabled development of e-Government systems. Firstly, the methods and
techniques used for the planning, design, and implementation of e-Government systems worldwide are
investigated; a critical analysis is carried out to identify their advantages and disadvantages, as well as
their contribution towards addressing the aforementioned engineering issues. Secondly, the proposed
framework is drawn and specified. Finally, support tools including a business process model, an alignment
matrix of stages and phases of development, and a weighting matrix of the intensity of semantic
activities at various phases of development is drawn and described
Engineering Semantic Web Services for Government Business Processes Automation
No full textWeb Services (WS) technology does not allow automatic discovery and execution of services in the current distributed and complex business environments. Semantic Web Services (SWS) overcome this limitation by adding semantic descriptions to WS, enabling automatic discovery, selection, composition and execution of services for intelligent interoperable machine-to-machine interactions over the World Wide Web (WWW). These capabilities of SWS are useful in distributed environments such as that of e-government. On the other hand, existing SWS solutions assume the existence of dedicated service providers of WS to be semantically described. However, government operations and processes may require a certain amount of prior re-engineering (conceptualization, design, modeling, specification, etc.). This study proposed an infrastructure for Semantic Web Services-enabled e-government that integrates Business Process Modelling (BPM) and Semantic Annotation into existing SWS solutions as tools for the modeling and engineering of SWS for non-automated government operations and processes. The proposed infrastructure leverages SWS technology in e-government while enabling continuous re-engineering and automation of government processes. The study presents an example of the application of the proposed infrastructure with emphasis on the modeling and semantic annotation of business processes for SWS desig
Semantic-driven E-government: a case study of formal representation of government domain ontology
No full textSemantic Web technologies are increasingly being adopted in egovernment
to describe and specify e-government services, aiming at their semantic
integration and interoperability. However, current research does not provide
guidelines on how domain ontology describing government’s domain knowledge can
be formally represented to enable their automatic processing by computers. This
paper presents a case study of transforming domain ontology in Sub Saharan Africa
and the developing world at large, into its formal version in e-government processes,
aiming at (1) providing e-government developers from developing countries as well
as Sub Saharan Africa, with simple activities for practicing semantic knowledge
representation in e-government projects, (2) promoting the development of egovernment
systems that can be easily integrated and maintained, as well as (3)
strengthening the adoption of Semantic Web technologies in e-government projects
in developing countrie
The effect of BPR on organizational strategy and the role of SDMS: a case of South Africa’s merged higher education institutions
No full textChanges in organisations due to various factors such as technological advancements or competition may bring the effect of change to certain business processes. This in turn invokes business process re-engineering (BPR) and causes a re-look and restructuring of an organisation’s strategy. The first decade of South Africa’s democracy saw extensive restructuring of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through mergers. HEIs were combined into two, three or more campuses that were previously stand alone universities to form one university. The effects of these mergers on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) side of the MHEIs saw the restructuring and redirecting of previously individual ICT infrastructures to combined and larger ones. This paper discusses mergers of South African HEIs as an application of BPR and assesses its impact on strategy. It also positions SDMs as artefacts that can assist during this process. The study was of a qualitative nature and employed the interviewing survey technique as the data gathering strateg
Adaptive search and selection of domain ontologies for reuse on the semantic web
No full textOntology plays an important role in Semantic Web
applications. However, building ontology remains challenging due
to the time, cost an effort required. Several studies have proposed
the reuse of existing ontologies when building new ones. However,
some challenges remain: (1) locating relevant domain ontologies
for reuse, (2) determining appropriate concepts for searching
targeted ontologies and (3) understanding the discovered ontologies.
This study presents an adaptive strategy for searching and
selecting domain ontologies for reuse on the Semantic Web. The
strategy relies on ontology-based and generic search engines, and
predefined ontology features to locate existing domain ontologies
and related data sources. The data sources provide ontologies’
specific concepts that enable their easy location over the Semantic
Web. Finally, a set of criteria including semantic coverage,
codification language, modularity and open availability are used
to select the best reusable set of ontologies for the domain.
The application of the framework in the e-government domain
demonstrated its feasibility and yielded promising result
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