1,720,991 research outputs found
Agile Process for Integrated Service Delivery (APISD)
No full textAs companies have increasingly become dependent on IT to interact with clients, the issue of business agility has become one of IT agility. Companies look for agility in their business for flexibility and adaptation with respect to changing environments. They seek to make use of the market competencies and deliver customer-centric services to gain the competitive advantage by providing a one-stop mall where customers can experience several kinds of integrated services. With the opportunity of Integrated Service Delivery (ISD), companies can support clients in an integrated environment possibly reducing cost and time. Doing so, service providers face a number of challenges related to organizational integration, resistance towards change and being customer-centric. With a structured process, collaboration and coordination of activities in ISD can be efficient, reducing the complexities in those challenges. Research has shown adoption of Agile methodologies has reduced complexities in software development and focused on collaboration and coordination to achieve performance gain. Therefore, in this case, adopting Agile management principles will be highly beneficial in ISD. To the best of our knowledge there has not been research on how to manage the service lifecycle of ISD in a holistic view and focus on the collaboration of parties involved in the process and coordination of activities, by working in an Agile approach. Therefore, the main research question of this research is: "How can Agile management and service development principles be incorporated together for effective collaboration between parties and coordination of activities in Integrated Service Delivery?" Following a design science research methodology and case study research, this research was conducted to develop a conceptual process model, namely Agile Process for Integrated Service Delivery (APISD), which was evaluated by three cases conducted in three organizations. From the case study findings, the APISD model was enhanced. Furthermore, an illustration of APISD was given to materialize the model in practice.Information and Communication TechnologyManagement of TechnologyTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Developing a Decision Support System for Business Model Design: The case of Software-as-a-Service
No full textThis thesis outlines the process of designing a decision support system (DSS) for business model design within an organizational context. The DSS is also developed and applied to several critical design issues for a specific Software-as-a-Service provider. An empirical analysis is carried out to estimate reservation prices, which are used as an input for the DSS.Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis & ManagementSection of Information and Communication TechnologyTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Supporting convergence in groups: (re-) design and evaluation of two thinkLets for convergence and a technique for similarity detection
No full textTo solve complex problems brainstorming with a Group Support System can be a helpful tool. Social comparison and association effects are factors that stimulate the generation of creative and high quality ideas or concepts. Also, the GSS’ capabilities that allow a group to work in parallel contributes to the swiftness with which a fast growing set of ideas is generated. Groups of 10 to 15 are able to produce 100 to 150 ideas in as little as 15 minutes. The set of generated ideas however also has some limitations. Typically the set of ideas is characterized by redundancy, ambiguity, off-topic ideas and a lack of shared understanding. Extracting the key ideas from such a large set of ideas is time consuming and easily cause the facilitator and participants to suffer from cognitive overload. Extracting the key ideas is a process in which the group uses a combination of selecting and summarizing ideas and uses clarification techniques to create shared understanding. To address these challenges, groups and facilitators can benefit from methods and techniques to effectively extract the key ideas from the brainstormed list of ideas, without losing any promising ideas. Such techniques and methods are typically referred to as convergence methods. In interviews with professional facilitators we indeed found that they considered convergence to be difficult and time consuming. Also a large body of literature, mainly GSS case studies, was found that describes hurdles to convergence. These hurdles include (1) information overload at the beginning of a convergence task and (2) the cognitive effort required to complete a convergence task. Therefore the main research question of this thesis is: ‘how can convergence processes become more successful and effective?’. Based on an analysis of the current set of methods for convergence we identified four opportunities to improve the successfulness and effectiveness of a convergence process. The methods included in this study originate from the ThinkLet library, the method database of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and from a literature review. The identified opportunities are: \u95 Removing the task of detecting redundant concepts away from the facilitator to lower his/her workload. \u95 Improving the current hurdles that exist when converging in a parallel way, as is done is the FocusBuilder thinkLet among others. The current limitations of this thinkLet include: o Lack of comprehensiveness of the end result o Inability for the facilitator to monitor the process \u95 Creating a scalable and fast pre-selection method. \u95 Improving support for inexperienced facilitators to manage a convergence process in a large group. Classifying and comparing the methods found was possible by using a classification scheme based on two axes, (1) the output of a method and (2) the way of working implied by a method. By using the example of a creative problem solving workshop, in which we tried to find a match between a method for convergence and a convergence task for different scenarios, we have identified the opportunities for improvement. The differences in the scenarios were in the number of participants and facilitator skill level. In response to these opportunities we have designed three artefacts. One new thinkLet, Divide&Conquer, is developed that enables large groups to quickly make a pre selection of concepts. Secondly we designed a modifier to the FocusBuilder thinkLet. This thinkLet supports the creation of shared understanding, achieves a reduction of the concepts under consideration and removes redundant concepts from a brainstorm artefact in a scalable and fast way. Thirdly a technique for similarity detection, normally used for plagiarism detection and automatic grading of written texts, is adapted and evaluated for use to detect redundant concepts in a brainstorm or convergence artefact. The technique uses normalized vector representations of concepts based on a thesaurus to detect similar concepts. To assess the effectiveness and success of the designed artefacts the following process and result oriented metrics are used; process oriented: acceptance, satisfaction, facilitator dependence, scalability, commitment, productivity and efficiency. Result oriented: speed, redundancy, reduction, refinement, comprehensiveness, shared understanding (ambiguity), satisfaction and commitment. Evaluation in groups of the technique for similarity detection, the new Divide&Conquer thinkLet and the modified FocusBuilder thinkLet revealed that: \u95 Even with a moderate detection rate of 50% participants are able to remove redundant concepts faster than participants that did not use the artefact in which concepts were ordered according to the automatic detected redundancies. Evaluation however is limited to one case study. Further evaluation is needed to validate the results and research the use of similarity detection within the new and other thinkLets. \u95 The Divide&Conquer thinkLet can be used within groups to quickly make a pre-selection of concepts that the group deems worthy of paying further attention to. The process and results of the thinkLet were accepted by the participants of two workshops, however the process needs thorough explanation before the start to reach agreement on the process. The thinkLet achieves a pre-selection quicker than other pre-selection methods because in principal less votes than the number of participants are collected per concept. Based on the average value and standard deviation it is decided whether more votes per concept are needed. This increases speed and therefore scalability of the pre-selection process. The pre-selections made in the evaluation workshops with this thinkLet contained only on-topic items and reduced the original brainstorm artefact by 50% on average with a standard deviation of 10%. Besides explaining the process and presenting the results no facilitator efforts are required. \u95 The modified FocusBuilder thinkLet can be used on a brainstorm artefact directly or after a pre selection has been made. The thinkLet fosters the creation of shared understanding and achieves a (further) reduction in the number of concepts under consideration by removing and summarizing redundant concepts and removing off-topic concepts. The thinkLet uses sub groups of participants that work on sub sets of concepts in parallel and convergence is achieved in three or four rounds. In previous case studies the comprehensiveness of the end result was too low. We removed the first round from the thinkLet, in which the participants work alone, to limit participant bias. Evaluation revealed that the comprehensiveness of the end result increased, without changing any other values that already were positive. Because of the parallel way of working the thinkLet is fast and scalable. Facilitator interventions are needed to explain the process and to present the end result, the real convergence effort is executed by the participants, therefore facilitator dependence of this thinkLet is low. The inability for the facilitator to monitor the process also is an opportunity for improvement of this thinkLet. A design for this is described, but is not evaluated. The outcome of this project is relevant for every professional interested in efficient collaboration within his project team, business unit or organisation. But also for practitioners, facilitators and collaboration engineers, because it proposes solutions for the time consuming step of convergence in GSS supported meetings. Further effort is however needed to evaluate the performance of the two thinkLets within more workshops, but the results indicate that the field of evaluation can be extended to organizations and professionals. Further research is needed to improve the accuracy of detection of redundant concepts and to integrate the detection technique within the two thinkLets mentioned.Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis & ManagementSystems Engineering - Multi Actor SystemsTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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