bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Using Open Source to Building and Accessing Learning Objects and Online Courses
Authors: Bouras Christos , Nani Maria
Published: May 2011

As e-learning continuously gains the interest of the scientific community, industry, and government, a wide variety of learning technology products have been incorporated into the marketplace. Advances in information and communication technologies are in favor of the incorporation of innovative services and functionalities in such systems, though content creation and delivery remain the two key factors in any e-learning system. Therefore, in this chapter, we present the design and implementation of a tool targeted at building and accessing learning objects and online courses through the Web. This tool aims to facilitate instructors and trainers to easily develop accessible, reusable, and traceable learning content that can meet their distant students’ needs for anytime and anyplace learning. Learners are able to access learning content, in addition to consulting, at any time, reports on their interactions within a course and get support by subject experts. Furthermore, all users can request to upgrade their role in the system and, thus, actively participate in the learning process. Special attention has been paid on the utilization of reliable and qualitative open source technologies and Web standards so that the proposed solution can form an easily accessible system.
A Literature Overview of Fuzzy Database Modeling
Authors: Ma Z. M.
Published: May 2011

Fuzzy set theory has been extensively applied to extend various data models and resulted in numerous contributions, mainly with respect to the popular relational model or to some related form of it. To satisfy the need of modeling complex objects with imprecision and uncertainty, recently many researches have been concentrated on fuzzy semantic (conceptual) and object-oriented data models. This chapter reviews fuzzy database modeling technologies, including fuzzy conceptual data models and database models. Concerning fuzzy database models, fuzzy relational databases, fuzzy nested relational databases, and fuzzy object-oriented databases are discussed, respectively.
SMEs and Electronic Commerce
Authors: MacGregor Robert , Vrazalic Lejla
Published: May 2011

The key aim of the study presented in this book is to determine how SMEs located in regional areas are going about e-commerce adoption. The study was undertaken over a period of three years in three highly developed nations all belonging to the OECD and with comparable per capita GDPs and levels of Internet penetration. These included Sweden, Australia, and the USA. In each country, one regional area was surveyed—Varmland (Sweden), Illawarra (Australia), and Salt Lake City (USA).
General Research Methodology and Procedures
Authors: MacGregor Robert , Vrazalic Lejla
Published: May 2011

The key aim of the study presented in this book is to determine how SMEs located in regional areas are going about e-commerce adoption. The study was undertaken over a period of three years in three highly developed nations all belonging to the OECD and with comparable per capita GDPs and levels of Internet penetration. These included Sweden, Australia, and the USA. In each country, one regional area was surveyed—Varmland (Sweden), Illawarra (Australia), and Salt Lake City (USA).
Indusrty Clusters in Peripheral Regions
Authors: Rosson Philip , McLarney Carolan
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines a nascent biotechnology cluster in a city that lies outside Canada’s industrial heartland. The purpose of the study was to focus attention on the nature of cluster development in peripheral regions. The research findings reveal that many support services are provided to Halifax-based biotechnology companies and made use of by companies. However, barriers to development still exist, and support organizations and companies are not certain that a cluster truly exists in Halifax at this time. What results is a case study of a cluster at an early stage in its development cycle and in a peripheral region. The authors encourage other researchers to examine cluster development outside of major industrial centers.
Regional Clusters
Authors: McRae-Williams Pamela
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the application of cluster theory to small groups of collocated wine and tourism enterprises. It explores how traditional notions of cluster theory apply in the microcontext and whether such interpretations can be used as a valid tool for understanding how collocated regional businesses interact. The chapter describes three case studies of regional wine- and tourism-related businesses to illustrate how these microclusters might be identified and to determine the significance of interrelationships within and between collocated clusters. Such findings provide evidence of the strength or otherwise of these clusters. The chapter suggests that at the microscale, collocated clusters share some complementarity or overlap with each other through geography, resources, and levels of activity, which may be a factor that propels these clusters forward or sparks new cluster development.
From Networks to Clusters and Back Again
Authors: Perry Martin
Published: May 2011

Since the mid-1990s, trade promotion and regional development policy in New Zealand has aimed to promote business growth by encouraging various forms of interfirm cooperation. This chapter reviews the case for public policy intervention in cluster formation and highlights policy insight, drawing on the author’s evaluations of the ways that New Zealand policymakers have sought to encourage business cooperation through networks, alliances, and clusters. The chapter makes a case for cluster intervention but cautions against too much optimism in the contribution that clusters can make to business development. By explaining the particular influences behind successful projects in New Zealand, it is hoped that researchers and policymakers can obtain a better understanding of the conditions needed for effective cluster-based cooperation.
Fostering Creativity in Global Virtual Teams
Authors: Oertig Margaret
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents insights from conversations with global team leaders on how to foster creativity in global virtual project teams in the field of product development. It shows how the leaders pay attention to team formation and managing the group dynamics in order to create a climate in which creativity will flourish. They then harness creativity by balancing the roles of motivating their team members in order to encourage fresh thinking and “putting on the brakes” where necessary in order to create something both new and viable. In particular, risk-averse team members are encouraged to be matter-of-fact about risk, making risk evaluation an intrinsic part of idea generation.
Enhancing Flexibility in Dispersed Product Development Teams
Authors: Smith Preston G.
Published: May 2011

Highly creative product development teams are exploring the unknown. Initial plans are likely to change as they understand better how the customer will use the product they are developing, as competitive products appear, and as new technologies evolve. Thus, a creative team must remain open to change as its plans shift. If the team is dispersed (virtual), the complications of dealing with changes in plans magnify. This chapter provides tools and approaches for being flexible to such changes as creative teams proceed. These include ways of lowering the cost of change, anticipating change, isolating change, and maintaining options as late as possible. Such tools and approaches will help teams working on highly creative projects to take advantage of their creativity, even when they are dispersed over time and distance.
Digital Watermarking Techniques for Audio and Speech Signals
Authors: Gurijala Aparna , Deller Jr. John R.
Published: May 2011

The main objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of existing speech and audio watermarking technology and to demonstrate the importance of signal processing for the design and evaluation of watermarking algorithms. This chapter describes the factors to be considered while designing speech and audio watermarking algorithms, including the choice of the domain and signal features for watermarking, watermarked signal fidelity, watermark robustness, data payload, security, and watermarking applications. The chapter presents several state-of-the-art speech and audio watermarking algorithms and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. The various applications of watermarking and developments in performance evaluation of watermarking algorithms are also described.
Audio and Speech Watermarking and Quality Evaluation
Authors: Tu Ronghui , Zhao Jiying
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we will introduce digital watermarking systems and quality evaluation algorithms for audio and speech signals. Originally designed for copyright protection, digital watermarking is a technique that embeds some data to the host signal to show the copyright information. The embedded data, or the watermark, cannot be eliminated from the host signal with normal use or even after some attacks. In the first part of this chapter, we introduce a generic framework of digital watermarking systems. Several properties and application of the watermarking systems are then described. Focused on audio and speech signals, we divide the watermarking algorithms into robust and fragile ones. Different concerns and techniques are described for each category. In the second part of this chapter, a novel watermarking algorithm for audio and speech quality evaluation is introduced together with some conventional quality evaluation standards.
What is Different about Web and Software Projects?
Authors: Mendes Emilia
Published: May 2011

The objective of this chapter is threefold. First is to introduce new terminology that relates specifically to hypertext, the model the Web is based upon. Second, it provides an overview of differences between Web and software development with respect to their development processes, technologies, quality factors, and measures. Third, it discusses the differences between Web effort estimation and software effort estimation.
How Accurate is an Effort Model?
Authors: Mendes Emilia
Published: May 2011

Building effort models or using techniques to obtain a measure of estimated effort does not mean that the effort estimates obtained will be accurate. As such, it is also important and necessary to assess the estimation accuracy of the effort models or techniques under scrutiny. For this, we need to employ a process called cross-validation. Cross-validation means that part of the original data set is used to build an effort model, or is used by an effort estimation technique, leaving the remainder of the data set (data not used in the model-building process) to be used to validate the model or technique. In addition, in parallel with conducting cross-validation, prediction accuracy measures are also obtained. Examples of de facto accuracy measures are the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE), the median magnitude of relative error (MdMRE), and prediction at 25% (Pred[25]).
Web Effort Estimation Using Case-Based Reasoning
Authors: Mendes Emilia
Published: May 2011

Software practitioners recognise the importance of realistic effort estimates to the successful management of software projects, the Web being no exception. Having realistic estimates at an early stage in a project’s life cycle allow project managers and development organisations to manage resources effectively. Several techniques have been proposed to date to help organisations estimate effort for new projects. One of these is a machine-learning technique called case-based reasoning. This chapter presents a case study that details step by step, using real data from completed industrial Web projects, how to obtain effort estimates using case-based reasoning, and how to assess the prediction accuracy of this technique. The reason to describe the use of case-based reasoning for effort estimation is motivated by its previous use with promising results in Web effort estimation studies.
Secure Multiparty/Multicandidate Electronic Elections
Authors: Dimitriou Tassos , Foteinakis Dimitris
Published: May 2011

In this chapter we present a methodology for proving in Zero Knowledge the validity of selecting a subset of a set belonging to predefined family of sets. We apply this methodology in electronic voting to provide for extended ballot options. Our proposed voting scheme supports multiple parties and the selection of a number of candidates from one and only one of these parties. We have implemented this system and provided measures of its computational and communication complexity. We show that the complexity is linear with respect to the total number of candidates and the number of parties participating in the election.
A Novel Discriminative Naive Bayesian Network for Classification
Authors: Huang Kaizhu , Xu Zenglin , King Irwin , Lyu Michael R. , Zhou Zhangbing
Published: May 2011

Naive Bayesian network (NB) is a simple yet powerful Bayesian network. Even with a strong independency assumption among the features, it demonstrates competitive performance against other state-of-the-art classifiers, such as support vector machines (SVM). In this chapter, we propose a novel discriminative training approach originated from SVM for deriving the parameters of NB. This new model, called discriminative naive Bayesian network (DNB), combines both merits of discriminative methods (e.g., SVM) and Bayesian networks. We provide theoretic justifications, outline the algorithm, and perform a series of experiments on benchmark real-world datasets to demonstrate our model’s advantages. Its performance outperforms NB in classification tasks and outperforms SVM in handling missing information tasks.
Applications of Bayesian Networks in Reliability Analysis
Authors: Langseth Helge , Portinale Luigi
Published: May 2011

Over the last decade, Bayesian networks (BNs) have become a popular tool for modeling many kinds of statistical problems. In this chapter we will discuss the properties of the modeling framework that make BNs particularly well suited for reliability applications. This discussion is closely linked to the analysis of a real-world example.
Application of Bayesian Modeling to Management Information Systems
Authors: Gupta Sumeet , Kim Hee-Wong
Published: May 2011

This chapter deals with the application of Bayesian modeling as a management decision support tool for management information systems (MIS) managers. MIS managers have to deal with problems which require prediction and diagnosis for decision making. Lacking a proper tool for making informed decisions, MIS managers feel hard-pressed for a scenario analysis which can take into account the proper causal relationships existing in the real world. Bayesian modeling could be an appropriate support tool for such decision making. However, its application to decision support in MIS is different from application to other fields, as the variables in field of MIS are hypothetical. This brings in a need for Bayesian modeling at a hypothetical variable level rather than at the observed variable level. In this chapter we will study how Bayesian modeling can be used as a tool for managerial decision support in MIS. The conclusions of this chapter can also be extended to other social science researches where the variables are hypothetical in nature.
Optical Music Imaging
Authors: Jones Graham , Ong Bee , Bruno Ivan , NG Kia
Published: May 2011

This paper presents the applications and practices in the domain of music imaging for musical scores (music sheets and music manuscripts), which include music sheet digitisation, optical music recognition (OMR) and optical music restoration. With a general background of Optical Music Recognition (OMR), the paper discusses typical obstacles in this domain and reports currently available commercial OMR software. It reports hardware and software related to music imaging, discussed the SharpEye optical music recognition system and provides an evaluation of a number of OMR systems. Besides the main focus on the transformation from images of music scores to symbolic format, this paper also discusses optical music image restoration and the application of music imaging techniques for graphical preservation and potential applications for cross-media integration.
Organizational Assimilation of E-Procurement
Authors: Vaidya Kishor
Published: May 2011

The focus of the majority of research on e-procurement has been on the possible impact of e-procurement adoption on the buyer’s interaction with the suppliers, whereas very little has been discussed about e-procurement assimilation. This chapter looks beyond the decision of adoption of the technology, investigating the environmental conditions that may influence the successful assimilation of e-procurement in the public sector organizations. Using institutional theory and building on prior research on the theories of technology assimilation, this chapter investigates the institutional factors that enable higher levels of e-procurement assimilation in the public sector and also argues that the e-procurement benefits greatly depend on the operational and strategic organizational assimilation of e-procurement with different levels of success. This chapter also discusses the need to integrate other theories such as diffusion of innovation theory, transactional cost theory, and structurational theory of technology use, and proposes a holistic research model in order to investigate the antecedent conditions that are likely to influence the assimilation of public e-procurement.
E-Procurement Success Factors
Authors: Podlogar Mateja
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces e-procurement as a strategic tool for organizations’ competitive position in the new information economy. It argues that that eprocurement is significantly changing the ways businesses operate and thus new business models are needed. E-procurement success factors that have to be considered are: cost factors, time factors, process simplification factors and the volume of e-transactions factors. By gaining understanding of the most important e-procurement factors, organizations have to organize themselves in a way that ensures success. Furthermore, author hopes that with knowing such factors, organizations will be able to better prepare for e-procurement and thus operate successfully and thus be able to compete in the global market.
A Service-Oriented Agent-Based Model for Electronic Procurement
Authors: Patra Manas Ranjan
Published: May 2011

Globalization has evoked rethinking in organizing the business processes of many enterprises in order to keep pace with the competition and dynamic nature of the market. There has been continuing research for suitable paradigms and technologies that can facilitate efficient and yet less expensive solutions, a feature that is so important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Towards this end, the chapter presents a service-oriented framework that is based on the notion of Internet-accessible services to represent applications and to integrate business processes. This model propounds a metadata- driven approach to dynamically publish, discover, and select services in heterogeneous settings while engaging in business transactions such as e-procurement across organizational boundaries. The concept of software agents is also employed as a means to automate the activities relating to a procurement cycle. The central theme of this chapter is to motivate the adoption of a service-oriented agent-based framework which can provide an effective and efficient solution to e-procurement.
3G Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
Authors: Katsianis D. , Rokkas T. , Varoutas D. , Sphicopoulos T. , Harno Jarmo , Welling Ilary
Published: May 2011

Digital convergence brings new players in the telecom market and the Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) are an alternative way for companies to enter the 3G telecom market and start offering services. This chapter aims to contribute to the assessment of the market conditions, architectures and potential for profitable business cases of MVNOs aiming to operate in the mature and competitive markets. The results and conclusions provide guidelines for the wide audience of mobile market players and media companies, spanning telecom operators to regulators and academia. In the following, the necessary background information is presented, quantitative figures such as Net Present Value, pay-back period, investment cost, revenues and running cost for different MVNO business cases are estimated and compared. The MVNO’s impacts on a MNO operator and the effects of MVNO collaboration with a WLAN operator are analyzed with the same method and figures.
Issues in Internet Governance
Authors: Zhong O. , Flamm K. , Chaudhuri A.
Published: May 2011

“Internet Governance,” not to be confused with “e-government,” refers to the complex interaction of hardware (root-servers), software and public and private entities through which content is made available over the World Wide Web. The largely libertarian origins of Internet management, which helped it spread in a decentralized fashion, are under increasing pressure from various interest groups. The outcome of this tussle, and the future structure of Internet governance, will have significant geopolitical repercussions, especially in the context of the continuing tendency of digital convergence.
Discovering Spatio-Textual Association Rules in Document Images
Authors: Malerba Donato , Berardi Margherita , Ceci Michelangelo
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces a data mining method for the discovery of association rules from images of scanned paper documents. It argues that a document image is a multi-modal unit of analysis whose semantics is deduced from a combination of both the textual content and the layout structure and the logical structure. Therefore, it proposes a method where both the spatial information derived from a complex document image analysis process (layout analysis), and the information extracted from the logical structure of the document (document image classification and understanding) and the textual information extracted by means of an OCR, are simultaneously considered to generate interesting patterns. The proposed method is based on an inductive logic programming approach, which is argued to be the most appropriate to analyze data available in more than one modality. It contributes to show a possible evolution of the unimodal knowledge discovery scheme, according to which different types of data describing the units of analysis are dealt with through the application of some preprocessing technique that transform them into a single double entry tabular data.
A Generation of Moderators from Single Product to Global E-Supply
Authors: Harding Jennifer Anne , Popplewell Keith , Lin Hsiao-Kang
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the concepts and history of moderator research, covering the long journey from the first engineering moderator to recent proposals for an e-supply chains moderator. The main function of a moderator is to support a design group or team by raising individual members’ awareness of the needs and experiences of other team members. Moderators are specialist intelligent software systems which support each individual to perform his particular role from a position of strength, using his preferred methods of working while still understanding the needs of other individuals and the total team. This research addresses demanding and complex business requirements by exploiting the increasingly powerful technologies and infrastructures available for business integration.
Secure Trust Transfer Using Chain Signatures
Authors: Saxena Amitabh , Soh Ben
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we discuss the concept of “trust transfer” using chain signatures. Informally, transferring trust involves creating a trust (or liability) relationship between two entities such that both parties are liable in the event of a dispute. If such a relationship involves more than two users, we say they are connected in a chained trust relationship. The members of a chained trust relationship are simultaneously bound to an agreement with the property that additional members can be added to the chain but once added, members cannot be removed thereafter. This allows members to be incrementally and noninteractively added to the chain. We coin the term “chained signatures” to denote signatures created in this incremental way. An important application of chained signatures is in e-commerce transactions involving many users. We present a practical construction of such a scheme that is secure under the Diffie- Hellman assumption in bilinear groups.
Westchester County Case Study
Authors: Jacknis Norman , Fernqvist Scott Erik
Published: May 2011

Prior to 1998, Westchester County (New York) outsourced vital IT functions, lacked a signi?cant Web presence, and relied on outdated and inconsistent technology which played a peripheral role in government operations. Its economic growth was stagnating in a changing economy. This changed with the arrival of a new County Executive, Andrew J. Spano, and the county’s ?rst Chief Information Of?cer, Norman Jacknis. Now, the new Department of Information Technology, with a more modern technology foundation and approach, plays a central role in both government operations and the county government’s vision of how it can serve Westchester’s residents.
Mobile Workforce Management in a Service-Oriented Enterprise
Authors: Chiu Dickson K.W. , Cheung S.C. , Leung Ho-fung
Published: May 2011

In a service-oriented enterprise, the professional workforce such as salespersons and support staff tends to be mobile with the recent advances in mobile technologies. There are increasing demands for the support of mobile workforce management (MWM) across multiple platforms in order to integrate the disparate business functions of the mobile professional workforce and management with a unified infrastructure, together with the provision of personalized assistance and automation. Typically, MWM involves tight collaboration, negotiation, and sophisticated business-domain knowledge, and thus can be facilitated with the use of intelligent software agents. As mobile devices become more powerful, intelligent software agents can now be deployed on these devices and hence are also subject to mobility. Therefore, a multiagent information-system (MAIS) infrastructure provides a suitable paradigm to capture the concepts and requirements of an MWM as well as a phased development and deployment. In this book chapter, we illustrate our approach with a case study at a large telecommunication enterprise. We show how to formulate a scalable, flexible, and intelligent MAIS with agent clusters. Each agent cluster comprises several types of agents to achieve the goal of each phase of the workforce-management process, namely, task formulation, matchmaking, brokering, commuting, and service.
Service Computing for Design and Reconfiguration of Intgrated E-Supply Chains
Authors: Dotoli Mariagrazia , Fanti Maria Pia , Meloni Carlo , Zhou Mengchu
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes a three-level decision-support system (DSS) for integrated e-supply-chains (IESCs) network design and reconfiguration based on data and information that can be obtained via Internet- and Web-based computing tools. The IESC is described as a set of consecutive stages connected by communication and transportation links, and the design and reconfiguration aim of the DSS consists of selecting the partners of the stages on the basis of transportation connections and information flows. More precisely, the first DSS level evaluates the performance of all the IESC candidates and singles out the best ones. The second DSS level solves a multicriteria integer linear optimization problem to configure the network. Finally, the third DSS level is devoted to evaluating and validating the solution proposed in the first two modules. The chapter proposes the use of some optimization techniques to synthesize the first two levels and illustrates the decision process by way of a case study.
Extreme Architecture Framework
Authors: Robinson P. , Gout F.
Published: May 2011

As consultant-educators, the authors created the extreme architecture framework (XAF) in order to quickly grasp an understanding of an organisation’s architecture from different perspectives. The framework is presented as a matrix of system types and architectural perspectives that is described by a single uncluttered diagram. Elements within the framework are defined along with the content that can include architectural representations, planning, and governance information. A discussion follows to show the relationship of the framework to planning, development, and governance activities. The minimalist framework presents a consolidated view of both human activity and software systems and can also help to foster a shared understanding between IT groups and business areas. It has been designed to answer a manager’s questions: • Which elements of the enterprise do I need to be aware of and understand; and • Which elements am I responsible for and need to manage?
Architecture-Driven Business Transformation
Authors: Lawrence C.
Published: May 2011

Enterprise architecture (EA) has primarily a business focus, but it involves the kind of systems thinking typically associated with information technology (IT). Any one of its component architectures could theoretically drive a business transformation. The example of process architecture is chosen because of its implications for other architectural domains; because of the link between customer-centricity and process-centricity; and because inherited attitudes to process desperately need overhaul. An imagined diagnostic in a financial services company provides context. The diagnostic recommends a holistic alternative to current approaches to process. It articulates an explicit logical meta-model from which it draws out a number of key concepts implementable as generic physical constructs. The resulting process architecture can drive radical business transformation given the right program management, governance, and, above all, sponsorship.
Semantic Web Services and BPEL
Authors: Rabaey Marc , Tromp Herman , Vandenborre Koenraad , Vandijck Eddy , Timmerman Martin
Published: May 2011

An emerging technology like business process execution language (BPEL) and its implementation in BPEL for Web services (BPEL4WS) gives extra possibilities in describing business processes. It further adheres, as a technology, in a consistent way to the underlying Web service-based implementation technology and is a perfect fit for service-oriented architectures (SOA) as they are currently implemented throughout organizations as a successor to enterprise application integration (EAI). However, BPEL4WS, in its current implementation, will only serve in a static way for production workflows. In this chapter we discuss how Semantic Web services through a semantic service-oriented architecture (SSOA) can be used to extend BPEL4WS to create ad hoc and collaborative workflows.
Application of Semantic Web Based on the Domain-Specific Ontology for Global KM
Authors: Joo Jaehun , Lee Sang , Jeong Yongil
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces an application of the Semantic Web based on ontology to the tourism business. Tourism business is one promising area for Semantic Web applications. To realize the potential of the Semantic Web, we need to find a killer application of the Semantic Web in the knowledge management (KM) area. The ontology as a key enabler is deigned and implemented under a framework of the Semantic-Web-driven KM system in a tourism domain. Finally, we discussed the relationship between the Semantic Web and KM processes.
Development of an Ontology to Improve Supply Chain Management (SCM) in the Australian Timber Industry
Authors: Blake Jaqueline , Pease Wayne
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes an ontology using Web ontology language (OWL) for the Australian timber sector that can be used in conjunction with Semantic Web services to provide effective and cheap business-to-business (B2B) communications. From the perspective of the timber industry sector, this study is important because supply chain efficiency is a key component in an organisation’s strategy to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Strong improvement in supply chain performance is possible with improved B2B communication, which is used both for building trust and providing real-time marketing data. Traditional methods such as electronic data interchange (EDI), which are used to facilitate B2B communication, have a number of disadvantages such as high implementation and running costs and a rigid and inflexible messaging standard. Information and communications technologies (ICT) have supported the emergence of Web-based EDI which maintains the advantages of the traditional paradigm while negating the disadvantages. This has been further extended by the advent of the Semantic Web which rests on the fundamental idea that Web resources should be annotated with semantic markup that captures information about their meaning and facilitates meaningful machine-to-machine communication.
Planning for Information Systems Outsourcing
Authors: Agrawal Vijay K. , Carpenter Donald A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents an overview of the pertinent aspects of planning for the outsourcing of information systems projects. The first major section of the chapter presents a historical perspective on the evolution of information systems outsourcing practices so the reader can understand subsequent sections of the chapter in context. The next major portion of the chapter deals with the need to examine goals, strategies, core competencies, and critical success factors as well as presenting all the functional areas of information systems that are candidates to be outsourced. Also included are discussions of the need to perform cost/benefits analysis and to consider cultural and other factors. The concluding section deals with all the factors that should be examined in preparing and administering outsourcing contracts.
Outsourcing of Services by Service Firms
Authors: Kotabe Masaaki , Murray Janet Y. , Chandra Maneesh
Published: May 2011

The traditional “make-or-buy” decision has been widely studied in the context of the theory of the firm and vertical integration. One of the most popular frameworks for examining this strategic decision has been the transaction cost analysis (TCA) framework. However, much of past research has focused on the make-or-buy decisions of product manufacturing activities, to the neglect of services. The make-or-buy decisions of services and service activities, due to their inherent characteristics (i.e., intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability) and the unique nature of their “production” and “delivery,” necessitate modifying and revamping the existing framework. The authors develop and empirically test a conceptual framework that examines factors influencing a firm’s decision to use outsourcing or in-house sourcing for a service (service activity).
Outsourcing and Information Systems Development
Authors: Kendall Julie E. , Kendall Kenneth E.
Published: May 2011

Many firms outsource creation of program code for management information systems, but not all experiences are successful. Although some researchers and practitioners are quick to blame failures on differing country cultures, this does not appear to be the reason. Rather it is the compatibility or differences in corporate cultures between the client company and the outsourcing partner that may help or hinder the development of quality systems. In this chapter we examine the metaphors found in the language of client corporations and outsourcing partners and explain how to look for compatibility when designing various types of information systems including traditional MIS, decision support systems, expert systems and AI, executive information systems, cooperative systems, and competitive systems. We explain how the development of certain types of systems can benefit from situations where more positive metaphors exist and offer some guidelines for the MIS practitioner, thereby minimizing risk and increasing the likelihood of a more successful client company-outsourcing partner relationship.
The Application of Real Options to the R & D Outsourcing Decision
Authors: Cao Qing , Ford David N. , Leggio Karyl B.
Published: May 2011

This chapter is a companion chapter to Chapter XVI, Real Option Appraisal in R&D Outsourcing. We provide two real-world case studies of the application of real options to answer the question: “How do practicing planners and managers use and value flexibility in development projects?” The first case study we develop is based on the outsourcing decision-making process, more specifically, a two-stage vendor selection approach (applying real options theory) to adopting a supply chain management (SCM) system in a Shanghai-based transportation company — Chic Logistics. In the second case study, we use the example of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to illustrate how decision-makers identify uncertainty and value flexibility in project analysis, and by deliberate decision, increase their options and thereby project value.
Model-Based Simulation to Examine Command and Control Issues with Remotely Operated Vehicles
Authors: Prabhala Sasanka , Ganapathy Subhashini , Narayanan S. , Gallimore Jennie J. , Hill Raymond R.
Published: May 2011

With increased interest in the overall employment of pilotless vehicles functioning in the ground, air, and marine domains for both defense and commercial applications, the need for high-fidelity simulation models for testing and validating the operational concepts associated with these systems is very high. This chapter presents a model-based approach that we adopted for investigating the critical issues in the command and control of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) through an interactive model-based architecture. The domain of ROVs is highly dynamic and complex in nature. Hence, a proper understanding of the simulation tools, underlying system algorithms, and user needs is critical to realize advanced simulation system concepts. Our resulting simulation architecture integrates proven design concepts such as the model-view-controller paradigm, distributed computing, Web-based simulations, cognitive model-based high-fidelity interfaces and object-based modeling methods.
Creating Class Diagrams
Authors: Shoval Peretz
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses considerations and rules for identifying classes, attributes, relationships, and functions; and presents case study examples (problems), that is, descriptions of users’ data requirements; along with their class diagram solutions.
Measuring the Efficiency of Free and Open Source Software Projects Using Data Envelopment Analysis
Authors: Koch Stefan
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we propose for the first time a method to compare the efficiency of free and open source projects, based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology. DEA offers several advantages in this context, as it is a non-parametric optimization method without any need for the user to define any relations between different factors or a production function, can account for economies or diseconomies of scale, and is able to deal with multi-input, multi-output systems in which the factors have different scales. Using a data set of 43 large F/OS projects retrieved from SourceForge.net, we demonstrate the application of DEA, and show that DEA indeed is usable for comparing the efficiency of projects. We will also show additional analyses based on the results, exploring whether the inequality in work distribution within the projects, the licensing scheme or the intended audience have an effect on their efficiency. As this is a first attempt at using this method for F/OS projects, several future research directions are possible. These include additional work on determining input and output factors, comparisons within application areas, and comparison to commercial or mixed-mode development projects.
The Rise and Fall of an Open Source Project
Authors: Morrison Graham
Published: May 2011

The majority of open source projects fail. This chapter presents one such project as a case study, written from the perspective of the sole developer. It charts the various stages of development, from initial motivation and enthusiasm through the later stages of apathy and decline. It deals with many of the problems encountered by a sole developer, and the various approaches undertaken to maintain development momentum. This chapter provides anecdotal evidence as opposed to statistical analysis, giving an individual’s perspective on the development life cycle of an open source project, illustrating real world barriers to development and the typical issues that can stall a project.
Web Site Analysis Across Cultures
Authors: Thatcher Barry
Published: May 2011

The countries and cultures of the world are becoming much more interdependent. At the same time, the development and use of the World Wide Web has dramatically increased cross-cultural contact in many areas. This growth in cross-cultural contact must be influencing the rhetorical and cultural patterns at the local, national, and international level. Researchers, however, simply do not know how and what is happening in such exchanges. This chapter presents a theoretical approach to Web site design, cultural values, and rhetorical traditions. The chapter then describes the methods of researchers who examined the Web site designs in nine cultures, and finally discusses the results of comparing Web site designs to local cultural and rhetorical traditions.
Cultural Cognitive Style and the Web
Authors: Faiola A. , Matei S.
Published: May 2011

Several technological developments have altered our world in the last half-century. Among these were the new information processing and distribution platforms supported by computer-mediated communication (CMC). In 2005, Forrester Research found that 50% of Internet users were non-English speakers, and this number would increase to 66% by 2006. For many designers and Web usability researchers, addressing this situation seem limited to translating Web interfaces or content. Although early studies in usability testing have identified considerable cultural differences among users (D’Andrade, 1984; Evers & Day, 1997), a need exists for a more rigorous investigation from a cross-cultural perspective into how Web sites are designed. The authors hold that the cultural cognitive styles of Web designers ultimately affect the performance and preferences of online users. As a result, specific attention should be paid to the impact of the Web designers’ culturally shaped cognitive style on the design and development of online information.
Teaching, Learning, Negotiating
Authors: Chorney T.
Published: May 2011

New technologies and computer-mediated communication (CMC) in general seem inherently suited to result in constructive cross-cultural communication. Yet researchers note that students and teachers, both of whom are instructional planners, lack the skills necessary to function in environments where they are “collaborative designers, rather than transmitters of knowledge” (Campbell, 2004b). As a result, the new possibilities for cross-cultural teaching and learning through dialogue and negotiation in the online environment compel us to reconceptualize the traditional role of the instructor and to ask, what does it mean to teach collaboratively, interactively, open-endedly? This chapter examines several central questions related to this situation as well as provides an overview of the dialogue-enabling properties of the Internet environment and its potential to support multiple learning styles.
Striping on Disks
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

Multimedia streams need continuous data supply. The aggregate data access requirement of many multimedia streams imposes very high demand on the access bandwidth of the storage servers. The disk striping or data striping methods spreads data over multiple disks to provide high aggregate disk throughput (Chua, Li, Ooi, & Tan, 1996; Hsieh, Lin, Liu, Du, & Ruwart, 1995). In addition to the popularity of multimedia objects that we have described in the last chapter, multimedia streams consume an object in a sequential manner. The striping methods make use of this access pattern to evenly spread the workload across disks. This can increase aggregate disk throughput so that high bandwidth streams can be delivered continuously. We first describe the simple striping method that places data stripes on a set of disks in the next section. After that, the staggered striping method that places data on a set of disks in a rotating manner is described. The pseudorandom placement method that stores data stripes on random disks is explained before we summarize this chapter.
Replication Placement on Disks
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

When extra storage space is available on the striping disks being described in the last chapter, the storage system may keep extra copies of the stored objects to enhance the performance of the storage system. If any one of the copy or the original copy is corrupted, the corrupted copy can possibly be recovered by comparison with its replicas. The replication strategy thus increases reliability of the storage system by applying redundancy on the stored objects. Extra copies of objects may be created and stored on the storage system to increase the storage system performance. The presence of replicas on light loading disks may be able to reduce the period of time that an object is inaccessible. Thus, the replication strategy increases the availability of the stored objects. The replication strategy can have several advantages. First, the replica on idle disks can increase the availability of data on corrupted and busy disks. Second, the replica on local server can reduce the network load to access objects from remote servers. Third, the replica on local server can also reduce the need to wait for the filling of initial buffer prior to consumption. Fourth, replica can avoid disk multitasking by avoiding the need to serve multiple streams from the same disk head. We will describe the streaming redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) method that increases availability and fault tolerance in the next section. After that, we present the Lancaster storage server to reduce network load. Then, we show two data replication methods to reduce start-up latency. Afterwards, we explain how the data replication method can avoid disk multitasking. Before we conclude this chapter, we describe the replication method that balances the space and workload of storage devices.
Staging Methods
Authors: Tse Phillip K.C.
Published: May 2011

When data are stored in the tertiary storage devices, the tape drives shall read them from the tapes using the input/output (I/O) operations. Due to the long delay in exchanging tapes, it is inconvenient to exchange a tape for each read/write access operation. Thus, the entire object or file is accessed from the tape drives well before they are being used (Federighi & Rowe, 1994; Kienzle, 1995; Pang, 1997). These accessed objects are temporarily stored in the magnetic hard disks as secondary storage level.