bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Digital Government Development Strategies
Authors: Chen Yu-Che , Knepper Richard
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides policy makers with a comprehensive framework for developing national digital government strategies. This framework raises the importance of technical and economic situations, cross-country comparison of laws and institutions, and the necessity of considering political contexts. More importantly, it outlines the general developmental strategies and critical success factors for improving the practice of national digital government efforts. To illuminate the utility and application of the framework through an examination of Poland and Taiwan’s experience, this chapter also yields insights into specific considerations for designing and improving digital government.
Governance of Strategies to Manage Organizational Knowledge
Authors: Zyngier Suzanne , Burstein Frada , McKay Judy
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the theory and model of governance as a means of implementing knowledge management strategies in large organizations. It draws on case study research into the governance of knowledge management strategy implementation in a major scientific research and development facility. It suggests that the implementation of strategy through such a framework operates to ensure the delivery of anticipated benefits in an authorized and regulated manner. Furthermore, the authors hope that an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of internal governance processes will not only inform researchers of a better design for studying knowledge management systems, but will also assist in the understanding of risks and the role of evaluation and review in the implementation of those strategies.
A Comparative Case Study of Knowledge Resource Utilization to Model Organizational Learning
Authors: White Colin , Croasdell David
Published: May 2011

The ability to store and manage data has not kept pace with the rapid evolution and growth of information resources. According to TechWeb.com, companies are doubling their storage capacities every year. This action is driven primarily by data warehousing and the necessity to provide instant access to data and supply-chain management. The trend does not look to be slowing. Isolated and undermanaged data resources have become a common practice in the industry despite the fact that the capacities of these systems keep improving while their prices continue to fall. This chapter draws four related cases to assess methods for organizing data and data resources in organizations. Further, the chapter provides examples for organizations to become learning organizations based on their ability to actively collect and distribute knowledge and their ability to become highly coupled socially and technically.
Why Knowledge Management Fails
Authors: Chan Ivy , Chau Patrick Y.K.
Published: May 2011

Knowledge is increasingly recognized as providing a foundation for creating core competencies and competitive advantages for organizations, thus effective knowledge management (KM) has become crucial and significant. Despite evolving perspectives and rigorous endeavors to embrace KM intentions in business agendas, it is found that organizations cannot capitalize on the expected benefits and leverage their performances. This is a case study of an organization in Hong Kong. It is a typical organization with a strong awareness and expectation of KM, yet its program failed within two years. Our findings show that KM activities carried out in the organization were fragmented and not supported by its members. Based on this failure case, four lessons learned are identified for use by management in future KM initiatives.
Infosys Technologies, Limited
Authors: Mehta Nikhil , Mehta Anju
Published: May 2011

Despite the emergence of knowledge management (KM) as a critical success factor, few organizations have successfully orchestrated the implementation of a KM initiative. This chapter highlights the implementation efforts of one such firm — Infosys Technologies, Limited. In this case, we discuss how KM emerged as a strategic requirement of the firm, and various capabilities the firm had to develop to fulfill this requirement. In other words, we discuss KM implementation as a confluence of multiple initiatives. We hope that by presenting this idea through the use of a case study we will assist readers to understand the intricate relationships between different facets of KM implementation.
Critical Success Factors for E-Brokerage
Authors: De Campos Costa Allan M. , Joia Luiz A.
Published: May 2011

The scope of this chapter is to investigate the critical factors for the success of stock brokerage processes via the Web, using financial portals on the Brazilian Internet, from the perspective of the investor. The framework of the online stock trading system is presented in order to compare the traditional form of stock brokerage with that made possible by the Internet and discuss some of the issues regarding intermediation and disintermediation that has occurred in the process. Conclusions are drawn based on a survey conducted with Brazilian investors who operate using Internet stockbrokers for the intermediation of their stock operations. The findings were analyzed from the perspective of the theoretical reference framework created and outlined here. Critical aspects for the success of stock brokerage over the Internet, from the investor’s standpoint, were assessed and presented, while areas for further research were also identified.
E-Commerce Infrastructure in Developing Countries
Authors: Sleem Aladdin Moawad
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides an overview of the existing e-commerce infrastructure in Developing Countries. A comprehensive survey of all the technologies used in e-commerce is introduced at the beginning of the chapter followed by a description of e-commerce infrastructure components. This chapter groups e-commerce infrastructure into three difference categories, namely: technological infrastructure, financial infrastructure, and the legislative infrastructure. An overview of the current technological, financial, as well as legislative e-commerce infrastructure in Developing Countries is provided which shows that many developing countries do not have the infrastructure required to provide e-commerce services. The author acknowledges the importance of e-commerce and its impact on the economy of any country and hopes that a clear understanding of the entire underlying infrastructure can help the Developing Countries to accelerate the growth of its e-commerce services.
E-Commerce Longitudinal Case Study from Ukraine
Authors: Jennex Murray E. , Amoroso Donald L.
Published: May 2011

The need to develop a strategy for e-business applications is an important facet of doing business, especially where organizations can provide value-added services to the customer base. In this chapter, we identify key value-added e-business applications and focus on success factors that clearly support small enterprise goals. Performance factors are presented that show the impact of e-business applications on the organization’s bottom line. The case study in this chapter uses a methodology of direct observation, unstructured interviews and document review to gather data for identifying issues in starting a small business using the Internet. The case organization provides services around office and business support, energy consulting, and Web development. The formation of International Business Solutions has been difficult due to the banking system, work culture, and infrastructure of Ukraine. IT issues investigated include telecommunications, energy, hardware, software, and the availability of technical skill sets. E-business issues that were found to be important in this study include: (1) difficulty of the user interface, (2) a lack of a planning process for e-business applications, (3) development and testing concerns, (4) finding the Web site and a lack of branding, and (5) the lack of evidence to support a formal budgeting process.
Diffusion of Information and Communication Technology
Authors: Peansupap Vachara , Walker Derek H.T.
Published: May 2011

This chapter explains the community of practice (COP) concept from the perspective of three major Australian construction contractors. It also describes and provides an analysis of their COPs from the perspective of the individual, work group, and organisation. We provide maps of these COPs for each of the three contractors studied. The intention of using this approach is to offer readers insights into how these COPs can be developed and supported. The study we base this chapter upon focussed on groupware as an ICT initiative being rolled out using COPs as an integral part of the innovation diffusion strategy. Case study findings relating to these COPs reveal that they are not only supported by ICT, but also that ICT itself supports these COPs in a self-referential and synergistic way. The important contribution that this chapter makes to our understanding of the studied phenomenon was not only the ‘what’ or descriptive nature of these COPs, but also insights that help us understand the ‘how’ of the process, so that lessons learned may be absorbed and diffused more widely in the construction industry.
The Culture of the Knowledge Advantage (K-Adv)
Authors: Walker Derek H.T. , Maqsood Tayyab , Finegan Andrew
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces a concept ‘the knowledge advantage’ (K-Adv) that describes a model in which knowledge leadership provides the setting in which an organisation’s knowledge vision can be developed and activated. This is supported by a people infrastructure that allows people to effectively create and share knowledge. This infrastructure is further supported by an information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure. This chapter also provides examples of how the K-Adv can be developed, and several tools are illustrated for this purpose. These include using a soft systems methodology (SSM) approach as part of developing the knowledge leadership vision and how the K-Adv can be used for benchmarking at both a course and fine-grained level. The contribution that this chapter makes is to provide some strategic and practical tactical tools that companies can use to develop their competitive advantage.
Online Services and Regional Web Portals
Authors: Thompson Helen
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines community empowerment, economic and business development, and equity of service as the issue of success and decline in regional and rural communities is explored with a particular focus on community informatics initiatives (CI). In Australia, there has been a vision for online services to be used to open up regional communities to the rest of the world. Government support has been seen as enhancing the competence levels of local communities so they become strong enough to deal equitably in an increasingly open marketplace. But how effective have regional portals and other online initiatives been? This chapter explores whether economic and social benefits are generated via establishing and sustaining regional CI initiatives. Theory relevant to online communities is introduced to provide a context for the presentation of two case studies. The dissemination of the critical learning from these cases can inform others about the diverse factors which impact on the effectiveness and long-term sustainability of regional CI initiatives.
Internet Economy of the Online Game Business in South Korea
Authors: Park Kyonghwan
Published: May 2011

This chapter attempts to lay the groundwork for in-depth discussions on the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the online game business as one of the most successful forms of the contemporary digital contents industry using the Internet. As a form of the digital economy, the online game has evolved both “through” and “within” the space of the Internet. I suggest that the broadband Internet infrastructure and the construction of the game users’ community in cyberspace constitute two necessary conditions for the economic success of the online game business. Conceptualizing such a socio-cultural economy of the Internet business as the economy of a “third space,” I argue that the online game business contains emerging forms of new economic space not only in-between the real space and the virtual space, but also between the production and the consumption of those games produced.
Architectural Slicing to Support System Evolution
Authors: Zhao Jianjun , Xiang Limin
Published: May 2011

Change impact analysis is a useful technique in software maintenance and evolution. Many techniques have been proposed to support change impact analysis at the code level of software systems, but little effort has been made for change impact analysis at the architectural level. In this chapter, we present an approach to supporting change impact analysis at the architectural level of software systems based on the architectural slicing and chopping technique. The main feature of our approach is to assess the effect of changes in a software architecture by analyzing its formal architectural specification, and therefore, the process of change impact analysis can be automated completely.
Software Architecture Analysis and Reconstruction
Authors: Sartipi Kamran , Kontogiannis Kostas
Published: May 2011

This chapter addresses the research challenges in the area of software architecture reconstruction and discusses the state-of-the-art and practice solutions to these challenges. Software architecture analysis and reconstruction is an area within the software architecture domain that refers to the techniques and tools for processing and recovering high-level information from a low-level software system representation such as the source code. The importance of architecture analysis and reconstruction of a large and complex software system stems from the need to perform continuous maintenance activities to keep a mission critical system operational. Such activities include adopting a new implementation technology, error correction, feature enhancement, and migration to a new platform, in which the architectural reconstruction constitutes the major part of these activities. The authors believe that the discussions of this chapter expose the reader to a systematic approach to the important issues, alternative solutions, and future research in the field of software architecture analysis and reconstruction.
The Social Production of Ethics in Debian and Free Software Communities
Authors: Coleman E.G. , Hill Benjamin
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the way that participation in Free software projects increases commitments to information freedom among participants. With the Debian project as its core case study, it argues that in Free and Open Source software communities, ethics are reinforced through the sustained collaborative development of code and discussions and decisions around Free software licenses and project policy. In the final section, the chapter draws on the ethnographic analysis of ethical cultivation in Debian to describe a model of ethical volunteerism based on institutional independence, volunteer labor, and networks of trust that is applicable to a range of vocations.
Web Personalization for E-Marketing Intelligence
Authors: Markellou Penelope , Rigou Maria , Sirmakessis Spiros
Published: May 2011

As the Web is growing exponentially, online marketing has been changed by the newly provided technological capacities and digital channels of sales. Online marketing or e-marketing is the adaptation and development of marketing strategies in the Web environment and includes all factors that affect a Web site’s efficiency, like the idea, the content, the structure, the interface, the implementation, the maintenance, the promotion and the advertising. Since more and more businesses are using the Web to conduct their activities, issues like interface usability, easy navigation and effective supporting services become critical and influence their success dramatically. However, one important problem that arises is that Web users are confronted with too many options. Currently, Web personalization is the most promising approach to alleviate this information overload and to provide users with tailored experiences. It improves user interaction with Web sites and offers them the ability to establish long-term and loyal relationships. The scope of this chapter is to give a comprehensive overview of research issues on personalized e-marketing applications. We focus on the importance of personalization as a remedy for the negative effects of the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach. Next, we explore the different steps of the personalization process providing information about interesting research initiatives and representative commercial tools for producing personalized Web experiences. Finally, we demonstrate the close relation between personalization and Web mining and discuss open research issues.
Using Server Log Files and Online Experiments to Enhance Internet Marketing
Authors: Hofacker Charles F. , Murphy Jamie
Published: May 2011

Unlike most traditional media, the Internet is both digital and interactive. Here we do not simply refer to interactions between consumers and a Web site or e-mail, but also between the marketer and the firm’s Web site or e-mail. Furthermore, the digital nature of the Internet records every interaction. These two characteristics — interactivity and digitization — facilitate research possibilities that would be cumbersome and costly using earlier media such as print, radio and television. On the Internet, marketers receive instant feedback on any tactical decision in the form of server log data. We believe that due to technical hurdles, both practitioners and academics under-utilize this omnipresent data residing in server log files. This is unfortunate for practitioners because their online efforts are far less efficient and effective than they could be. This is also unfortunate for academics because even small sites can generate massive amounts of rich data in relatively short times. This chapter introduces readers to server log files and how the basic information in these files helps management achieve goals for their Web sites and e-mail communication. Next, the chapter uses examples to illustrate how server log files make running online experiments easier than one would expect. The chapter closes with a call for more use of server log files in interdisciplinary research, and collaboration between industry and academia.
An Interactive Marketing Communications Model in New Product Diffusion
Authors: Sussan Fiona
Published: May 2011

The introduction of the Internet medium has accelerated changes in marketing communications. This chapter proposes an Interactive Marketing Communication Model that reflects two types of online conversations, business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer in three settings: business-directed, consumer-directed and independent group-directed. The conceptual model serves as the foundation that postulates the increasing effect of the new medium in new-product diffusion. The model is empirically tested with the diffusion of two new products: the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) and the Digital Video Disc (DVD) Player, introduced prior to and after the commercialization of the Internet medium. The diffusion of the DVD player introduced after the Internet is found to have an increased network effect in terms of a larger imitation effect over an innovation effect expressed in the parameters of innovation (p) and imitation (q) within the Bass Model. The empirical findings clarify prior postulation that the Internet medium would change the patterns of new-product diffusion among innovators and imitators. Both the conceptual framework and empirical findings shed light on the increasing importance for managers to include Internet-enabled communications in their new-product marketing strategy.
How Innovativeness Influences Internet Shopping
Authors: Goldsmith Ronald E. , Lafferty Barbara A.
Published: May 2011

Innovativeness is a willingness to try new things. Combined with other factors, innovativeness leads consumers to be among the first to adopt new ideas, products, and practices, such as buying online. As an individual difference trait, innovativeness can be conceptualized at three levels of generality: a global personality trait, general marketplace innovativeness, and domain-specific innovativeness. The present study assessed the impact of the first and third of these types of innovativeness on cyber-shopping. Data were collected through a survey of 303 consumers. Four hypotheses were proposed and supported. Global innovativeness and domain-specific innovativeness (online innovativeness) were positively correlated with each other and with amount of online buying. Domain-specific innovativeness also mediated the influence of global innovativeness on online buying behavior. Moreover, the relationships were weakly moderated by gender of respondent. These findings are consistent with previous studies and help to explain how personality influences online buying.
Two Meta-Model for Object-Role Modeling
Authors: Cuyler Dave , Halpin Terry
Published: May 2011

For conceptual information analysis, the object-role modeling (ORM) approach is arguably more suitable than entity-relationship modeling and the class modeling technique within the Unified Modeling Language. Although ORM has been used for three decades and now has industrial modeling tool support, it has no official, standard meta-model. Because of its extensive capability for expressing business rules, ORM is currently being considered as a possible standard for business rules expression within the Object Management Group (OMG), and for use in ontology standards. To support these initiatives and the interchange of ORM model data between different software tools, this chapter discusses recent research by the authors to pave the way for a standard ORM meta-model that employs a standard interchange format. Two different ways of meta-modeling ORM features are presented, design trade-offs are examined, and extensions to ORM are proposed. As proof of concept, a working prototype that is compliant with the OMG’s Meta-Object Facility is also discussed.
Assessing Enterprise Modeling Languages Using a Generic Quality Framework
Authors: Krogstie John , de Flon Arnesen Sofie
Published: May 2011

Statoil, one of Norway’s largest organizations, recently wanted to standardize an enterprise modeling language for process modeling for sense-making and communication. To perform the evaluation, a generic framework for assessing the quality of models and modeling languages was specialized to the needs of the company. Five different modeling languages were evaluated according to the specialized criteria. Two languages were, through this, found as candidate languages, and further criteria related to tool and process support for using the languages in actual modeling were used to decide the language to choose for future standardization. This work illustrates the practical utility of the overall framework, where language quality features are looked upon as means to enable the creation of models of high quality. It also illustrates the need for specializing this kind of general framework based on the requirements of the specific organization.
Goal Modeling in Requirements Engineering
Authors: Kavakli Evangelia , Loucopoulos Pericles
Published: May 2011

In the field of requirements engineering, goal modeling approaches have received much attention in recent years by researchers and practitioners alike. This chapter identifies the uses of these approaches in different contexts of requirements analysis phases. It examines goal modeling in terms of five methodological orientations and defines a framework for their analysis. Using this framework it provides an analysis of goal modeling approaches in a systematic and consistent manner. The aim of this analysis is to understand the best fit for purpose of different goal modeling approaches and to highlight open issues that provide a foundation for further research in this important area of requirements engineering methodology.
A Comparison of the FOOM and OPM Methodologies for User Comprehension of Analysis Specifications
Authors: Kabeli Judith , Shoval Peretz
Published: May 2011

FOOM (Functional and Object-Oriented Methodology) and OPM (Object-Processes Methodology) are methodologies used for analyzing and designing information systems. Both integrate functional and object-oriented approaches, but differ in that the analysis specification of FOOM utilizes OO-DFDs (Data Flow Diagrams with object classes that replace traditional data-stores) and a class diagram, while OPM defines a new notational model for specifying the system’s structural and procedural requirements, which combines processes and classes in a unified diagrammatic notation. In this study, we compare FOOM and OPM from the point of view of both user comprehension of analysis specifications and user preference of specifications. The comparison is based on a controlled experiment that measured: (a) comprehension of the analysis specifications, which includes both structural and behavioral aspects of the system; (b) the time it takes to complete the task of specification comprehension; and (c) the user’s preference of models. Our results show that FOOM performed better than OPM and that the users preferred FOOM to OPM.
Benefit Realisation with SAP
Authors: Blick Graham , Quaddus Mohammed
Published: May 2011

SAP is one of the dominating enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, which is used as an essential part of enterprise-wide information systems. While it can significantly contribute towards an organization’s competitiveness by increasing efficiencies across various functional units, it can, on the other hand, bring about disasters if implemented incorrectly. Literature presents both implementation successes and failures. This chapter presents a successful SAP implementation in the WATER CORPORATION in Western Australia. A “Benefit Realization Strategy and Realization Process” was considered to be the key success factor in the implementation of SAP. The chapter describes the benefit realization structure and process and discusses how SAP was implemented successfully within this framework. The benefits realization and its impact are presented. Finally, future directions are highlighted.
Electronic Collaboration, Communication and Cooperation
Authors: Mentzas Gregoris , Bafoutsou Georgia
Published: May 2011

This chapter investigates the subject of e-collaboration and proposes a meta-taxonomy that classifies the existing taxonomies of collaborative systems found in the literature. It also points out the three dimensions in e-collaboration: communication, cooperation, and coordination. The most commonly encountered functions of collaborative systems are identified through an extensive review of commercial and research products. The functions and the systems are classified with relevance to the communication, cooperation, and coordination dimensions. We find that although all three dimensions of collaboration are necessary for the successful completion of work, there is a lack of an integrated system enabling all of them. Consequently we present the C-CUBED system, which attempts to support all three collaboration dimensions.
Collaborative Product Development
Authors: Huang George Q.
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the roles of electronic business solutions (EBSs) in supporting collaborative product development (CPD). Two fundamental questions are of primary interest. One is when and where EBSs should be applied for what CPD decision activities. The other is how EBSs should be designed and developed to maximize their usefulness and usability in supporting CPD decision activities. The author advocates an approach based on decision activities. By this approach, CPD is considered as an extended enterprise business process, which is in turn decomposed into relatively simpler business decision processes (e.g., design specification, design review and release, design change management, etc.). Such decomposition takes place towards the level where appropriate EBSs can be most cost-effectively designed, developed, and applied. The logics and data requirements of these business decision processes form the natural basis for designing the navigations and user interfaces as well as the back-end databases and middleware for the corresponding EBSs. Individual EBSs related to product design and development decisions are then collated and deployed to form what is described in this chapter as a collaborative product commerce (CPC) portal — a special enterprise portal. The proposed approach is demonstrated with several examples as has been followed by many researchers and practitioners.
Collaborative Decision Making
Authors: Choi Beomjin , Raghu T.S. , Ramesh R. , Whinston Andrew B.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the collaborative decision making (CDM) framework as a means of employing a systematic approach to develop collaborative systems in an electronic business environment. It argues that the CDM framework provides a holistic view of the components that play critical roles for collaboration, which include group facilitation and coordination, knowledge repositories, dialectic decision support, and discussion strategy support. The framework emphasizes the importance of supporting dynamic collaboration across multiple aspects of the group decision making process as a basic requirement. This chapter identifies the major components of decision support functionalities that need to be embedded in CDM systems so as to reduce the cognitive burden of decision makers.
Knowledge Networking for Collaborative Commerce
Authors: Apostolou Dimitris , Mentzas Gregoris , Maass Wolfgang
Published: May 2011

This chapter aims to describe interorganizational “knowledge networks” and demonstrate how they have ushered in a new paradigm of collaborative business by forging links between internal and external knowledge and information resources. The overall aim is to classify and review various approaches in interorganizational knowledge networking whose objectives may span a multitude of needs: from “loose” information sharing that may be not connected to financial transactions between the networking organizations to “tight” knowledge exchanges that are related to commercial transactions and enable the creation of value from leveraging the interchange of knowledge assets.
Costs and Benefits in Supply Chain Collaboration
Authors: McLaren Tim S. , Head Milena M. , Yuan Yufei
Published: May 2011

Recent advances in supply chain management information systems (SCM IS) have enabled firms to more fully collaborate with their supply chain partners — driving out costs while increasing responsiveness to market demands. This chapter examines various types of SCM IS — from traditional EDI systems to more recent Web-services-based e-business applications. It argues that the approach best suited for an organization depends in part on the degree of integration between the partners, the complexity of the business processes, and the number of partners involved. A model is presented for analyzing the costs and benefits that can be expected from each type of SCM IS. The model enables researchers and practitioners to better understand the differences among SCM IS and thus can help reduce the risks of implementing these valuable yet complex information systems.
Survey on Spatial Data Modelling Approaches
Authors: Rios Viqueira Jose R. , Lorentzos Nikos A. , Brisaboa Nieves R.
Published: May 2011

The chapter identifies properties that a spatial data model, dedicated to support spatial data for cartography, topography, cadastral and relevant applications, should satisfy. The properties concern the data types, data structures and spatial operations of the model. A survey of various approaches investigates mainly the satisfaction of these properties. An evaluation of each approach against these properties also is included.
Applications of Moving Objects Databases
Authors: Wolfson Ouri , Mena Eduardo
Published: May 2011

Miniaturization of computing devices and advances in wireless communication and sensor technology are some of the forces propagating computing from the stationary desktop to the mobile outdoors. Some important classes of new applications that will be enabled by this revolutionary development include location-based services, tourist services, mobile electronic commerce and digital battlefield. Some existing application classes that will benefit from the development include transportation and air traffic control, weather forecasting, emergency response, mobile resource management and mobile workforce. Location management, that is, the management of transient location information, is an enabling technology for all these applications. Location management is also a fundamental component of other technologies, such as fly-through visualization, context awareness, augmented reality, cellular communication and dynamic resource discovery. Moving Objects Databases (MODs) store and manage the location as well as other dynamic information about moving objects. In this chapter we will present the applications of MODs and their functionality. The target readership is researchers and engineers working in databases and mobile computing.
Knowledge Management in Smart Organizations
Authors: Chan Shirley
Published: May 2011

This chapter looks at the deployment of appropriate information and communication technologies in helping smart organizations to manage knowledge. Taking a management perspective, smart organizations can be regarded as those that can make smart strategic decisions and put into practice such managerial principles as value creation, continual learning, embracing uncertainty, and empowerment. Making good decisions would involve gathering and synthesizing the appropriate knowledge—knowledge about the market, products, suppliers, customers, competitors, and others. Different schools of knowledge management theories and the related technologies will be discussed. The author hopes that understanding the knowledge management technologies and related practices would assist researchers and practitioners in gaining some insights into managing the knowledge required for making smart decisions in organizations.
Interactive Multimedia for Learning and Performance
Authors: Banerji Ashok , Scales Glenda R.
Published: May 2011

Developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) are rapidly transforming our work environments and methods. Amongst these changes, the advent of interactive multimedia technology has meant new approaches to instruction, information and performance support implementations. The available resources can be amalgamated in a suitable way to create an enabling environment for learning, training and performing. Concise descriptions of the salient aspects are presented along with basic design principles for communication and performance support. Guidelines for design and suggestions for implementation are provided for the benefit of the practitioners.
Object-Oriented Approaches to Causal Mapping
Authors: Otondo Robert F.
Published: May 2011

Comparing, contrasting, and collectivizing causal maps provides a useful way for extending representations of individual-level cognitions to an organization-level of analysis. Carrying out these processes can be tricky, however, because the terms used to denote nodes within causal maps are often so terse that important nuances and meanings critical to linking or distinguishing the espoused beliefs of multiple individuals may not be faithfully represented. Previous efforts in causal map research are extended by representing these linguistic and semantic nuances in associative, categorical, or other cognitive maps, then using those maps to link related elements of causal maps. These multiple types of cognitive maps are then integrated in a logical view (i.e., class and object structures) of a graph-theoretic, object-oriented design.
GIS in Marketing
Authors: Viswanathan Nanda K.
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the existing uses and potential uses of GIS in marketing. In examining the interaction of marketing and geography, the variables of demographics, space, and time are used as a framework. Specific applications of GIS in customer relationship management, market segmentation, and competitive analysis are illustrated with hypothetical and real world examples. Additional areas of GIS application include product strategy, price strategy, promotion strategy, and place or distribution strategy. The author hopes that understanding the existing and potential uses of GIS in marketing will spur the interest of marketing practitioners to integrate GIS into marketing strategy to create competitive advantage. Furthermore, it is hoped that this chapter will serve as an outline for the broader consideration of the applications of GIS in marketing.
Collaborative Networked Organizations for Eco-Consistent Supply Chains
Authors: Michelini Rinaldo C. , Razzoli Roberto P.
Published: May 2011

The present study aims at exploring how to turn information and communication technology (ICT) networked tools to supply cooperative added-value duties and ecocompatibility certifying activities, as competitiveness is the permanent goal, but ecosystem preservation is a nonremovable asset. The chapter is organized into four sections. The first introduces the basic sustainability paradigm shifts, to switch from the affluent to the thrifty communities, showing that the knowledge society critically affects this transition. The following section deals with the information framework requested to characterize the extended artefact (or product-service) on the life-cycle span, dismissal included. The subsequent section considers the collaborative networked organizations needed to support the ecoconsistency management of the extended artifacts by means of net concerns, under the direct oversight of independent certification bodies. The last section outlines trends in the economical, legal, political, and social surroundings, aiming at the appropriateness of Web platform options.
Dynamic Contract Generation for Dynamic Business Relationships
Authors: Field Simon , Hoffner Yigal
Published: May 2011

A dynamic virtual enterprise needs to be able to create, customize, and dismantle commercial relationships among partners quickly. The need to establish legal contracts before enactment begins can undermine the benefits gained by using advanced technology to form dynamic virtual enterprises, if it cannot be done quickly when needed, efficiently, in an up-to-date manner and result in a correct contract. There is, therefore, a need for the dynamic creation of contracts to reflect these constraints. An electronic representation of the contract can be constructed rapidly and brings the added advantage of being available to other software components. The chapter presents a novel method for generating a legal contract from the description of a business agreement. This is done by breaking up the constituent parts of the contract into clauses and using matchmaking technology to determine whether a clause is relevant for a given business agreement or not. A brief overview of the matchmaking technology that is used to do the transformations of a business agreement into a contract is given. We then show one specific detailed example of this approach — the translation of a business projection agreement into the relevant agreement in the legal projection, namely, a contract.
Implementation Options for Virtual Organizations
Authors: Roberts Bob , Svirskas Adomas , Ward Jonathan
Published: May 2011

This chapter explores the challenges of constructing a distributed e-business architecture based on the concept of request-based virtual organization (RBVO). The RBVO is a value network, dynamically formed upon demand to meet identified business opportunities. The work within the framework of the European Union-sponsored LAURA project is presented, as its aim is to facilitate interregional zones of adaptive electronic commerce using, where applicable, the potential of the ebXML architecture. The LAURA realization framework outlined here addressed the structural concepts of an RBVO, based on the typical business requirements of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The architecture proposed in our work incorporates an innovative approach to discovery and matchmaking of business partners and services that includes usage of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology. The increasing maturity of P2P-based solutions allow, where applicable, for their implementation in the business-to-business (B2B) area. The P2P concept is discussed in comparison to a more traditional client–server approach in this chapter.
The Real Challenge of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
Authors: Livermore Celia Romm
Published: May 2011

This chapter starts from the premise that, to be effective, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has to be intrinsically motivating. However, in contrast to much of the literature in the field, which focuses almost exclusively on the needs of students, this chapter discusses three groups of stakeholders whose concerns and motivation have to be considered: students, instructors, and institutions. Following a critical review of the literature on online education in general, which highlights some of the major themes that have attracted research so far, the chapter proceeds to introduce a paradigm that integrates the needs of the above three groups of stakeholders. The model is followed by a description of the Radical Model, an innovative approach to computer-supported collaborative learning that is an example of applying the proposed paradigm in practice. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the research implications from the model.
Design of Believable Intelligent Virtual Agents
Authors: Herrero Pilar , Imbert Ricardo
Published: May 2011

Virtual environments (VEs) have a set of characteristics that make them hard to be designed and implemented: distributed nature, high-level graphical design, technology novelty, and so forth. Because of the criticism or the repetitiveness of some roles played in them, some of the characters of the VEs usually must be automated. The risk is to pay a too high price, losing attractiveness, usability, or believability. The solution proposed in this chapter is to control the automated avatars by associating them with software agents, becoming intelligent virtual agents (IVAs). With this aim, an architecture to manage the perception and cognition of the agent is described. On one hand, the perceptual module of this architecture consists of a human-like model, based on one of the most successful awareness models in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), called the Spatial Model of Interaction (SMI). On the other hand, the cognitive module proposes an easy-to-configure structure, providing it with the precise mechanisms to exhibit reactive, deliberative or, even, more sophisticated social behaviors, incrementing the believability of the IVA in the VE.
XML Semantics
Authors: Kotb Yasser , Gondow Katsuhiko , Katayama Takuya
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we consider the problem of checking the consistency of the semantics associated with extensible markup language (XML) documents. We propose a novel technique to add semantics to XML documents by attaching semantic information to the XML element tag attributes. We call this technique XML semantics. It is based on the same concept as attribute grammars (AGs), attaching and checking static semantics of programming languages through their attributes. Furthermore, we show how the attribute dependencies in this approach can be expressed in the SLXS language. The SLXS language is a new description language based on XML; we have designed it to describe the semantic dependencies of XML documents. By this approach we remain compliant with the XML core technology. Finally, we give a practical example to illustrate the power of our approach: we have successfully applied this approach to check the semantic consistency of the several holy books that are mentioned on the Religion 2 Website.
Web Usage Mining
Authors: Woon Yew-Kwong , Ng Wee-Keong , Lim Ee-Peng
Published: May 2011

The rising popularity of electronic commerce makes data mining an indispensable technology for several applications, especially online business competitiveness. The World Wide Web provides abundant raw data in the form of Web access logs. However, without data mining techniques, it is difficult to make any sense out of such massive data. In this chapter, we focus on the mining of Web access logs, commonly known as Web usage mining. We analyze algorithms for preprocessing and extracting knowledge from such logs. We will also propose our own techniques to mine the logs in a more holistic manner. Experiments conducted on real Web server logs verify the practicality as well as the efficiency of the proposed techniques as compared to an existing technique. Finally, challenges in Web usage mining are discussed.
The Scent of a Newsgroup
Authors: Manco Giuseppe , Ortale Riccardo , Tagarelli Andrea
Published: May 2011

Personalization is aimed at adapting content delivery to users’ profiles: namely, their expectations, preferences and requirements. This chapter surveys some well-known Web mining techniques that can be profitably exploited in order to address the problem of providing personalized access to the contents of Usenet communities. We provide a rationale for the inadequacy of current Usenet services, given the actual scenario in which an increasing number of users with heterogeneous interests look for information scattered over different communities. We discuss how the knowledge extracted from Usenet sites (from the content, the structure and the usability viewpoints) can be suitably adapted to the specific needs and expectations of each user.
Know Your Why's How's - Towards a Contingency Model for Industrial E-Procurement
Authors: Rehme Jakob , Kindstrom Daniel , Brege Staffan
Published: May 2011

This chapter uses traditional marketing and purchasing strategy models to forward a model for e-procurement. It maintains that there are two major classes of e-procurement solutions used in industry, both deriving from traditional marketing models: e-procurement solutions that focus on enhancing relationships to enable integration between buyer and seller, and solutions that are transaction-oriented and have their primary function in strengthening market forces, thus making industrial markets more competitive. It is argued that the e-procurement solutions used should be related to the purchasing strategies employed and the different steps of the purchasing process. We propose a model based on purchasing strategies that identify appropriate e-procurement solutions to be considered for different types of purchased items. This model can be used to evaluate purchasing initiatives, both from an academic and a practical perspective.
Strategic E-Commerce Aspects of the E-Banking/E-Lending Industry
Authors: Rupp William T. , Smith Alan D.
Published: May 2011

Major advances in technology, especially those that leverage the growth of the Internet, are playing a key role in the development and evolution of the banking and lending industry. In order to succeed, banks must create and implement a more aggressive strategy and move away from the primarily defensive strategy if they are to return to acceptable levels of ROI. E-banking/e-lending can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to process loans and related services by allowing the potential borrower to do much of the work themselves. The cost savings for presumably many thousands of applications per year will be substantial. However, the start-up costs for e-banking/e-lending can be significant. Lenders must be confident of sustainable volume projections. E-banking/e-lending also allows lenders to reach borrowers outside of their traditional market areas. Several strategic factors and various models are discussed to identify the emerging tendencies and to explore the opportunities and threats within a strategic framework.