bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Novel Methods of Incorporating Security Requirements Engineering into Software Engineering Courses and Curricula
Authors: Mead Nancy R. , Shoemaker Dan
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes methods of incorporating security requirements engineering into software engineering courses and curricula. The chapter discusses the importance of security requirements engineering and the relationship of security knowledge to general computing knowledge by comparing a security body of knowledge to standard computing curricula. Then security requirements is related to standard computing curricula and educational initiatives in security requirements engineering are described, with their results. An expanded discussion of the SQUARE method in security requirements engineering case studies is included, as well as future plans in the area. Future plans include the development and teaching of academic course materials in security requirements engineering, which will then be made available to educators. The authors hope that more educators will be motivated to teach security requirements engineering in their software engineering courses and to incorporate it in their curricula.
Ensuring Students Engage with Ethical and Professional Practice Concepts
Authors: Thompson J. Barrie
Published: May 2011

The teaching and learning of aspects related to ethics and professional practice present significant challenges to both staff and students as these topics are much more abstract than say software design and testing. The core of this chapter is an in-depth examination of how ethics and professional practice can be addressed in a very practical manner. To set the scene and provide contextual information the chapter commences with information on an international model of professionalism, a code of ethics for Software Engineers, and different teaching and learning approaches that can be employed when addressing ethical issues. The major part of the chapter is then devoted to detailing a particular teaching and leaning approach, which has been developed at the University of Sunderland in the UK. Finally conclusions, views on the present situation and future developments, and details of outstanding challenges are presented.
Rubric to Determine a Quality Online Discussion Posting
Authors: Larson Linda L. , Boyd-Batstone Paul , Cox Carole
Published: May 2011

When teachers integrate online discussions into courses, they are faced with the challenge of deciding how to evaluate the postings. This chapter discusses a study that used a discussion board rubric to evaluate online discussions. The study tested the reliability of the instrument (rubric) to assess the quality of the content of Web-based discourse. To obtain the rubric interrater reliability, researchers used the rubric to evaluate the discussion postings of preservice teachers’ enrolled in six different sections of an English language arts methods course. Six hundred sixty two (662) postings from 165 preservice teachers were analyzed using the rubric. The study utilized the scorings from six judges. When measured with Cronbach’s alpha intraclass coefficient, the findings indicated substantial agreement between judges in two of the four rubric criteria: evocative (.8742) and reference-resource (.8209). The other rubric criteria rumination (.7256) and storytelling (.5984) scored at the moderate and fair levels respectfully.
Instrumental and Social Influences on Adoption of Collaborative Technologies in Global Virtual Teams
Authors: Araujo Andre L.
Published: May 2011

Recent advances in Web-based technologies along with investments in international outsourcing and offshore locations have unquestionably increased the importance of global virtual teams. However, because global virtual teams have their members dispersed in different countries and rely extensively on electronic communication to exchange information, complete tasks, and coordinate activities, their implementation is accompanied by challenges beyond those found in traditional teams whose members often meet face-to-face in the same cultural context. One such challenge has to do with cross-cultural collaboration. Although there is a sense that collaborative technologies offer the essential tools for supporting collaboration, it is unknown whether virtual members will actually adopt collaborative technologies in a cross-cultural setting. To gain knowledge about this potential endemic aspect of cross-cultural teamwork, one needs to examine the factors that influence the adoption of collaborative technologies in global virtual teams. Drawing on the work of organizations, cognitive theory, and information systems researchers, this study offers a framework that describes the key components underlying collaborative technology adoption in global virtual teams by integrating both social and instrumental aspects of group work.
Supporting Inter-Business Collaboration via Contract Negotiation and Enactment
Authors: Rittgen Peter
Published: May 2011

The increasing complexity of products and services encourages more and more companies to form collaborative networks. As these companies are independent organizations there often is an issue of governance. We suggest a possible architecture for such a business network that proposes a frame contract as the principal means of coordination and describes how such a contract can be designed and enacted. Often frame contracts are written in natural language which makes it difficult to govern the network effectively and efficiently. We therefore introduce a structured method that can support the design of such an agreement and ensure that its terms are observed in business transactions. We interpret governance as the management of workflows between the organizations, hence the contract consists primarily of business process models. We propose a method to negotiate these models among the member organizations of the network and to enact them with the help of an interorganizational workflow system.
The Limits of Anytime, Anywhere Customer Support
Authors: Irons Larry R.
Published: May 2011

This chapter reviews research in distributed work, relating it to the way organizations manage collaboration between home-based customer support agents. The analysis focuses on the importance of shared identity to development of trust and social capital. The distributed work literature recognizes trust enables knowledge sharing through social exchange and gift giving activity. The discussion outlines two social norms—the norm of beneficence that encourages gift giving and the norm of reciprocity that encourages social exchange. These two norms provide a framework for understanding how knowledge sharing starts and continues in organizational relationships. The chapter next discusses the organizational strategies companies use to implement home-based customer support. The discussion concludes that the available research findings of applied studies of distributed work suggest that the most effective organizational strategy for home-based customer support enables knowledge sharing by blending face-to-face meetings, with other employees and management, and distributed work online.
KMmaster® for Collaboration and Knowledge Management
Authors: Müller-Prothmann Tobias
Published: May 2011

Collaboration is a constitutional element of any organization. To conceptualize the organization as an evolving system of interactions means to put the focus on communication. Communication in organizations implies a process of information and knowledge exchange between two or more individuals or social aggregates such as teams, groups, and departments. From the social perspective as the dominant paradigm in recent information and knowledge management studies, the core of electronic collaboration is to support informal communication, communities of practice, and social networks. This chapter provides the theoretical background of informal communication in organizations from a social constructionist view in a first step. In a second step, it presents the KMmaster framework as an example of a Web-based enterprise software to support electronic collaboration and knowledge transfer across intra- and inter-organizational boundaries. The knowledge management platform KMmaster will be illustrated with its editions designed for specific applications (lessons learnt, reporting), processes (innovation management) and industries (life science).
An Evaluation of ‘Linking for a Change'
Authors: Kershaw Mairi Stewart
Published: May 2011

This chapter details one project, “Linking for a Change” (LFC), connecting schools and public/social sector providers of education for sustainable (ESD) across eight counties in the South West of England, with the objective of promoting the DfES “sustainable schools” action plan. It presents a discourse regarding the need for new education linkages/networks to emerge in order to enable education systems to evolve in response to the challenges of unsustainable development. A snapshot of ESD, or baseline data set is analysed from 66 schools and 85 ESD providers, leading into an exploration of the extent of the resulting electronic networking, or “e-networking” and its ability to enable cross-sector collaboration. Thus this research questions the fundamental premise behind much networking, using a tested methodology (Kershaw, 2004, 2006) to question the assumption that e-networking results either in change in practice or in increased capacity, that is, that “Linking” leads to change.
Networked Experiments in Global E-Science
Authors: Liberati Diego
Published: May 2011

In current economic and scientific scenarios, interactions and organization models tend to be more and more oriented to flexibility of relationships, heterogeneity of elements, and collaboration among divisions. A possible approach, which is a technical solution and an organizing paradigm at the same time, is based on the concept of Virtual Organization. This paper, starting from the Virtual Organization paradigm and from workflows, shows an approach to the definition and execution of distributed scientific experiments as set of services executed on distributed collaborating sites at different heterogeneous organizations. The focus is on flexibility, reuse, orchestration, collaboration, and interoperability of services within a cooperation process. The workflow of the experiment can be specified by actors with low information technology but high domain knowledge. The context of the work is e-Science, in particular, bioinformatics, but the presented concepts can be easily generalized and extended to other classes of business interaction.
Efficient Receiver Implementation for Mobile Applications
Authors: Chaikalis Costas , Riera-Palou Felip
Published: May 2011

Modern and future wireless communication systems such as UMTS and beyond 3G systems (B3G) are expected to support very high data rates to/from mobile users. This poses important challenges on the handset design as they should be able to attain an acceptable operating bit error rate (BER) while employing a limited set of resources (i.e. low complexity, low power) and often, with tight processing delay constraints. In this chapter we study how channel decoding and equalisation, two widely used mechanisms to combat the deleterious channel effects, can be made adaptable in accordance to the instantaneous operating environment. Simulation results are given demonstrating how receiver reconfigurability is a promising method to achieve complexity/delay efficient receivers while maintaining prescribed quality of service (QoS) constraints.
Vision, Trends, Gaps and a Broad Roadmap for Future Engineering
Authors: Goossenaerts Jan , Possel-Dölken Frank , Popplewell Keith
Published: May 2011

New challenges result from the virtualization and distribution of product development activities. This article analyzes problems of cooperative engineering as well as methods and tools for the virtual engineering of extended products. Based on these analyses, a broad road map is proposed that articulates public- and civil-sector roles in coping with future engineering challenges. With a strategic horizon, the public-sector role targets the creation of a knowledge-intensive global business ecosystem conducive to balanced civil-sector innovation and sustainable growth. The civil-sector roles evolve tactics that implement proven cooperative and virtual engineering practices with a focus on value creation.
Metaphors for E-Collaboration
Authors: Kendall Julie E.
Published: May 2011

What constitutes regional commerce? What creates and enhances a regional identity? In the United States, regions can be quite large and may even cover geographical territory from several surrounding counties or states. They are larger than any one individual company, shopping street, or district. Regional cooperation of commercial businesses is often manifested through special events, cooperative advertising with coordinated signage, extended opening hours, and special discounts that contribute to building a sense of community, and which eventually develop a sense of region. The political and environmental exigencies for the creation and expansion of regions have meant an increase in the popularity and importance of regions and a subsequent movement to enhance and differentiate their identities. We now see the rise of regional governments, water authorities, and educational institutions among many others. One little-explored idea has been the use of e-collaboration to forge, reinforce, and sustain a regional identity via the virtual world. Although geographical separation of many miles might dictate that bricks-and-mortar theatres cannot easily collaborate physically (i.e., they cannot share costumes, props, ushers, and so on), the possibility of e-collaboration opens potential opportunities for attracting wider audiences, reaching and ultimately casting fresh talent, and building reciprocal audiences who possess a passion for the arts and who have the means and desire to travel to attend performances throughout the geographical region. In this study, a methodology built on the conceptual foundation of metaphor research was used to comprehend and then interpret the Web presence of 15 nonprofit theatres that comprise the total regional theatre of southern New Jersey that exists on the Web. In order to add additional insight, our earlier research findings from working with off-Broadway and regional theatre festivals were extended to analyze the Web presence of the theatres in southern New Jersey. We contribute to the literature by systematic and deep investigation of the strategic importance of the Web for nonprofit theatre groups in the southern New Jersey region. In addition, our use of the metaphor methodology in order to create a telling portrait of what transpires on the Web in relation to nonprofit organizations is also an original contribution. Our work is meant to heighten the awareness of administrators to the rapidly accelerating need for the strategic use of e-collaboration. We propose that with the use of the Web, administrators can move toward creating a regional theatre Web presence for South Jersey, one which would make use of an evolutionary metaphor. To this end, we suggest the use of an organism metaphor. Through the creation of reciprocal hyperlinks, theatres can be supported in improving their practice of colocation on the Web, wherein they will be taking strides to cooperate as a regional theatre community.
Global Knowledge Management Technology Strategies and Competitive Functionality from Global IT in the International Construction Industry
Authors: Schulte William , O'Sullivan Kevin J.
Published: May 2011

Information and knowledge management technologies and globalization have changed how firms in service industries formulate, implement, and sustain competitive advantage. This research project contributes to our understanding of the relationships between global knowledge management technology strategies and competitive functionality from global IT. Based on field research, this study found that global knowledge management technology strategies have a positive impact on competitive advantage from information technology applications functionality from global IT. This study provides recommendations to international engineering, procurement, and construction industry executives regarding the impact of knowledge management strategies and global information technology on competitive advantage of firms in their industry.
A Time Series Analysis of International ICT Spillover
Authors: Juan Zhang Juan , Tom Lee Sang-Yong
Published: May 2011

This article studies the role of international spillover of information and communication technology (ICT) in economic growth. We examine the performance of ten countries from 1982 to 1999. By empirically analyzing the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) and domestic and foreign ICT investment with time series analysis tools, we find limited evidence that there exist international ICT spillovers for a group of countries. Further, we discuss the possible ICT policies to improve productivity and balance out a win-win situation for both ICT spillover sending and receiving countries.
Securing and Protecting the Copyright of Digital Video Through Watermarking Technologies
Authors: Tsilichristou Evanthia
Published: May 2011

The basic principle of watermarking is the addition of the watermark signal to the host data that we wish to watermark. The addition is taking place in a way that the watermark signal is discreet and secure among the rest signals. Its retrieval, either partial or complete from the rest of signals, must be also possible only by using a secret key. In this chapter, we are going to deal with the digital video watermarking. First, we will name its applications, requirements, and the most important trends, then we will describe some of the most significant techniques of the specific process.
Digital Fingerprinting Based Multimedia Content Distribution
Authors: Lian Shiguo
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the digital fingerprinting technology that is used to trace illegal distributors in multimedia content distribution is investigated. Firstly, the background and basic knowledge of digital fingerprinting- based multimedia distribution are reviewed. Then, some existing fingerprinting algorithms are introduced and compared. Additionally, the methods to embed the fingerprint securely are overviewed and analyzed. As an example, the secure audio distribution scheme is presented, and its performances are evaluated. Finally, some open issues and the future trends in digital fingerprinting are proposed. It is expected to provide valuable information to the students, engineers or researchers interested in this research topic.
An Advanced Watermarking Application for the Copyright Protection and Management of Digital Images of Cultural Heritage Case Study
Authors: Stilios Georgios , Tsolis Dimitrios K.
Published: May 2011

The issue addressed in this chapter is the design, implementation, and evaluation of a watermarking application, especially focused on the protection of cultural heritage. The application described here is focusing on protecting digital surrogates of high-quality photographs of artifacts, monuments and sites, and on countering copyright infringement of online digital images. This is achieved by the integration of an innovative watermarking method to a specialized and usable user–interface. The system is specifically applied to “Ulysses,” the Official Cultural Portal of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (HMC). The chapter is structured in 7 main sections where an overview of the issue is presented, the watermarking method is analyzed, and the user-interface is described in detail. Finally, an evaluation of the overall watermarking application is presented and specific on-site implementation issues are analyzed.
New Media Literacy and the Digital Divide
Authors: Müller Jörg , Sancho Juana M. , Hernández Fernando
Published: May 2011

This chapter explores the intimate relationship between new media literacy and the digital divide. The longer and deeper digital technology (DT) penetrates the fabric of society, the more it becomes connected to broader social concerns such as disadvantaged minorities, long-term poverty, access to resources or equal opportunities for all citizens. Contrary to initial expectations, DT is far from providing immediate responses to educational problems and even less, automatic relief to real world injustice; left to its own devices, it tends to reflect and increase existing forms of exclusion rather than ameliorate them. In order to address these issues, this chapter combines three major topics. Firstly, we summarize the argument on the closing vs. deepening digital divide. Physical access figures are presented according to adult and younger population, their socio-economic status and in relation to schools. Secondly, more recent findings are shown, dealing with the quality and use of the Internet by pupils. Thirdly, a more general reflection is introduced in relation to the role of schools and intervention strategies for implementing sustainable educational projects aimed at helping to improve social participation in a society for all.
Promoting Mediated Collaborative Inquiry in Primary and Secondary Science Settings
Authors: Evans Michael A.
Published: May 2011

Mediated collaborative inquiry within communities of practice is proposed as a critical educational goal for the 21st century. Mediated collaborative inquiry promotes the process of participation in search of understanding via mobile, wireless devices and social software. Communities of practice provide sociotechnical scaffolding to define and legitimate inquiry. In this chapter we present a collaborative, collective perspective of learning and practice to demonstrate how we design to support communities of practice for scientific inquiry. The first project, the Mobile Malawi Project, was an exploratory proof-of-concept attempt to facilitate learning and communication among geographically and socially distributed participants in Malawi, Africa using mobile smart phones and social software. The second project, Kids for Change, is a rigorous design-based research project building from the former that encourages middle school students in after school settings to use 3D digital modeling software (Google SketchUp) in socially relevant and civically engaging activities. Both endeavors are designed to provide primary and secondary students opportunities to learn and apply important scientific processes andmathematical ideas to real world situations while interacting with key constituents, including teachers, parents, teacher educators, and community experts. The authors conclude by noting cautions toward an approach of promoting collaboration and community with ICTs. Traditional institutions, pedagogies, and ways of knowing might preclude or hamper smooth transitions to a participatory, network-based educational system built on a Web 2.0 infrastructure and services.
Promoting New Media Literacy in a School District
Authors: Leh Amy S.C. , Grafton Lee
Published: May 2011

This book chapter reports an Enhancing Education Through Technology Competitive Grant (EETT-C) project that was designed to improve student achievement and to promote new media literacy. During 2005-2006, the project served 30 sixth to eighth grade mathematics teachers and approximately 3,250 students in Palm Springs Unified School District, a medium-sized, high-poverty school district in Southern California. The research-based program consisted of a student program and faculty development. Strategies used for the student program included data-based decision making, cues, timely feedback, visual and contextualized learning, synthesis of learning for deeper understanding, and parental involvement. Strategies used for the faculty development involved coaching and mentoring to develop teacher expertise, assessment of instructional activities related to student achievement, access to differentiated professional development opportunities, and access to high quality curricular resources. The authors hope that the chapter will inform educators of a better design for professional development and program evaluation.
Skillful Internet Reader is Metacognitively Competent
Authors: Kiili Carita , Laurinen Leena , Marttunen Miika
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interrelations between information searching, textprocessing, information evaluation, and metacognition when upper-secondary school students are using Internet as a source for an essay. Students (n = 24) were asked to search for source material from the Internet in order to write an essay on a given topic. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts while they were gathering their source material. Their verbalizations and actions were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that students who had difficulties in locating relevant information had to monitor their orientation and keep track of what to do next. Skillful students, in contrast, were able to plan and evaluate their performance, and adjust their activities to the task demands. These students were then able to focus more on elaborative text-processing. Thus, the present study supports the view that constructively responsive reading demands a metacognitively competent reader.
What We Know About Assessing Online Learning in Secondary Schools
Authors: Bangert Art W. , Rice Kerry L.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the authors examine past and current efforts in evaluating the quality of online high school courses. They argue that policy organizations in the United States have made recommendations to guide the design and delivery of effective high school online courses. However, past efforts at determining the quality of online courses have focused primarily on broad-based program evaluations and the development of standards lacking specific evaluation criteria. They propose the development of evaluation processes and instruments based on solid theoretical foundations which embody learnercentered instructional practices, communities of inquiry, and a proven record of empirically-based research results. They suggest that a history of research evaluating instructional effectiveness using the Seven Principles of Effective Teaching combined with the inclusion of principles of cognitive presence in assessing deep learning may provide a useful framework for establishing empirically-based guidelines for evaluating the quality of online instruction.
A Formative Analysis of Interactive Classroom Communication Systems Used in Secondary School Classrooms
Authors: Kay Robin
Published: May 2011

Extensive research has been done on the use of Interactive Classroom Communication Systems (ICCS) in higher education, but not in secondary schools. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the benefits, challenges, and strategies observed when using ICCS in higher education. This overview is then used to analyze and interpret quantitative and qualitative data collected from 659 secondary school students. The main benefits that students identified for using ICCS were increased use of formative assessment, higher engagement and motivation, enhanced participation, and improved focus during class. Students were relatively neutral, though, with respect to whether ICCS improved class discussion or learning. The main challenges that students reported were increased stress and uncertainty of answers when ICCS were used in a formal test situation. Males were significantly more positive toward ICCS, as were students who had higher comfort levels with technology. When ICCS were used for formative assessment as opposed to formal tests, students were significantly more accepting. The chapter concludes with suggestions for educators and future research.
Internet-Based Peer Assessment in High School Settings
Authors: Tsai Chin-Chung
Published: May 2011

Many educators have suggested the usage of peer assessment for the improvement of learning outcomes. Peer assessment facilitated by Internet technology can enhance anonymity and lead to better interactions between students and peer reviewers. In addition, online peer assessment can effectively store students’ peer interactions and learning progression portfolios for further analyses or evaluations. However, most peer assessment studies have been conducted with higher education students, such as college or graduate students. This chapter reports an initial meta-analysis of a series of research utilizing online peer assessment involving Taiwanese high school students. This study also summarizes some practical principles for conducting online peer assessment in high school settings. Finally, this chapter proposes the required literacy of using Internet-based peer assessment, both for the learners and teachers.
Moodling Professional Development Training that Worked
Authors: Hemphill Leaunda S. , McCaw Donna S.
Published: May 2011

Three junior high teachers and 12 senior high school teachers were introduced to online teaching strategies and tools in a three-day workshop. The teachers developed their basic online course shell on Moodle, an open-source online course management system. Following the workshop, teachers revised their course shells and created short teaching modules to meet the differentiated needs of their students. The modules were evaluated using a modified version of the Quality Online Course Initiative (QOCI) Rubric (Illinois Online Network, 2007). All teacher participants completed the workshop training and 14 successfully met all the QOCI criteria on their modules. This Moodle training was a capstone experience following three years of curricula, content, and pedagogical training through the ISAMS project. The project was funded as part of a No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Teacher Improvement grant which provided professional development for math and science teachers.
A Flow Theory Integrated Model of Web IS Success
Authors: Garrity Edward J. , Kim Yong Jin , O’Donnell Joseph B. , Rhee Cheul , Sanders G. Lawrence
Published: May 2011

This chapter develops a new model of web IS success that takes into account both intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors. The proposed model begins with the Garrity and Sanders model of technologic acceptance and develops an extended nomological network of success factors that draws on motivation and flow theory.
Evolving a Strategy for Web-Based Shopping Systems
Authors: Kim Changsu , Galliers Robert D. , Yang Kyung Hoon , Kim Jaekyung
Published: May 2011

The world is witnessing a continuous expansion of electronic commerce into the global digital economy. As an enabler of new businesses, Web-based shopping systems (WBSS) are at the heart of the major issues surrounding electronic commerce growth. Their wide use has profoundly altered the ways in which businesses and customers, and businesses and businesses interact on the basis of digital transactions. Despite the importance of WBSS, the theoretical study of their strategies has been sparse. This article offers a theoretical analysis of evolutionary processes in WBSS strategies. For that purpose, we propose a classification model of WBSS. Based upon the model, WBSS are classified into four types: (1) general-direct-sales (GDS); (2) general-intermediary-sales (GIS); (3) specialized-direct-sales (SDS); and (4) specialized-intermediary-sales (SIS). On the basis of these four categories of WBSS, we analyze the characteristics of WBSS and suggest five evolution strategies for WBSS, which have implications for both theory and practice. Amazon.com’s strategic movements, such as product line expansion through alliance and acquisition, provide an exemplary case of the evolution of WBSS strategy. We expect that this article will serve as a guide for Internet businesses and as a catalyst for new research agendas relevant to web-based shopping and electronic commerce.
Mixing Soft Systems Methodology and UML in Business Process Modeling
Authors: Sewchurran Kosheek , Petkov Doncho
Published: May 2011

The chapter provides an action research account of formulating and applying a new business process modeling framework to a manufacturing processes to guide software development. It is based on a mix of soft systems methodology (SSM) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) business process modeling extensions suggested by Eriksson and Penker. The combination of SSM and UML is justified through the ideas on Multimethodology by Mingers. The Multimethodology framework is used to reason about the combination of methods from different paradigms in a single intervention. The proposed framework was applied to modeling the production process in an aluminum rolling plant as a step in the development of a new information system for it. The reflections on the intervention give details on how actual learning and appreciation is facilitated using SSM leading to better UML models of business processes.
A Review of IS Research Activities and Outputs Using Pro Forma Abstracts
Authors: Andoh-Baidoo Francis Kofi , White Baker Elizabeth , Susarapu Santa R. , Kasper George M.
Published: May 2011

Using March and Smith’s taxonomy of information systems (IS) research activities and outputs and Newman’s method of pro forma abstracting, this research mapped the current space of IS research and identified research activities and outputs that have received very little or no attention in the top IS publishing outlets. We reviewed and classified 1,157 articles published in some of the top IS journals and the ICIS proceedings for the period 1998–2002. The results demonstrate the efficacy of March and Smith’s (1995) taxonomy for summarizing the state of IS research and for identifying activity-output categories that have received little or no attention. Examples of published research occupying cells of the taxonomy are cited, and research is posited to populate the one empty cell. The results also affirm the need to balance theorizing with building and evaluating systems because the latter two provide unique feedback that encourage those theories that are the most promising in practice.
Responsibilities and Liabilities with Respect to Catastrophes
Authors: Axelrod C. Warren
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the impact of catastrophes on information security and suggests who might have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate level of data protection when a catastrophe occurs. The author asserts that catastrophe contingency planning is very different from regular forms of business continuity and disaster recovery planning in terms of size, focus, scope, and content. Catastrophe contingency plans (CCPs) must comprehend a broad range of potential events affecting large numbers of humans and other living creatures, information processing capabilities, information and media, buildings, and infrastructure, and the like, each with its security considerations, and each characterized by its own roles, responsibilities and liabilities. The intent of the chapter is encourage the development of more comprehensive and realistic CCPs, that is, plans that delineate roles and responsibilities clearly and liabilities should CCPs go awry.
Formal Analysis of Security in Interactive Systems
Authors: Cerone Antonio
Published: May 2011

Reducing the likelihood of human error in the use of interactive systems is increasingly important. Human errors could not only hinder the correct use and operation, they can also compromise the safety and security of such systems. Hence the need for formal methods to analyze and verify the correctness of interactive systems, particularly with regards to human interaction. This chapter examines the use of formal modeling and analysis of security properties of interactive systems. The reader is introduced to some basic concepts in security and human-computer interaction, followed by formal modeling of human cognitive behavior and analysis of such systems. Authors highlight the use of model-checking to drive the system development to design secure user actions and sequences of actions. Authors also analyze the patterns of user behavior that may lead to security violation. Finally, particular areas of security protocol design where human interaction plays a key role are discussed.
Detecting Shill Bidding in Online English Auctions
Authors: Trevathan Jarrod
Published: May 2011

Shill bidding is where spurious bids are introduced into an auction to drive up the final price for the seller, thereby defrauding legitimate bidders. While shilling is recognized as a problem, presently there is little or no established means of defense against shills. This chapter presents an algorithm to detect the presence of shill bidding in online auctions. It observes bidding patterns over a series of auctions, providing each bidder a score indicating the likelihood of his/her potential involvement in shill behavior. The algorithm has been tested on data obtained from a series of realistic simulated auctions, and commercial online auctions. The algorithm is able to prune the search space required to detect which bidders are likely to be shills. This has significant practical and legal implications for commercial online auctions where shilling is considered a major threat. This chapter presents a framework for a feasible solution, which acts as a detection mechanism and a deterrent.
The Sense of Security and Trust
Authors: Murayama Yuko , Hauser Carl , Hikage Natsuko , Chakraborty Basabi
Published: May 2011

The sense of security, identified with the Japanese term, Anshin, is identified as an important contributor to emotional trust. This viewpoint suggests that designers should consider the subjective sense of security as well as objective security measures in designing systems and their user interfaces. A survey of users reveals both the personal and the environmental factors contributing to the users’ sense of security when using the Internet. A more encompassing view of Anshin as including safety, reliability, and other non-functional properties of systems may provide additional insights for system design.
Achieving Sustainable Tailorable Software Systems by Collaboration Between End-Users and Developers
Authors: Eriksson Jeanette , Dittrich Yvonne
Published: May 2011

This chapter reports on a case study performed in cooperation with a telecommunication provider. The telecom business changes rapidly as new services are continuously introduced. The rapidly changing business environment demands that the company has supportive, sustainable information systems to stay on the front line of the business area. The company’s continuous evolution of the IT-infrastructure makes it necessary to tailor the interaction between different applications. The objective of the case study was to explore what is required to allow end users to tailor the interaction between flexible applications in an evolving IT-infrastructure to provide for software sustainability. The case study followed a design research paradigm where a prototype was created and evaluated from a use perspective. The overall result shows that allowing end users to tailor the interaction between flexible applications in an evolving IT infrastructure relies on, among other things, an organization that allows cooperation between users and developers that supports both evolution and tailoring.
Contingencies in the KMS Design
Authors: Baloh Peter
Published: May 2011

Improving how knowledge is leveraged in organizations for improved business performance is currently considered as a major organizational change. Knowledge management (KM) projects are stigmatized as demanding, fuzzy, and complex, with questionable outcomes—more than 70% of them do not deliver what they promised. While most organizations have deployed knowledge management systems (KMSs), only a handful have been able to leverage these investments. Existing knowledge management (KM) research offered valuable insights on how to introduce KMSs in a sense of innovation-diffusion, yet little guidance has been offered to KMS developers who need to decide on functionalities of a tool they are to introduce in particular organizational setting. The goal of this chapter is to propose theoretical background for design of KMS that successfully support and enable new knowledge creation and existing knowledge utilization. By using principles of the design science, design profiles proposed build upon works from organization and IS sciences, primarily the Evolutionary Information-Processing Theory of Knowledge Creation (Li & Kettinger, 2006) and the Task Technology Fit Theory (Zigurs & Buckland, 1998), the latter being amended for particularities of the KM environment. Proposed fit profiles suggest that one-size-fits-all approaches do not work and that organizations must take, in contrast with extant literature, a segmented approach to KM activities and fitting technological support.
Covert End User Development
Authors: Ferneley Elaine H.
Published: May 2011

End user development (EUD) of system applications is typically undertaken by end users for their own, or closely aligned colleagues, business needs. EUD studies have focused on activity that is small scale, is undertaken with management consent and will ultimately be brought into alignment with the organisation’s software development strategy. However, due to the increase pace of today’s organisations EUD activity increasing takes place without the full knowledge or consent of management, such developments can be defined as covert rather than subversive, they emerge in response to the dynamic environments in which today’s organisations operate. This chapter reports on a covert EUD project where a wide group of internal and external stakeholders worked collaboratively to drive an organisation’s software development strategy. The research highlights the future inevitability of external stakeholders engaging in end user development as, with the emergence of wiki and blog-like environments, the boundaries of organisations’ technological artifacts become increasingly hard to define.
Web-Based Surveys in China
Authors: Davidson Robert M. , Kim Carol S.P. , Li Maggie Y. , Li Yuan , Ou Carol X.J.
Published: May 2011

In the last few years, Web-based surveys have received increased attention given their potential to cut the costs and time associated with paper-based surveys. In this chapter, we consider the feasibility of using the Web as a data collection medium in China, with a current Internet population of 253 million. Following a review of the literature regarding the design, implementation and application of Web surveys, and the current state of data collection in developing countries in general and China in particular, we describe how we have developed and implemented two Web-based survey instruments in the Chinese context. The survey data, both qualitative and quantitative, is analysed and discussed with a view to drawing up instructive guidance for researchers interested to use the Web as a data collection tool in China, as well as developing countries more generally. The Web-based survey has great potential in these contexts, if sensitively designed and implemented. We consider the implications of this research and identify areas where future research is necessary.
Mobile Phone Communication Innovation in Multiple Time and Space Zones
Authors: Chan Shirley
Published: May 2011

In most parts of the world, it is generally considered impolite or even rude to pick up an incoming mobile phone call and to have a longer (and loud) conversation in public places. Yet this type of interruption is generally acceptable in Hong Kong. This inspired the authors to ask: How does Hong Kong culture impact the perception of mobile phone interruption? This research note is about an ethnographical study on the culture in Hong Kong indicating a more positive perception towards mobile phone interruption. Their research results show that the cultural characteristics of fast pace, deal-making and sense of urgency explain why Hong Kong people are receptive towards such interruption and have the habit of participating in both the physical and mobile spaces at the same time. Their findings also challenge the engaging-disengaging paradox theory - that is, mobile phone users find it difficult to simultaneously engage in parallel activities
Advances in Knowledge Management
Authors: Hornett Andrea , Stein Eric W.
Published: May 2011

This chapter adds to our understanding of knowledge management as an evolving body of concepts, relationships, strategies and practices. Using qualitative research methods, we examined activities of a community of practice for knowledge management professionals operating in a large metropolitan U.S. region. Accordingly, we produced an organizing framework that maps KM topics according to the tactical-strategic orientation of the KM issue and level of analysis (individual-group-enterprise). We constructed and populated the framework based on a content analysis of forty-four presentations made from 2001-2005, from survey data, from interviews conducted with key informants, and from data collected as participant-observers. The work provides insight into the decision-making processes of stakeholders with competing interests and adds to our understanding of collective sensemaking (Weick, 1995) in a community of practice. From the data, we generated a framework that can be used by practitioners to allocate resources for KM activities, technologies, and projects.
Modeling Fault Tolerant and Secure Mobile Agent Execution in Distributed Systems
Authors: Hamidi H.
Published: May 2011

The reliable execution of mobile agents is a very important design issue in building mobile agent systems and many fault-tolerant schemes have been proposed so far. Security is a major problem of mobile agent systems, especially when monetary transactions are concerned. Security for the partners involved is handled by encryption methods based on a public key authentication mechanism and by secret key encryption of the communication. To achieve fault tolerance for the agent system, especially for the agent transfer to a new host, we use distributed transaction processing. We propose a fault-tolerant approach for mobile agents design which offers a user transparent fault tolerance that can be activated on request, according to the needs of the task. We also discuss how transactional agents with different types of commitment constraints can commit transactions. Furthermore, we present a solution for effective agent deployment using dynamic agent domains.
Search Engine Performance Comparisons
Authors: Meng Xiannong , Xing Song
Published: May 2011

This chapter reports the results of a project attempting to assess the performance of a few major search engines from various perspectives. The search engines involved in the study include the Microsoft Search Engine (MSE) when it was in its beta test stage, AllTheWeb, and Yahoo. In a few comparisons, other search engines such as Google, Vivisimo are also included. The study collects statistics such as the average user response time, average process time for a query reported by MSE, as well as the number of pages relevant to a query reported by all search engines involved. The project also studies the quality of search results generated by MSE and other search engines using RankPower as the metric. We found MSE performs well in speed and diversity of the query results, while weaker in other statistics, compared to some other leading search engines. The contribution of this chapter is to review the performance evaluation techniques for search engines and use different measures to assess and compare the quality of different search engines, especially MSE.
Supporting Demand Supply Network Optimization with Petri Nets
Authors: Tynjala Teemu
Published: May 2011

The present study implements a generic methodology for describing and analyzing demand supply networks (i.e. networks from a company’s suppliers through to its customers). There can be many possible demand supply networks with different logistics costs for a product. Therefore, we introduced a Petri Net-based formalism, and a reachability analysis-based algorithm that finds the optimum demand supply network for a user-specified product structure. The method has been implemented and is currently in production use inside all Nokia business groups. It is used in demand supply planning of both network elements and handsets. An example of the method’s application to a concrete Nokia product is included.