Information technology’s impact on school–parents and parents–student interrelations: a case study

This paper explores the impact of a school management information system on the interrelations between parents and school and parents and their student children in terms of the children’s learning, behavior and attendance (LBA), during one academic year, in a vocational high school, located in a mainstream socio-economic neighborhood. Parents’ LBA interrelations with the principal, homeroom teachers, grade level coordinators, and the school as an institution as well as with their children changed noticeably. The involvement of parents in general, but of parents with children having LBA problems in particular, in school LBA issues became more intensive, more frequent and more focused. The paper’s results add the information technology dimension to parents involvement in school research, a dimension neglected so far. Implications for the principal’s work are discussed.     

Understanding the impact of business cases on IT investment decisions: An analysis of municipal e-government projects

This study synthesizes the extant literature to derive an integrative developmental framework for IT business cases that can be applied to diagnose the feasibility of technological investments. We then construct a theoretical model that postulates the impact of IT business case elements on the initial cost estimates of technological investments. Subsequently, our theoretical model is subjected to empirical validation through content analysis of IT business cases developed for municipal e-government projects. Findings indicate that the richness of the richness of business cases translates to more initial costs being identified in technological investments, thereby conserving resources for the organization through informed investment decisions.     

Regret avoidance as a measure of DSS success: An exploratory study

Assessing the value of decision support systems (DSS) is an important line of research. Traditionally, researchers adopt user satisfaction and decision performance to measure DSS success. In some cases, however, the use of DSS is not benefit driven. Instead, DSS adoption may be motivated by avoiding decision errors or reducing decision cost, indicating that regret avoidance may be a useful measure of DSS success. Regret is a post-decision feeling regarding not having chosen a better alternative. Recent behavioral research has indicated that, in addition to pursuing higher performance and user satisfaction, reducing decision regret is another important consideration for many decision-makers. This exploratory study extends prior research on DSS evaluation by proposing regret avoidance as an additional measure of DSS success. Experimental results regarding the use of DSS for stock investment demonstrate DSS use significantly reduces regret in situations involving low user satisfaction. Consequently, besides decision performance and user satisfaction, regret reduction is also important in measuring the effectiveness of DSS.     

The usefulness of mobile multimedia communications: a case study

To design new technologies, such as mobile multimedia communications, in a proper way, early assessment of their usefulness and requirements is needed. However, early assessment still lacks a sound methodology. This article presents an early assessment method that has been developed in a case study on the usefulness of mobile multimedia communications. After the introduction, the method will be briefly explained. The method consists of the following stages: preliminary investigation, analysis, scenario development, workshop evaluation, and simulation. These stages contain the aspects and consequences of the reference model that has been explained in the introduction of this volume: (1) the involvement of stakeholder groups; (2) the multi-facet approach to the development and evaluation of telematics applications; (3) the important role of theoretical notions in the development process; (4) the importance of a multi-disciplinary team. A case study in the area of emergency medicine will be presented, focusing on the usefulness of mobile multimedia communications. Finally, conclusions will be drawn from the case study.     

浅议学校档案管理的信息化建设

学校档案建设对于学校管理具有重要的作用。随着办公自动化的普及,档案管理工作也越来越多的运用网络技术进行现代化管理,现代化学校应当建立起现代化的档案管理体制,实现档案管理信息化、自动化。     

Investigating the effort of using business process management technology: Results from a controlled experiment

Business Process Management (BPM) technology has become an important instrument for supporting complex coordination scenarios and for improving business process performance. When considering its use, however, enterprises typically have to rely on vendor promises or qualitative reports. What is still missing and what is demanded by IT decision makers are quantitative evaluations based on empirical and experimental research. This paper picks up this demand and illustrates how experimental research can be applied to technologies enabling enterprises to coordinate their business processes and to associate them with related artifacts and resources. The conducted experiment compares the effort for implementing and maintaining a sample business process either based on standard workflow technology or on a case handling system. We motivate and describe the experimental design, discuss threats for the validity of our experimental results (as well as risk mitigations), and present the results of our experiment. In general, more experimental research is needed in order to obtain valid data on the various aspects and effects of BPM technology and BPM tools.     

IT capability in primary schools — a case of something lost in the translation?

Abstract  This paper examines the National Curriculum guidelines for Information Technology in Key Stages 1 & 2. Problems of interpretation are identified. The results of a survey indicate that primary school teachers lack sufficient understanding, of the concepts involved, to translate guidelines into practice. In-service training is recommended. The likely outcomes of National Curriculum guidelines for information technology are also considered.     

Computerization as a means of cultural change: On the relations between information theories and the idea of an information society

Since World War II the concept of Information has received several new definitions. Information can be understood as knowledge in general, as theoretical, formalized knowledge in general or as knowledge related to specific domains or specific representational forms. Because of these mutually inconsistent concepts the common traits are to be found in a perspective transcendent to those theories. The central cultural changes, it is argued, take place on the level of the societal knowledge infrastructure, evolving from the knowledge infrastructure of the industrial societies as a long-term secularization process, resulting in new forms for representation and manipulation of knowledge. The process is seen as rooted in changes of the primary domains for knowledge extraction and in a change in the human relations to the languages in which we interpret the relations to nature.     

Educational affordances of PDAs: A study of a teacher’s exploration of this technology

This paper reports on a case study of a teacher from a technical education institution who explored the educational affordances of PDA technology over a period of six months. Based on this teacher’s perspectives, the study was designed to inform our own understanding of educational affordances of this new and emerging technology. Understanding of educational affordances is important in the context of planning a suitable intervention to support pedagogically effective integration of PDA technology. The study explicated a set of five affordances of PDA technology: as a multimedia-access tool, connectivity tool, capture tool, representational tool and analytical tool. We call on further research to expand this set into a more comprehensive collage of educational affordances of PDA technology.     

Combined use of GIS and mixed-integer linear programming for identifying optimal agricultural areas for sewage sludge amendment: A case study of Catalonia

This work proposes a systematic decision-making tool for identifying the best geographical areas for sewage sludge (SS) amendment in terms of economic and environmental criteria. Our approach integrates GIS and multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) within a unified framework that allows exploring in a rigorous and systematic manner a large number of alternatives for sewage sludge amendment from which the best ones (according to the decision-makers' preferences) are finally identified. The capabilities of our methodology are illustrated through its application to a case study based on Catalonia (NE of Spain). The tool presented provides as output a set of optimal alternatives for sewage sludge distribution, each one achieving a unique combination of economic and environmental performance. Our ultimate goal is to guide decision-makers toward the adoption of more sustainable patterns for sewage sludge amendment.     

The methodology of multiple-criteria decision making in the optimization of an urban transportation system: case study of Poznań City in Poland

The methodology of multiple-criteria decision making applied to the optimization of an urban transportation system is presented in the paper. Three mathematical models of different complexity are constructed to optimize the allocation of vehicles to certain routes in a mass transit system. All models take into account both passengers' and operator's objectives. The optimization problems are formulated in terms of multiple-objective fuzzy linear programming and multiple-objective non-linear programming. The sensitivity and precision analysis of the models is carried out. Two interactive multi-objective mathematical programming procedures are utilized to solve the problems. They generate samples of Pareto-optimal compromise solutions and provide the decision maker (DM)with an effective tool that supports him/her in the decision making process. Finally, the DM selects the solution that best fits his or her expectations.     

Fuzzy clustering based on linguistic information: a case study on clustering destinations with tourists’ perceptions

A fuzzy clustering method with linguistic information is introduced. It uses a minimizing cross‐entropy model to avoid setting the clustering threshold artificially. During the clustering, the semantics of the linguistic information is conservatively represented by solving a programming. It maximizes the potential differences between the objects to be clustered, and further helps an analyst to reach a semantics‐robust clustering result. A case study on clustering a sample destination set, which includes 13 Asia Pacific regions, based on a group of tourists’ perceptions is also proposed.     

Primary school children’s safe and unsafe use of the Internet at home and at school: An exploratory study

In this study, 1700 primary school pupils (4th, 5th, and 6th grade) of 78 schools in Flanders and their headmasters were questioned about their use of the Internet and their perception and behaviour as to safe Internet use.The results indicate that, next to the expected high level of Internet use at home, there is clear evidence of unsafe Internet use. Exploration of the data reveals that, of the currently taken specific interventions to promote safe Internet use and (un)safe Internet behaviour, only parent control seems to be significantly related to lower degrees of unsafe behaviour. No school-based interventions seem to be associated with the level of unsafe Internet use. The nature of current school-based interventions is discussed and considered to be less effective to expect an impact at the behavioural level. Next to implications for future research, recommendations to reorient school policies and action lines are presented.     

Towards automatic software model checking of thousands of Linux modules—a case study with Avinux

Modular software model checking of large real‐world systems is known to require extensive manual effort in environment modelling and preparing source code for model checking. Avinux is a tool chain that facilitates the automatic analysis of Linux and especially of Linux device drivers. The tool chain is implemented as a plugin for the Eclipse IDE, using the source code bounded model checker CBMC as its backend. Avinux supports a verification process for Linux that is built upon specification annotations with SLICx (an extension of the SLIC language), automatic data environment creation, source code transformation and simplification, and the invocation of the verification backend. In this paper technical details of the verification process are presented: Using Avinux on thousands of drivers from various Linux versions led to the discovery of six new errors. In these experiments, Avinux also reduced the immense overhead of manual code preprocessing that other projects incurred. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Security Attack Testing (SAT)—testing the security of information systems at design time

For the last few years a considerable number of efforts have been devoted into integrating security issues into information systems development practices. This has led to a number of languages, methods, methodologies and techniques for considering security issues during the developmental stages of an information system. However, these approaches mainly focus on security requirements elicitation, analysis and design issues and neglect testing. This paper presents the Security Attack Testing (SAT) approach, a novel scenario-based approach that tests the security of an information system at the design time. The approach is illustrated with the aid of a real-life case study involving the development of a health and social care information system.     

Interactivity in human–computer interaction: a study of credibility, understanding, and influence

Advancements in computer technology have allowed the development of human-appearing and -behaving virtual agents. This study examined if increased richness and anthropomorphism in interface design lead to computers being more influential during a decision-making task with a human partner. In addition, user experiences of the communication format, communication process, and the task partner were evaluated for their association with various features of virtual agents. Study participants completed the Desert Survival Problem (DSP) and were then randomly assigned to one of five different computer partners or to a human partner (who was a study confederate). Participants discussed each of the items in the DSP with their partners and were then asked to complete the DSP again. Results showed that computers were more influential than human partners but that the latter were rated more positively on social dimensions of communication than the former. Exploratory analysis of user assessments revealed that some features of human–computer interaction (e.g. utility and feeling understood) were associated with increases in anthropomorphic features of the interface. Discussion focuses on the relation between user perceptions, design features, and task outcomes.     

The impact of primary school teachers’ educational beliefs on the classroom use of computers

For many years, researchers have searched for the factors affecting the use of computers in the classroom. In studying the antecedents of educational computer use, many studies adopt a rather limited view because only technology-related variables, such as attitudes to computers and computer experience were taken into account. The present study centres on teachers’ educational beliefs (constructivist beliefs, traditional beliefs) as antecedent of computer use, while controlling for the impact of technology-related variables (computer experience, general computer attitudes) and demographical variables (sex, age). In order to identify differences in determinants of computer use in the classroom, multilevel modelling was used (N = 525). For measuring primary teachers’ use of computers to support the leaching or learning process a modified version of the ‘Class Use of Computers’ scale of van Braak et al. [van Braak, J., Tondeur, J., & Valcke, M. (2004). Explaining different types of computer use among primary school teachers. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 19(4), 407–422] was used. The present article supports the hypothesis that teacher beliefs are significant determinants in explaining why teachers adopt computers in the classroom. Next to the impact of computer experience, general computer attitudes and gender, the results show a positive effect of constructivist beliefs on the classroom use of computers. Traditional beliefs have a negative impact on the classroom use of computers.     

A fuzzy extended DELPHI method for adjustment of statistical time series prediction: An empirical study on dry bulk freight market case

This paper investigates the forecasting accuracy of fuzzy extended group decisions in the adjustment of statistical benchmark results. DELPHI is a frequently used method for implementing accurate group consensus decisions. The concept of consensus is subject to expert characteristics and it is sometimes ensured by a facilitator’s judgment. Fuzzy set theory deals with uncertain environments and has been adapted for DELPHI, called fuzzy-DELPHI (FD). The present paper extends the recent literature via an implementation of FD for the adjustment of statistical predictions. We propose a fuzzy-DELPHI adjustment process for improvement of accuracy and introduced an empirical study to illustrate its performance in the validation of adjustments of statistical forecasts in the dry bulk shipping index.     

A case study validation of a knowledge-based approach for the selection of requirements engineering techniques

Requirements engineering (RE) is a critical phase in the software engineering process and plays a vital role in ensuring the overall quality of a software product. Recent research has shown that industry increasingly recognizes the importance of good RE practices and the use of appropriate RE techniques. However, due to the large number of RE techniques, requirements engineers find it challenging to select suitable techniques for a particular project. Unfortunately, technique selection based on personal experience has limitations with regards to the scope, effectiveness and suitability of the RE techniques for the project at hand. In this paper, a Knowledge-based Approach for the Selection of Requirements Engineering Techniques (KASRET) is proposed that helps during RE techniques selection. This approach has three major features. First, a library of requirements techniques was developed which includes detailed knowledge about RE techniques. Second, KASRET integrates advantages of different knowledge representation schemata and reasoning mechanisms. Thus, KASRET provides mechanisms for the management of knowledge about requirements techniques and support for RE process development. Third, as a major decision support mechanism, an objective function evaluates the overall ability and cost of RE techniques, which is helpful for the selection of RE techniques. This paper makes not only a contribution to RE but also to research and application of knowledge management and decision support in process development. A case study using an industrial project shows the support of KASRET for RE techniques selection.