Effects of an ontology display with history representation on organizational memory information systems

Ontologies, as a possible element of organizational memory information systems, appear to support organizational learning. Ontology tools can be used to share knowledge among the members of an organization. However, current ontology-viewing user interfaces of ontology tools do not fully support organizational learning, because most of them lack proper history representation in their display. In this study, a conceptual model was developed that emphasized the role of ontology in the organizational learning cycle and explored the integration of history representation in the ontology display. Based on the experimental results from a split-plot design with 30 participants, two conclusions were derived: first, appropriately selected history representations in the ontology display help users to identify changes in the ontologies; and second, compatibility between types of ontology display and history representation is more important than ontology display and history representation in themselves.     

基于本体的战场信息表示方法研究

提出了一种基于本体的战场信息表示方法,与现有的信息描述方法不同,该方法侧重于对战场信息内容和语义的表示,突出了战场事件、实体和关系。在对战场信息进行一体化描述的同时,增强了信息的可理解性、互操作性,尤其是对于基于语义的作战任务需求信息的挖掘和信息质量综合评估具有重要作用。     

A metadata filter for intranet portal organizational memory information systems

An intranet portal is proposed as an information infrastructure to support organizational learning. Specifically, an agent-like metadata filter for easy information/knowledge retrieval in the intranet portal is suggested and tested. The metadata filter preserves the context of digital objects and presents an uncluttered window by controlling the metadata elements. An experiment using 20 participants examined whether the metadata filter reduces search and retrieval performance time (the dependent variable). The main results indicate that the metadata filter significantly (36%) improved user's performance in identifying information. The results of the study suggest that the proposed metadata filer may be an effective interface tool to improve users' performances in identifying information in an intranet portal organizational memory information system.     

基于本体的工艺准备信息表达方法研究

为了实现工艺准备过程中信息的集成与共享,提出了将本体思想应用于工艺准备过程.建立了面向本体技术的工艺准备信息模型,描述了工艺准备领域本体及其结构,并给出了领域本体的形式化定义.为了解决领域本体一致性问题,给出了领域本体相似性计算方法,并设计了领域本体合并规则,最后通过一个应用实例验证了方法的有效性.     

The organizational fit of information systems

Abstract. One can expect that the fit, match or congruence between an information system and its organizational context will be of increasing importance as information systems become more and more integral parts of organizations. Existing IS research has largely neglected the theoretical analysis of the concept 'fit', however, even though it has been widely used in a 'pre-theoretical' sense. The analysis of the concept of 'organizational fit of an information system' put forward in this article is essentially based on the recent analysis of 'fit' in contingency theory, suggesting three interpretations for the concept: a selection approach, an interaction approach and a systems approach. A review of the IS literature on the organizational fit of information systems indicates a lack of any cumulative tradition in existing empirical contingency research into information systems and dominance of the selection approach. Because of the two limitations, this paper regards any definite assessment of the potential prospects of contingency research into information systems as overhasty and proposes a framework for future research into the situation dependence and organizational fit of information systems which integrates contingency research into information systems, contingency research into IS impacts and contingency research into the IS adoption (development/implementation) process.     

Effects of organizational context and inter-group behaviour on the success of strategic information systems planning: an empirical study

The strategic value of information systems (IS) and the impact of information technology (IT) on business competitiveness has increased the need for effective strategic information systems planning (SISP). However, numerous strategic information systems planning methodologies stress the rational and formal aspects of organizational life, while ignoring the complexity of actual organizational situations which are characterized by human behaviour. Additionally, although numerous researchers have conducted empirical studies examining the relationship between various factors and strategic IS planning effectiveness, many factors have received little attention. This study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyse the effects of organizational context and inter-group behaviour on the success of SISP. A survey of senior IS executives in Taiwan was used to test the relationships between the constructs in the research model. The results showed that certain factors relating to organizational context and inter-group behaviour influenced the success of SISP. Finally, the implications of this finding for IS practice and future research are examined.     

PRONTO: An ontology for comprehensive and consistent representation of product information

Nowadays, it is quite common for collaborating organizations (or even different areas within a company) to develop and maintain their own product model. This situation leads to information duplication and its associated problems. Besides, traditional product models do not properly handle the high number of variants managed in today competitive markets. In addition, there is a need for an integrated product model to be shared by all the organizations participating in global supply chains (SCs) or all the areas within a company. One way to reach an intelligent integration among product models is by means of an ontology. PRoduct ONTOlogy (PRONTO) is an ontology for the product modeling domain, able to efficiently handle product variants. It defines and integrates two hierarchies to represent product information: the abstraction hierarchy (AH) and the structural one (SH). This contribution presents a ConceptBase formal specification of PRONTO that focuses on the structural hierarchy of products. This hierarchy is a tool to handle product information associated with the multiple available recipes or processes to manufacture a particular product or a set of similar products. The formal specification presented in the paper also includes mechanisms to infer structural information from the explicit knowledge represented at each of the AH levels: Family, VariantSet and Product. This proposal efficiently handles a great number of variants and allows representing product information with distinct granularity degrees, which is a requirement for planning activities taking place at different time horizons. PRONTO easily manages crucial features that should be taken into account in a product representation, such as the efficient handling of product families and variants concepts, composition and decomposition structures and the possibility of specifying constraints. To demonstrate the semantic expressiveness of the proposed ontology a food industry related case-study is addressed and discussed in detail.     

Semantic integration of enterprise information systems using meta-metadata ontology

This paper proposes a non-domain-specific metadata ontology as a core component in a semantic model-based document management system (DMS), a potential contender towards the enterprise information systems of the next generation. What we developed is the core semantic component of an ontology-driven DMS, providing a robust semantic base for describing documents’ metadata. We also enabled semantic services such as automated semantic translation of metadata from one domain to another. The core semantic base consists of three semantic layers, each one serving a different view of documents’ metadata. The core semantic component’s base layer represents a non-domain-specific metadata ontology founded on ebRIM specification. The main purpose of this ontology is to serve as a meta-metadata ontology for other domain-specific metadata ontologies. The base semantic layer provides a generic metadata view. For the sake of enabling domain-specific views of documents’ metadata, we implemented two domain-specific metadata ontologies, semantically layered on top of ebRIM, serving domain-specific views of the metadata. In order to enable semantic translation of metadata from one domain to another, we established model-to-model mappings between these semantic layers by introducing SWRL rules. Having the semantic translation of metadata automated not only allows for effortless switching between different metadata views, but also opens the door for automating the process of documents long-term archiving. For the case study, we chose judicial domain as a promising ground for improving the efficiency of the judiciary by introducing the semantics in this field.     

Development and validation of user-adaptive navigation and information retrieval tools for an intranet portal organizational memory information system

Based on previous research and properties of organizational memory, a conceptual model for navigation and retrieval functions in an Intranet portal organizational memory information system was proposed, and two human-centred features (memory structure map and history-based tool) were developed to support user's navigation and retrieval in a well-known organizational memory. To test two hypotheses concerning the validity of the conceptual model and two human-centred features, an experiment was conducted with 30 subjects. Testing of the two hypotheses indicated the following: (1) the memory structure map's users showed 29% better performance in navigation, and (2) the history-based tool's users outperformed by 34% in identifying information. The results of the study suggest that a conceptual model and two human-centred features could be used in an user-adaptive interface design to improve user's performance in an intranet portal organizational memory information system.     

Development and validation of user-adaptive navigation and information retrieval tools for an intranet portal organizational memory information system

Based on previous research and properties of organizational memory, a conceptual model for navigation and retrieval functions in an Intranet portal organizational memory information system was proposed, and two human-centred features (memory structure map and history-based tool) were developed to support user's navigation and retrieval in a well-known organizational memory. To test two hypotheses concerning the validity of the conceptual model and two human-centred features, an experiment was conducted with 30 subjects. Testing of the two hypotheses indicated the following: (1) the memory structure map's users showed 29% better performance in navigation, and (2) the history-based tool's users outperformed by 34% in identifying information. The results of the study suggest that a conceptual model and two human-centred features could be used in an user-adaptive interface design to improve user's performance in an intranet portal organizational memory information system.     

Human and organizational issues in information systems development

Abstract

The paper describes the first phase of a project funded in the UK by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Science and Engineering Research Council (Project I ED 1249). The paper reviews a number of systems development methods, examines the extent to which they incorporate consideration of a set of relevant human and organizational issues, and describes the findings of an exploratory study of the ways in which systems analysts work, including their use of methods.     

Human and organizational issues in information systems development

The paper describes the first phase of a project funded in the UK by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Science and Engineering Research Council (Project I ED 1249). The paper reviews a number of systems development methods, examines the extent to which they incorporate consideration of a set of relevant human and organizational issues, and describes the findings of an exploratory study of the ways in which systems analysts work, including their use of methods.     

Interface methods for using intranet portal organizational memory information system

In this paper, an intranet portal is considered as an information infrastructure (organizational memory information system, OMIS) supporting organizational learning. The properties and the hierarchical structure of information and knowledge in an intranet portal OMIS was identified as a problem for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface. The problem relates to navigation and retrieval functions of intranet portal OMIS and is expected to adversely affect user performance, satisfaction, and usefulness. To solve the problem, a conceptual model for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface was proposed and an experiment using a crossover design was conducted with 10 participants. In the experiment, a separate access method (tabbed tree tool) was compared to an unified access method (single tree tool). The results indicate that each information/knowledge repository for which a user has a different structural knowledge should be handled separately with a separate access to increase user satisfaction and the usefulness of the OMIS and to improve user performance in navigation.     

Interface methods for using intranet portal organizational memory information system

In this paper, an intranet portal is considered as an information infrastructure (organizational memory information system, OMIS) supporting organizational learning. The properties and the hierarchical structure of information and knowledge in an intranet portal OMIS was identified as a problem for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface. The problem relates to navigation and retrieval functions of intranet portal OMIS and is expected to adversely affect user performance, satisfaction, and usefulness. To solve the problem, a conceptual model for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface was proposed and an experiment using a crossover design was conducted with 10 participants. In the experiment, a separate access method (tabbed tree tool) was compared to an unified access method (single tree tool). The results indicate that each information/knowledge repository for which a user has a different structural knowledge should be handled separately with a separate access to increase user satisfaction and the usefulness of the OMIS and to improve user performance in navigation.     

Interoperation among agent-based information systems through a communication acts ontology

Information technology is evolving from focusing on local systems to encompassing a more global interaction among multiple systems in enterprises and communities. On the one hand, new advances in the area of network communications have facilitated in some way the intercommunication among heterogeneous information systems located at different places. However, what is still missing is the possibility of a real and efficient interoperation among those systems in an open environment as the one favoured by Internet. On the other hand, agent technology provides platforms where cooperative work of information systems is concernable because of the software agents working on behalf of these information systems. But, nowadays that cooperation is in general restricted and requires a laborious a priori preparation. In this paper we present the features of a formal ontology that can play a relevant role in the development of a new kind of information systems interoperation frameworks. The ontology includes classes and properties for describing communication acts among agents. We claim that the communication acts ontology provides interoperability support due to the recognition of communication acts from one Agent Communication Language (acl) as instances of communication acts in another acl. Sometimes the comprehension will not be complete, but partial comprehension of the communication may be useful and preferable to the “not understood” answer given nowadays. Terms of the ontology are described as classes or properties using the Web Ontology Language owl.     

Decision on the memory size of embedded information systems in an ubiquitous maintenance environment

Over the last decade, emerging information communication technologies have changed our stereotype of manufacturing and service companies. Now products equipped with embedded systems can be wirelessly networked, which leads to gathering and analyzing product status, and taking appropriate actions for maintenance operations during product lifecycle in an ubiquitous way. In this environment, it is necessary to determine the appropriate memory size of embedded systems for minimizing total maintenance system costs because the memory cost is a main cost factor for implementing the ubiquitous maintenance environment. We call it memory size decision problem in this study. We have formulated this problem with a non-linear model having constraints. The decision variable is the memory size of each embedded system. To solve this problem, we have proposed a meta heuristic search method based on genetic algorithms. To show the usefulness of the proposed heuristic, we have carried out computational experiments.     

Organizational memory information systems: a transactive memory approach

Effective management of organizational memory (OM) is critical to collaboration and knowledge sharing in organizations. We present a framework for managing organizational memory based on transactive memory, a mechanism of collective memory in small groups. While being effective in small groups, there are difficulties hindering the extension of transactive memory to larger groups. We claim that information technology can be used to help overcome these difficulties. We present a formal architecture for directories of meta-memories required in extended transactive memory systems and propose the use of meta-knowledge to substitute for the lack of tacit group knowledge that exists in small groups.     

Organizational identity and information systems: how organizational ICT reflect who an organization is

The work reported here contributes to our understanding of organizational identity regarding its influence on organizational action related to the development of information and communications technologies (ICT). The empirical basis of this work comes from case studies of integrated criminal justice information systems (IJIS). IJIS are organizational and technological ensembles created to facilitate inter-organizational information sharing among criminal justice agencies. The focus of these case studies was to examine how organizational identity shapes organizational ICT. This research found that organizational identity shapes an organization’s ICT-related processes and is reflected in the material configurations of an organization’s ICT; and that organizations with different identities exhibit those differences in their ICT. Three implications of this research are that organizational identity serves as both an enabler and constraint on organizational ICT development; organizational identity commitments will likely serve as a barrier to large-scale integration of different organizations’ systems; organizational identity is relatively static and difficult to change.