Cloud computing monitors applications, virtual and physical resources to ensure performance capacity, workload management, optimize future application updates and so on. Current state-of-the- art monitoring solutions in the cloud focus on monitoring in application/service level, virtual and physical (infrastructure) level. While some of the researchers have identified the importance of monitoring users, there is still need for developing solutions, implementation and evaluation in this domain. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to extract end-user usage of cloud services from their interactions with the interfaces provided to access the services called User-level Usage Monitoring. We provide the principles necessary for the usage data extraction process and analyse existing cloud monitoring techniques from the identified principles. Understanding end-user usage patterns and behaviour can help developers and architects to assess how applications work and how users satisfy with the provided services.
Collaboration is frequently cited as a driver for sustainable success, and yet despite over half of all small businesses in OECD countries being run from the home, within the existing literature little attention is paid to how these businesses work with others. This article therefore presents a quantitative study into the collaborative behaviours exhibited by home-based businesses located within OECD countries. Based on a large, cross sectional data set collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, this exploratory study outlines the extent of collaboration among home-based businesses, the nature of their collaborative activities and the relationships which exist between the different behaviours that are exhibited. The study finds that collaboration is a widespread occurrence among home-based businesses, with over 75% of home-based businesses collaborating in some way. Furthermore, home-based business collaboration is diverse in its nature and is present across all industries. Moreover, it is found that collaboration among home-based businesses is distinct enough from the current findings of collaboration among SMEs that it warrants further investigation.
Agility is a term used in many works in the context of information systems. When studying the concept closer, it became obvious that there is a terminological heterogeneity preventing a common definition whilst at the same time not preventing the frequent use of the term. In order to approach the term in a structured way, the following two paths were chosen. Firstly, the term was traced back to its roots which showed its first appearance in organisational theory. Secondly, the major IS conferences (ECIS and ICIS) and the requirements engineering conference as a major computer science conference were analysed from 2001 when the agile manifesto was published which led to a wave of works on agility. The descriptive results are presented in the paper.
The introduction of a new IT application within an organisation represents change, and the acceptance of such change starts with the individual end users since they are the ones that often resist the newly introduced IT. With the use of survey, this research identified the factors that affect the acceptance of new technologies in the workplace in order to understand better how end-users can influence the successful introduction of IT in academic institutions. We used one Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Hong Kong and one HEI in the UK in order to gather our data and cross analyse the differences between the two institutions. Our research showed that the staff at both universities have a high Behavioral Intention (BI) to use new technologies. However, there was no significant difference between the two universities, which meant these dimensions had no effect on the staff who worked at these universities.
This development paper notes that IT work has been increasingly subjected to processes associated with ‘servitization’ through managerial frameworks that espouse working practices managed according to principles of scientific rationalisation (specifically but not exclusively, ITIL). This has been (re-)shaping the experience of working as an IT technical professional, and thereby has implications for professional identity. In the following short paper, some of the literature in relation to this matter is discussed (as the basis for a future research project). This paper suggests how managerialism is embedded within the IT servitization discourse and this has implications for de-skilling and loss of professional autonomy.
Question and Answering (Q&A) communities have become effective forums for humans to collaborate and build accurate domain-specific archives of information. Stack Overflow is a prime example of a system which has effectively leveraged Q&A to build a strong archive of computer programming information. However, English is the dominant language in size and scope. To reach a wider audience, Stack Overflow has started language-specific sites. In this paper, we seek to understand how these language version sites are used, and whether they form unique Q&A structures or mirror the English version. The results indicate that each site is structured differently, and that users of different languages have different question asking patterns. The contributions from this work are useful in informing designers of systems attempting to conduct language versioning and provide an argument for developing sites within languages, rather than only providing translated versions.
predicting the disease is plays an important role in improving the public health. The problem of predicting possible diseases reduce some of the diseases may come in the future. The health recommendation system predicts the disease and recommends the suitable diet and exercises. Context aware recommendation systems produce more relevant recommendations with the help of contextual information. In this paper we have proposed a context aware recommendation system to predict diseases based on the context of the user and recommend a suitable diet and exercises. The experimental results show that the performance of our proposed system is an efficient in predicting the disease and recommending the diet and exercise.
Enterprises have been turning to explicitand even conceptualizing on tacitKnowledge Management to elaborate a systematic approach to develop and sustain the intellectual capital needed to succeed. To be able to do that, you must be able to visualize your organization as consisting of nothing but knowledge and knowledge flows. Hence, creating the ability of further actively classifying existing organizational content evolving from and within data feeds, in an algorithmic manner, potentially giving insightful schemes and dynamics by which organizational know-how is visualized. In this paper, we discuss an empirical research study that was conducted previously to try and explore knowledge diffusion in a specialist knowledge domain.
Business collaboration is frequently used as a method for small businesses to maximise their chances of success in competitive markets, allowing as it does for a reduction in transaction costs and access to resources held by other businesses. Home-based businesses in particular stand to benefit from collaborative arrangements, owing to the typical scarcity of resources available to them. Despite the relative prevalence of collaborative behaviours exhibited by such businesses, very little research has been performed to study the factors which impact a home-based businesses propensity for collaboration. This positional paper presents an investigation into those factor using a “pre-collaborative” approach, using quantitative methods applied to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data to discern commonalities present within the organisational, technological and environmental conditions of home-based businesses which display a collaborative inclination, to determine the underlying factors which predispose these businesses to the formation of collaborative relationships.
This study aims to identify the implications of I4.0 to both Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Human Resources Management (HRM) by finding out the topics that take place at the intersection of them. Another objective is helping the readers to realize the expected changes in these two areas due to I4.0 in order to take the necessary steps in advance and make recommendations to catch up the latest trends. The topics covered in the developments of I4.0, such as digitization, Internet of Things, big data, cloud usage etc. are highly related to Information Systems. As found in the literature, this study is the first to combine the I4.0, SCM and HRM and urges to lead future works by finding out the intersections of those three areas. The findings of the study have visualized and the intersections of those topics are explained in order to see what are the future expectations and important developments in those areas.
Currently, undertaking qualitative multi-disciplinary studies in Information Systems (IS) domain has been increased. Accordingly, the congruence between research philosophy and methodology allows the IS researchers to identify the overall strategy of the study and avoid unnecessary efforts. Consequently, application of innovative research philosophies, such as critical realism, which benefits from ideas of multiple philosophies (e.g. positivism and interpretivism) is reflected to be more to meet the requirements of multi-disciplinary IS researches. Critical realism allows the use of a well-developed and well-structured path to the research through identifying core elements including mechanisms, structures, and events. This research attempts to provide a distinctive approach for unification of critical realism philosophy and qualitative research through a literature analysis and according to the supplies of qualitative approach and the idea of fishbone diagram. It also offers a novel strategy for the validation of qualitative research based on the qualitative validity criteria and the requirements of the empirical stratum of critical realism philosophy.
Digital transformation is a daunting process for many business leaders, who sometimes find themselves in unfamiliar territory. This challenge is particularly prominent for resource-stretched and multi-skilled small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper provides a context for this ongoing discussion, and drivers for transformation will be discussed together with the challenges business leaders are currently facing. Following this, we argue that a digital business can be viewed as an information system (IS) with six common subsystems; people, data, hardware, software, process and communication, that must interconnect effectively. Finally HINGE the project planning approach is introduced and how twelve knowledge transfer partnerships informed this approach. The paper highlights that digital transformation is becoming a necessity and offers a phased approach that enables business leaders to construct a systematic project plan that enables their enterprise to reach new levels of digital maturity in a holistic and meaningful way. Keywords: digital transformation, digital innovation, strategic change, SMEs, KTPs
The rising global population and longevity of individuals place ever-greater demands on healthcare. Increasing choice and complexity of modern treatments make it difficult for clinicians to know and offer the best choices to patients and monitor outcomes to optimise and individualise care. Patients in turn, struggle to adhere to complex treatments offering better outcomes. Information Communication Technologies could improve decision-making by automating aspects of delivery as well as collecting and analysing outcome data that can drive optimisation. We propose an intelligent eHealth-based platform for primary care. The core technology is an Intervention Evolution Engine (IEE) that continuously optimises discreet interventions by comparing two or more versions and replacing the least effective intervention with a new alternative, based on patient feedback. The ultimate aim of this work is to offer a sustainable and exploitable solution for improving and preserving the health and well-being of individuals.
Negotiation activities have often been referred to as a game. For example, negotiators dance around each other, play with different strategies, follow rules and protocols, decide on particular moves from a set of alternatives, and try to achieve the ultimate goal of agreement. This paper presents the results of an explorative literature study examining the inherent game characteristics of electronic negotiations. To consider the context of information system explicitly, we analyse e-negotiations conducted in negotiation support systems. Our results reveal among others a strong social interaction element, various levels of difficulties and challenges, different activity choices that may lead to the same goal and continual feedback during these activities. With respect to current IS trends such as serious games and gamification, these identified game characteristics may serve as a basis for a gamified negotiation support system.
