Business Information Systems Workshops

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we seek to discuss and highlight the disruptive innovation that is currently under way in the evolving field of digital currencies and Bitcoin. Second, drawing on theories and frameworks in the Information Systems (IS) discipline, we highlight possible paths for research that will shed light to some of the challenges opened up by the digital currency phenomenon. An agenda for systematic IS research in this area is envisioned to assist the transition from the first era of applications in this domain (i.e. Bitcoin as currency) to more disruptive uses of the Bitcoin protocol as an enabler of decentralized trusted peer-to-peer transaction ledger systems and applications.

The Internet is a reality in people’s lives, enabling the growth of many online services companies. However, to maintain their activities and stay in the market, it’s important for these companies to worry about the quality of the provided services. In this context, it becomes important to be able to assess the client satisfaction regarding those services. The objective of this work is to propose a tool for aiding the evaluation of customer satisfaction in a Brazilian Online Job Search Company through the use of Sentiment Analysis. Sentiment Analysis, or Opinion Mining, refers to the techniques used to extract and evaluate sentiment expressed in textual data. We analyzed a database of an online job search company containing client comments collected from a service cancellation form. This database, among other parameters, has a score assigned by the client and a comment about the services. We performed the classification of the sentiment expressed in the user comments with the aid of a software written in Python, and then calculated the correlation of the sentiment score with the score assigned by the clients. The results lead to the conclusion that the use of Sentiment Analysis serves as a support tool to enrich the customer satisfaction assessment.

Any knowledge management tools which are used in enterprises must be continuously enhanced and adapted to ever changing business needs and priorities. This paper systematically examines the role of the effective use of information and/or knowledge management tools in Polish manufacturing companies. This study addresses the issue of whether or not there is an importance in the use of Web 2.0 Technologies regarding the performance of Polish manufacturing companies. The study is based on a survey and interviews in 25 Polish manufacturing companies which use knowledge management tools.

Business process modelling usually involves perspectives like the functional (what), the organizational (who), the data-based (consuming and producing which information) and the behavioural (when) perspective. However, the so-called “locational” perspective is either neglected or vaguely contained in one of the others. A locational perspective implies that locations are treated as “first-class” modelling entities like processes and data objects. The assignment of tasks to participants and the progression of a process may then depend on these locations. This contribution describes how such location aware processes may be modelled and how a process execution system can be extended in a way so that it interprets these processes.

The enhancing popularity of web pages or blogs is targeted by scientific research of different areas. The aim of the research is to disclose the importance of different design widgets (keywords, titles, pictures, gadgets, weblinks, comments and others) to blog visibility. We propose the fuzzy cognitive mapping method to investigate the dynamic effect of blog visibility measures, expressed by number of all blog visitors. The method of fuzzy cognitive mapping enables to find the strength of interrelationships between design widgets, and to define their weights dynamically modelled after the systems’ activation till achieving its stabilized state. The experimental research of proprietary blogs revealed the highest ranked elements affecting blog visibility, their importance and potential for exploring causal relationships.

The paper deals with the model-driven approach to problem domain knowledge acquisition. The Detailed Value Chain Model (DVCM) is defined as a problem domain content model developed from the management control viewpoint. The peculiarity of the DVCM is refinement of the Management Functions {Fi} and Processes {Pj} as an obligatory component types of problem domain knowledge content. The detailed specification of information transactions between the any pair (Fi x Pj) is defined as an Elementary Management Cycle (EMC). The case study of problem domain knowledge modelling and implementation for curriculum renewal is presented.

The quality of requirements phase specifications is decisive for the success of information systems development process, because the later a problem is found the more expensive it is to solve. The article analyses requirements phase of information system implementation and ISO standards, which specify them. The main scope of the article is to analyze the influence of ISO standards to information systems engineering process. Main scientific object is ISO standards and UML models integration with knowledge-based enterprise model. There is proposed methodology of UML models generation from enterprise model based on ISO standards, which ensures the avoidance of empirically based information system engineering process, where found problems can cause expensive reengineering process of information system.

With the advent of the shared use of telecommunications infrastructure, the revenue sharing is becoming at the heart of economics. In fact, for modern highly interconnected telecommunication infrastructure, providing end-to-end services requires the use of different networks, which may be owned and operated by multiple enterprises. This implies costs to be paid by each operator for using the infrastructure of other operators. These costs are generally determined using general cost calculation models that are mostly limited to very traditional services. This paper presents a study of the limitations observed with the traditional cost calculation models and proposes a novel approach, where interconnection rates for multimedia services are not flat, but reflect real time costs and depend on the usage and time of use. The paper proves that this approach allows operators to better approximate the real incurred costs.

Access control models provide important means for the systematic specification and management of the permissions in a business information system. While there are may well-known access control models (e.g., RBAC), standard access control models are often not suited for handling exceptional situations. The demand to increase the flexibility of access management has been approached mainly via the development of delegation models and break-glass models. This paper presents the results of a literature review of 329 delegation and break-glass approaches. We give an overview on the existing body of scientific literature in these two areas and compare 35 selected approaches in detail. We reveal different ways of providing delegation and break-glass concepts in general as well as in the context of business process management. Moreover, we identify different sub-topics that have not yet been addressed in detail and thus provide opportunities for future research.

Information system modelling starts from business vocabulary, the second step is business process modelling, which is closely related with modelling of business rules. Modelling of business rules and business processes should be considered as the complementary approaches based on business vocabulary. However, business vocabularies still are not used in CASE tools. The goal of the paper is to present the principles how the business vocabulary can be used for modelling business processes and business rules in such a way that it would be possible to transform business process models to business rules for validating business process by domain experts. In order to achieve this goal we present requirements for defining business processes in line with business vocabularies, which allow transforming business process models to business rules without linguistic processing techniques.

Higher education institutions have a major interest in increasing the educational quality and its effectiveness. Student retention and graduation levels constitute a particularly important quality measure of their effort. Academic Analytics is the business intelligence term used in academic settings. It especially facilitates creation of actionable intelligence to enhance learning and student success. Exploration and interactive visualization of multivariate data without significant reduction of dimensionality remains a challenge. Visual Analytics tools like Motion Charts show changes over time by presenting animations within two-dimensional space. In this paper, we present the Visual Analytics tool EDAIME intended for exploratory analysis of Academic Analytics. The tool supports various interactive data visualization methods and especially concerns with implementation of enhanced Motion Charts concept adjusted to academic settings. We utilize the capabilities of the tool in order to confirm the hypothesis concerning student retention. We also describe the design and the implementation of the interactive data visualization tool in detail.

Nearly every process must be compliant with rules and regulations, e.g. maturity levels, contracts or laws. Compliance can be supported by design, i.e. enforcing rules whilst process execution, or by after-the-fact detection, i.e. checks on process logs. We present a framework for the identification of reasonable support of process compliance management. By using a generic definition of the spectrum of process support, supportive tools are classified. Compliance management is assessed by COBIT information criteria. The degree of process support is then adapted according to the identified weaknesses. The framework is illustrated by means of an incident management process.

The problem we address is that researchers have insufficiently investigated the processes and nuances of Business and IT alignment. One attempt to tackle Business and IT alignment in a process-oriented way is to adopt the concept of IT Service Management (ITSM). However, identified challenges entails that ITSM is hard to define and that existing ITSM frameworks sometimes are considered as overly complex containing an extensive process scope, making it costly and hard to implement. The purpose of this workshop paper is to understand in what way are ITSM core processes supporting business and IT alignment? Our qualitative research approach embraced a two-phase method based on empirical studies where identified core processes were mapped using the Strategic Alignment Model. The result shows that the core of ITSM consists of five processes and that these processes somewhat constitute the bridges and interfaces that aligns Business and IT.

Today, organisations are immersed in extremely changing contexts. In this boarder, organisations require to be adapted by introducing changes in order to survive. These changes likely impact Information Technology (IT) and Business domains. In most of the cases, the scope of the elements in these domains requiring adaptation is not well defined leaving out elements, what can lead to misalignment. That is why, it is important to know the impact scope with the purpose of performing a full adaptation. To the best of our knowledge, there is no Business-IT alignment research work dealing with this aspect. To cope with this lack, we propose a change analysis framework and a set of rules to estimate impact scope and potential adaptation. An illustrating example shows the applicability of our approach.

Evaluating the success of an Information System (IS) is not a trivial problem and usually demands the utilization of several dimensions to cover all facets influencing the success of. Yet, the success provides indications on whether to alignment of the introduced IS to the organizations goals worked out. As scientific literature knows several multi-dimensional approaches for the determination of IS Success, which evolved over the years, a systematic literature analysis can provide a general overview providing the state of the art. Within this paper we renew a systematic literature analysis done by Urbach et al. [1] looking for the recent developments in the field of IS Success. The found approach is supposed to provide us with an procedure to be integrated for a higher value and benefit orientation in the choice and implementation process of knowledge management systems for small and medium enterprises, being able to address their need for value orientation more accurate.

In the current situation of market globalisation and increasing competition, the previously developed business process and supporting IT tools appear to be inefficient. As a result, there is a need to design new, knowledge-based workflows and supporting IT tools to increase efficiency of designing and maintaining ranges of new product classes. The paper presents a role-driven approach to BITA based on the experience from two industrial case studies where it has been partially implemented. The approach is based on the ontological knowledge representation and considering the business processes from perspectives of different user roles. Each role representative works with his/her part of the common ontology, with the ontology parts overlapping.

Efficient value creation and service delivery processes are considered as the key factor to competitiveness in a globalized market environment. This paper focuses on a specific aspect of business and IT alignment: the adaptation of business services to new business needs, i.e. the focus is on services offered to customers rather than on the enterprise IT as whole. The systematic management of the capabilities of an enterprise, which often are reflected in the business services offered to customers and the technical services associated to them, is emerging into a key activity for achieving efficiency. In order to facilitate capability management, we propose business service design explicitly considering delivery context by an approach that supports modeling both, the service as such and the application context. The main contributions of this paper are (a) the analysis of business & IT alignment needs in an industrial case of business process outsourcing introduction, (b) the concept of context-based business services as contribution to capability management, and (c) an example for context and business service models.

The key for successful enterprise functioning lies in information technology that supports business needs, processes and strategies. The problem of Business and IT Alignment (BITA) has been acknowledged and actively discussed by academics and practitioners during the last two decades. Among practices that are used for BITA it is worth mentioning Enterprise Modeling (EM), which is considered as a powerful practice and catalyzing mechanism for capturing, visualizing and improving different aspects of an enterprise. The contribution of EM in BITA is to a large extent dependent on the intention behind the EM effort. This paper presents a conceptual illustration of the role of EM in the context of BITA. It is done via mapping Strategic Alignment Model and the hierarchy of possible EM intentions.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has emerged as the preeminent means to change and transform large organizations. By employing architectural principles, organizations strive to master the complexity inherent in business processes and information system and their alignment. Despite the fact that Business-IT alignment has been a top concern for practitioners and researchers for years, the emergent nature of alignment in EA has rarely been taken into consideration. Even if different approaches focus on business IT alignment, most of them have a tendency to focus on alignment as a state or a process by focusing on strategy or organizational issues. Moreover, very few existing EA Frameworks give clear guidance on how to design and manage these alignment issues. In this paper we argue that the choice of architectural principles has an impact on the ability to achieve and maintain sustainable EA alignment in a dynamic business context. A case study is used as a basis for the analysis.

There is no doubt that the momentum for digital currency has grown the last few years. Numerous businesses have started accepting this alternative form of currency as payment method and digital currency platforms are emerging to seize the opportunity to explore new markets. The potential of digital currency payment protocols to act as replacements of existing monetary systems is faced with challenges related to financial, regulatory, societal, and technological factors. In this paper, we are addressing the issue of deflation that could occur in cryptocurrency systems supporting a finite cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation. Our approach leaves intact the core functionality of these systems.

This research applies theories of trust from e-commerce to digital currencies. In particular trust in business to consumer transactions carried out using digital currencies such as Bitcoin is explored. A model of online trust is considered to be valid in this different transaction context but the significance of each construct changes and some extensions are necessary. In particular the role of institutional trust in transactions has differences that are explored and new constructs are suggested. These are incorporated into a new digital currency enabled transactions trust model.

In this study, we substantiate with financial data collection and analysis the hypothesis regarding the volatility of Bitcoin exchange rate against common currencies. Financial data were collected from July 2010 until April 2014. The raw annualised volatility of Bitcoin is compared to conventional and major exchange rates. The first set of results indicate a high value of annualised volatility for the Bitcoin exchange rate. When the volume of Bitcoin transactions is considered, the volatility of the Bitcoin exchange rate stabilizes significantly.

So far, more than 2 million judgment documents represented in the same pattern and standard have come up in China, which can be viewed as a huge knowledge base. From 150 thousands judgment documents in 2012, authors extracted more than 4,000 legal provisions, obtained the combination relationship among the provisions, calculated their lapping relationship, and constructed their co-occurrence matrix and lapping matrix. Then, authors proposed four recommendation algorithms. Experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithms which are considered the combination and lapping relationship of legal provisions perform more precisely and more meaningfully than traditional similar case recommendation algorithms which are not considered the relationship of provisions.

Information systems (IS) are considered as a necessary component for majority of corporate enterprises since they ensure the storage, the processing and the exchange of enterprise data, that are the main functions for an IS composed of heterogeneous components including servers, networks, personnel, policies, etc. The success of an enterprise depends enormously on the quality of the deployed IS and the capability of such system to react against internal and external factors that may prevent the abovementioned functions to be ensured in an efficient manner. Among the factors that may degrade the performance of ISs and even cause the end of an enterprise activity is the security attacks such as unauthorized access to IS components, denial of service, and loss of data integrity, that may target the different IS components in addition to the enterprise data. Therefore, a system for monitoring the quality of IS is among the urgent needs in order to provide for enterprises a tool that helps them to detect possible degradation, localize the affected components and then reacts in an efficient manner to maintain an acceptable level of IS quality and then ensuring the appropriate services that guarantee the satisfaction of potential enterprises customers. In this context, the paper aims to provide a way to model IS considering a set of appropriate parameters and the needed steps to decide on information security investments. A Petri net-based model has been introduced to specify and assess the impact of security attacks on corporate information system quality, provides a set of metrics to monitor the impact, and discusses the relationships that these impact may have with the degradation of business processes success. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is evaluated through a simulation for a business process related to the online sales.

The European Union’s Third Energy Package prescribes that at least 80 % of the European consumers shall be equipped with intelligent metering devices by 2020. This directive represents a vast challenge regarding the management of smart meter installation processes. In the course of a pilot roll-out in the city of Leipzig, we observed that these processes are currently not sufficiently supported by information and communication technology (ICT). This fact causes media disruptions and additional expenditure in terms of manual efforts. It is for this reason that we developed a cloud-based Smart Meter Installation Management (SMIM) that enables meter operators to capture and process business and installation data fully digital in the cloud. In this paper, we outline the functionality as well as the development process of SMIM from a practical point of view and present preliminary results and experiences.

During the last two decades technology evolved in a way that resulted in massive data. Enterprises built expensive infrastructures to turn data into valuable information in support of the management’s decision making, giving rise to Business Intelligence. Even though, the cost of such infrastructures has been significantly reduced, the economic crisis limited the business budgets, especially for small and medium enterprises, in ways that they could not afford setting up high performance infrastructures. The concept of cloud computing addresses the problem of scalability, agility and cost by allowing enterprises to access powerful tools and services without having to purchase the solutions or the infrastructure needed. This paper describes the concept of Cloud Business Intelligence and addresses the benefits, problems and challenges raised when applied in the real business world.

There are different methods that can be used by product managers in order to set the subscription price of cloud services. No matter the methodology used, the price of a cloud service has to be able to stand against the total-cost-of-ownership of the cloud service on-premise equivalent. Calculating the cost difference between a cloud service and its on-premise equivalent can be a valuable tool for both customers and product managers. This paper will try to develop a Cloud vs. On-Premise Cost Comparison Calculator.

The main aim of this article is to outline existing perceptions and practices related to cloud services in Cyprus. This research is exploratory, descriptive and explanatory in the sense that proposes a model to capture the adoption process of potential clients of cloud services in Cyprus. The research methodology used, consist of both primary and secondary data. Primary data has been collected through interviews and a survey. Qualitative and quantitative analysis is employed, recommendations are derived and discussion follows.