BIS 2000 Proceedings 

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Table of Contents

Workflow

On Capturing Exceptions in Workflow Process Models

Shazia W. Sadiq,

Maria E. Orlowska

Exceptions have always been a major source of complexity and limitation in business process automation. In this paper we review exception handling from the perspective of large business processes that involve several, possibly heterogeneous and distributed information systems. The aim is to capture behavior which represents deviations from the normal process, but still can be anticipated, and handled accordingly. These exceptions are useful and a key to effective and flexible processes. Using workflow techniques as instruments of business process modeling, we provide methodological guidelines for analyzing exceptional behavior and designing special constructs within the process model that support useful exceptions.

Workflow Migration Supporting Virtual Enterprises

Andrzej Cichocki,

Dimitrios Georgakopoulos,

Marek Rusinkiewicz  

Multi-enterprise processes (MEPs) are the means by which Virtual Enterprises (VEs) may efficiently coordinate their resources and establish and manage their supply chains. The Collaboration Man-agement Model (CMM) developed in MCC provides a framework for modeling and implementing MEPs. In this paper we propose to extend the CMM with workflow migration, that is, with the ability of workflows to transfer their code and execution state to another host during run time. This permits the enterprises in a VE to agree upon abstract workflows that consist of placeholder activities capturing the need for inter-enterprise services. Abstract workflow execution involves its migration to the enterprise sites that provide the services its requires. At each such site, abstract workflow execution involves (1) refinement and extension of activity placeholders based on local knowledge and (2) enactment of the resulting concrete workflows. The migration of workflows improve the collaboration between
organizations with strong local decision autonomy and specialization, since it allows refining the workflow specification during its execution and enables dynamic choices of different implementations of the same activities. The migrating workflows are naturally suitable for mobile environments, where disconnection of hosts is normal and the network bandwidth is at premium.

Clinical Workflows – The Killer Application for Process-oriented Information Systems?

Peter Dadam,

Manfred Reichert,

Klaus Kuhn

There is an increasing interest in changing information systems to support business processes in a more direct way. Workflow technology is a very interesting candidate to achieve this goal. Hence the important question arises, how far do we get using this technology? Is its functionality powerful enough to support a wide range of applications or is it only suitable for rather simple ones? And, if the latter is the case, are the missing functions of the "just to do" type or are more fundamental issues addressed? The paper uses the clinical do-main to motivate and to elaborate the functionality needed to adequately support an advanced application environment. It shows that workflow technology is still lacking important features to serve this domain. The paper surveys the state of the art and it presents solutions for some issues based on the concepts elaborated in the ADEPT project.

Knowledge in BIS I

Reinventing the Firm: Organisational Implications of Knowledge Management

Henry Linger

In recent years knowledge management has emerged as a significant business strategy that has been driven by a diversity of factors. The dominant factor is the move to an information economy that has been facilitated by the convergence of communications and informa-tion technology. Organisational response to this changing environ-ment has been to focus on the ability of the organisation to operate globally and to add value to the increasing volumes and diversity of data and information that the organisation handles. In this paper I examines the significant factors that have influenced the established approaches to knowledge management and critically reviews these developments. This overview provides the basis for an alternative approach to knowledge management. The paper proposes task-based knowledge management that focuses on work practices, with their communities of practice, highlighting the role of learning in the pro-duction of knowledge. The significance of the proposed approach is the need for the organisation to adopt reflective practice which re-quires considerable change in the organisational structures, work practices and the social and cultural environment of the organisation.

Integration and Mediation of Information Sources in an Open Market Environment

Michael Christoffel,

Sebastian Pulkowski,

Peter C. Lockemann

Providing and accessing scientific information will increasingly follow a strict market regimen. Needed is a system architecture that supports an information market that is open, heterogeneous and dynamic. The objective of the paper is to find answers to the design of novel intermediaries that serve two purposes: to make the market truly open by easing the integration of existing and new providers, and still to maintain market transparency for customers and providers.

Architectures for Querying Contents of Web Servers

Jarogniew Rykowski

A new architecture for a queryable Web server is presented. This architecture is of a three-tier type and consists in using an interpreter of a query language as a gateway for the server, and an XML wrapper as a gateway for data repositories. The query language is used not only to read the server's data, but also to define, manipulate, and control both data and their corresponding meta-data (data descriptions). The XML wrapper allows storing both data and meta-data in a repository of any type, not only a flat file system or a back-end database. Basic requirements for the query language and the wrapper are presented and discussed in comparison to current approaches.

 Knowledge in BIS II

Empirical Research in Information Systems

George J. Bakehouse

The first section of this paper provides a view of the relationship between research and reality. Central to this debate is the notion of two separate and sometimes competing approaches to solve real life problems, theory and practise. The last three or so decades has witnessed the development of numerous methodologies which vary across a wide spectrum from the "very hard" to the "very soft" most claiming to have practical benefits in the real world. An area of Systems Science that has grown quickly amongst all the confusion is that of Information Systems, a new and highly dynamic subject area where academics and practitioners often fail to agree at any level about things as fundamental as the meanings of 'information' and 'system'. There is ample evidence to show that in the world of Business Information Systems, technologists do not understand the world of business and vice-versa. The final section of this paper describes an ongoing action research program that spans several sectors of commerce and industry. The methods, tools and techniques adopted in this study are drawn from numerous paradigms and disciplines; many have been specifically adapted for the research program. These tools and techniques range from participant observation, SWOT analysis, information problem classification, phenotypes of erroneous action, human error modelling through to psychometric testing accompanied by "standard" information systems tools. Central to the research program is the concept of building links between research and reality via empirical research.

Integrating Intelligent Software Agents Into Collaborative Environments To Support Organizational Learning

Marcelo Milrad,

Kristian Folkman

The use of computers in networked, collaborative learning is increasing. Many applications are evolving towards highly interactive collaborative environments for learning. Another trend is observable: features that traditionally have been developed for e-business might support adaptive learning systems and they provide a platform for collaborative actions among learners. In this paper we will discuss those aspects related to the use of intelligent software agents in shared learning environments to support collaboration and knowledge construction.

Software Requirements on the Web

Sheikh I. Ahamed,

Saqib Ali,

David G. Bingham,

Anshul Dawra,

Loan T. Ha,

Trung M. Luong,

Donna M. Martinez,

Jennifer Morris,

Srihari A. Palangala,

Joseph E. Urban

The world wide web is emerging as a means for delivery of software services. As these software services continue to increase, such will the software development environments increase on the web. This pa-per addresses one offering of a two semester course sequence on the development of an industry standard software engineering project, which is primarily a capstone to an undergraduate degree program in computer science. The paper begins with background on the under-graduate computer science degree program and a discussion of soft-ware engineering tools and web-based development. An undergraduate course project on an ANSI/IEEE 830-1993 web-based software requirements tool is described in the paper. The course projects are described from the standpoint of the software products, development methods, and project management. Future directions are discussed in the context of building a web-based environment of software tools to support software engineering standards.

BIS Architectures

Global Object Identification in the Donají Multidatabase Environment

Juan C. Lavariega,

Susan D. Urban

This paper presents a strategy for the support of global object identifiers in the Donají multidatabase environment. The strategy includes the internal representation for object identifiers and the methods for identifying related objects from heterogeneous sources. We present a classification for objects and their identifiers as permanent, temporary, and virtual objects. The use of different types of identifiers allows the query processor to promptly identify the source and the mapping function for locating distributed objects. When relating entities retrieved from different sources into a common global identifier, the global identification approach applies functions that determine the degree of equality between the local entities. Objects in Donají can be related as either exact, equivalent, or compatible objects. The Donají approach to global object identification provides integrated support for non-disjoint data sources, the specification of user-defined map-ping functions and the specification of relationships between related objects at different levels of equality.

A Light Middleware For Client-Cluster Solutions

A. Zabrodin

The paper describes an approach to application clustering which extends from a simple client-server model. It is implemented in
a COM-based middleware product. Two goals are pursued: improved fault-tolerance and increased availability of server applications. Clusters in the model are self-organizing, non-centric, with one and only primary server kept. Packets are dispatched by the client itself, thus abolishing cluster controller as a "bottleneck" node.

Supporting Users’ Interaction and Work Coordination in Collaborative Business Information Systems

Waldemar Wieczerzycki

The development of collaborative business information systems implies further evolution of database technology. The required extensions should be applied simultaneously to both: data modeling techniques and transaction management algorithms. Former techniques have to facilitate modeling data structures that are specific to cooperative business processes, while the latter techniques have to support human interaction and exchange of non-committed data.
In this paper we propose a new model of a database that could be-come a kernel of next generation business information systems. First, we propose the CDM data model (Collaborative Data Model). Second, we propose to apply to those databases supporting business processes, the so called multiuser transactions. Both the CDM model and multiuser transactions are oriented for the specificity of cooperation scenarios, cooperation techniques and cooperation management.

Intelligent Tools for BIS

Intelligent Information Extraction

Jakub Piskorski,

Wojciech Skut

New developments in Information Technology and an ever-growing amount of unstructured business text documents in digital form require intelligent tools for precisely determining their content and relevance. In this paper we give an overview of the natural language processing approach to information extraction and information retrieval. Our article contains a brief description of efficient linguistic core components.

 E-Commerce

Deploying the E-Commerce Application System in Wholesale Commerce

Sergiusz Strykowski,

Wojciech Cellary

Electronic business solutions are believed to improve a company's operations. The success of such solution depends on: first, the reengineering of current business processes, and second, acceptance by people who are expected to use it. In this paper we present an e-commerce system that was designed and successfully deployed in the Polish division of a big, international corporation.

Privacy and Profiling in Electronic Commerce

Małgorzata Pańkowska

In a survey 300 web sites were reviewed and checked to see whether they collected personal information for relationships and target marketing, had established privacy policies, sent cookies and allowed people to visit without disclosing their identity. Taking into account the development of Internet interactivity the proposal of anonymous digital persons for marketing research was presented.

Dynamic Web Systems Based on XML and Database Technologies

Wojciech Wiza,

Krzysztof Walczak

A system allowing efficient development of dynamic web-based applications is described. It is based on XML, Java, and database technologies and can be effectively used in different environments and application domains, especially in electronic business applications. This paper describes the concept of dynamically generated web pages, discusses the role of database systems in web applications, and presents the system in detail as well as offering an example of its application.

E-Banking

Virtual Communities in Banking: An Empirical Study

Dimitris Kardaras,

Bill Karakostas

Virtual communities (VCs) represent a promising area of Electronic Commerce. Members of a VC have the opportunity to access products and services information and exchange experiences and ideas, without being constrained by physical interaction or geography. Companies may also use VCs to build customer loyalty by cultivating on-line human relationships between peer members, industry experts, or early adopters of a service or technology. This paper reports on a survey of 61 members of VCs, investigating VCs features that can potentially improve customer services in the banking sector. The findings of this study are useful for designing a VC as well as for developing new electronic marketing approaches.

Business to Customers e-Commerce Implications in Banking in the UK and Greece

Dimitris Kardaras,

Eleftherios Papathanasiou

Organisations are attempting to develop their applications portfolio and strengthen their presence in the fast growing electronic markets. Business to Customer is probably the most widespread applications area of electronic commerce. This paper reports on a survey of 20 UK and 11 Greek IS and marketing managers and investigates the electronic commerce opportunities for improving customers' services in the UK and Greek banking sectors.

Development of E-Banking in Poland – Critical Analysis

Maciej Machowiak,

Marcin Paprzycki

The aim of the paper is to analyze the current state and future of e-banking in Poland. A summary of current activities related to e-banking is presented, and a comparison between the creation of a virtual branch devoted to dealing exclusively with e-banking, and incorporating e-banking into the bank structure, is provided. Future directions and potential problems are discussed.

Process Approach

Concurrent Approach to Systems Analysis, Modelling and Design

Bernard F. Kubiak,

Edward Szczerbicki,

Antoni Korowicki

This paper reviews a set of some important issues related to process management, process modelling, Business Process Reengineering (BRP), and information management and visualisation. It is a new philosophy based on a concurrent approach to systems analysis, modelling and design. Furthermore, a few of the important information-based challenges and opportunities for the incoming information society are briefly discussed.

Checking correctness of business processes specification in action logic
 

Stanisław Kędzierski

One of the basic problems that the designer of a business process has to solve is the correctness of its design. A business process may be treated as a set of partially ordered actions. In this paper the action logic is used to prove correctness in specification of a business process.

7th International Conference BIS 2004