Ian Beeson

Organisations use Enterprise Service Busses (ESBs) to support enterprise application integration. For a variety of reasons – mergers and acquisitions, geographically distributed enterprise units, distributed governance, scalability – enterprises sometimes need to acquire multiple, disparate ESBs and enable the applications that each one supports to interoperate. However, currently, no standard architecture exists for integrating multiple, disparate ESBs. To begin to address this problem, four candidate disparate ESB integration patterns – directly connected, web services, homogeneous messaging middleware, and message bridge – were identified from the enterprise application integration literature and tested for their effectiveness in integrating multiple, disparate ESBs. Each pattern was applied in two different scenarios: loan broker request, and inter-divisional messaging. In each scenario a number of enterprise applications were integrated using three disparate ESBs: Oracle Servic...

In this paper, the opening of a new phase in our project called True Stories is discussed. We are investigating the uses community groups might make of hypermedia technology in telling their own story. We describe where we have got to so far, and some of the theoretical background, and try to locate what we are doing in relation to the participatory design tradition. As we now move towards working with groups whose stories may be contested, contentious, or painful, we need some further development of our theoretical and methodological base. Using ideas and examples from several authors, we open up a discussion about how plurality, dissent and moral space can be preserved. Following Landow in observing that hypertext provides a natural medium for collage, we note that community stories have features which make collage an appropriate representational form for them. We finally suggest a model of dialogue derived from Freire as an appropriate practical vehicle for running projects attem...

In Software Engineering and Information Systems, increasing attention has been focused lately upon modelling organizational processes -as a starting point for developing computer-based systems to support (or control) such processes. A number of process modelling methods are available, but it is not yet clear what the relative merits of these are, nor whether they might be more or less useful in particular contexts. We have applied two well-known process modelling techniques, Role Activity Diagramming and UML Activity Diagramming, to a particular process in our own organization, that of managing the registration of research students. We developed an RAD first and then translated it into a UML AD, to compare the two techniques and check the feasibility of such translation. We conclude that translation from RAD to UML AD is likely to be feasible in particular cases, but will rely on the ability of the translators to establish and maintain the equivalence between the two (i.e. the equiv...

Extracting business process models from stakeholders in large organizations is a very difficult, if not impossible, task. Many obstacles such as tacit knowledge, inaccurate descriptions of processes and miscommunication prevent process engineers from ascertaining what the business processes actually are. Data sources that represent the communications can be a good candidate for facilitating the identification of the business processes. The proposed approach in this research is to find business process related emails, identify email message threads, and finally, tag them using conversation for action theory. The outcome of this method will be process fragment enactment models that can help process engineers both to validate their findings about the business processes, and also to understand better the vague and unclear parts of the processes.

Research in software process modelling has been flourishing in the last two decades. The emphasis of the traditional software process modelling approaches was mainly on process automation, process reuse and prediction of process completion. More recent approaches take into account of the business requirements and the influence on the software processes. Most of the existing work only focuses on the development of individual projects. In this paper, we look very briefly at the different developments in software process modelling. Problems associated with the current approaches are identified. Arguments for considering multiple software processes in the business context are presented.

This paper reports some research into the design and implementation processes associated with the introduction of the UK National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) into the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. The complexity of the system specification and the organisational setting gave rise to a range of expectations of the system and conflicting agendas for its use. These issues are explored through a comprehensive discussion of the research process. The research process itself is identified as a vehicle for the exploration of participative techniques which can be used to ameliorate the dissonance which arises from these conflicting expectations. The capacity of researchers to facilitate what Elden and Levin (1991) call “cogenerative dialogue” is explored in the context of the case study. The paper sets out to demonstrate the complementarity of existing methods, tools and techniques, thereby promoting their synthesis. We argue that bridge building is more important in the information systems context than grand theorising. The local outcomes and national implications of the research to date are reported and discussed in the paper

This paper reports a survey of managers' attitudes towards the alignment of business and IT strategy in larger manufacturing companies located in the South-West of England. The survey was conducted through a postal questionnaire sent to IT and executive managers in the selected companies. Respondents were invited to state their position on sixteen propositions relating to alignment, in reference to a five-point attitudinal scale. The propositions have to do with the existence, importance, and process of alignment, the degree of mutual understanding and cooperation between business and IT managers, and constraints on strategic alignment arising in the supply chain. The questionnaire is a piece of preliminary work to help focus subsequent, more detailed, investigation in the field. Analysis of the data reveals a generally positive attitude towards the existence and benefits of alignment in this sector.

SummaryAs part of a comparative analysis of uterine sibling groups to discover any evidence of ‘stopping rules’ related to actual preferences for children of one sex or another, the distribution of sequences of births by sex from a Ghanaian sample of 9392 mothers has been examined. No such rules can be detected.

There is a growing interest in process modelling, which arises out of a convergence between attempts to model and design businesses and attempts to model and design software. Business modelling has tended to be high level and prescriptive, seeking strategic levers for rendering a business more effective—particularly, though not solely, with regard to its use of IT. Business models are generally couched in relatively ordinary language and simple diagrams. Software modelling has a long history in structured programming and analysis, and is used not only for designing systems but for testing or proving them. Software models have tended to be much lower level, and couched in specific diagrammatic notations and formal languages. The move into the middle ground between these two distinctive areas has been prompted by a growing need to connect business processes with the IT processes which supposedly support and enable them. The move has been led, at least in this country, by the software engineering community, prompted by a realisation that modelling techniques being employed to design information systems were focused at too low a level, on the detailed flows and processing of data rather than on regular business activity as such. One consequence over time of a persistent focus on low-level data processing has been an accumulation of legacy systems which hold back business development or growth. Thus, the EPSRC’s SEBPC programme (‘Systems Engineering for Business Process Change’) has as its objective: ‘to release the full potential of IT as an enabler of business process change, and to overcome the disabling effects which the build-up of legacy systems has on such change’. More generally, research groups have been looking to find ways of generalising or lifting process modelling away from data flows and processes towards business processes conceived as regular patterns of activity and interaction among a network of roles or actors. Furthermore, some groups are seeking not only to model actual or ideal business processes in a descriptive and static fashion, but to find ways of building models which track or lead business process change dynamically, or which can themselves be executed, in the shape of an automated or partially automated (e.g. workflow) system. One example of this kind of research is that being done at Manchester [3]. The interest in business process modelling is now also being reflected in the literature on the business side, fuelled by the rapid spread and irresistibly universalising claims of such modelling approaches as Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML). Business Process Modelling Language (BPML) is introduced in one of the papers in this volume, and Paul Harmon’s recent book [2] gives a good overview of business perspectives on process change. As a research area, process modelling is an exciting, formative stage. Perhaps it currently ranges too widely across a spectrum which links business process improvement to program specification, and will settle down into a number of more clearcut initiatives. But it is certainly true that the coming together of formerly separate research interests sets the stage for deep and often controversial engagement over the modelling and implementation of complex processes.

This paper explores approaches to digital storytelling in community groups and compares two different approaches to digital storytelling projects. It asks questions about whether digital stories made in communities can be coherent, sustained, and mobilizing. It starts with a ...

A conceptual modelling method from Soft Systems Methodology is applied to the conduct of a research investigation into ATM location and usage in Egypt. ATMs are seen as sociotechnical systems, and conceptual models are produced for three stakeholders, then consolidated ...

We have used the business process modelling method 'Riva' to model processes of programme management in two UK universities. The method depends on the identification of 'essential business entities' as the basis for defining a process architecture. The author of the method claims ...

Abstract. Riva is a method for identifying two kinds of organisation process architecture: one based on essential business entities, the other on both essential business entities and designed business entities. Riva's designer claims that organisations in the same business will ...