Reducing building information fragmentation : a BIM-specifications approach

The world of Construction is changing, so too are the expectations of stakeholders regarding strategies for adapting existing resources (people, equipment and finances), processes and tools to the evolving needs of the industry. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a data-rich, digital approach for representing building information required for design and construction. BIM tools play a crucial role and are instrumental to current approaches, by industry stakeholders, aimed at harnessing the power of a single information repository for improved project delivery and maintenance. Yet, building specifications - which document information on material quality, and workmanship requirements - remain distinctly separate from model information typically represented in BIM models. BIM adoption for building design, construction and maintenance is an industry-wide strategy aimed at addressing such concerns about information fragmentation. However, to effectively reduce inefficiencies due to fragmentation, BIM models require crucial building information contained in specifications. This paper profiles some specification tools which have been used in industry as a means of bridging the BIM-Specifications divide. We analyse the distinction between current attempts at integrating BIM and specifications and our approach which utilizes rich specification information embedded within objects in a product library as a method for improving the quality of information contained in BIM objects at various levels of model development.

Antecedent factors of knowledge sharing in research supervision

Today’s economy is a knowledge-based economy in which knowledge is a crucial facilitator to individuals, as well as being an instigator of success. Due to the impact of globalisation, universities face new challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, they ought to be more innovative and have their own competitive advantages. One of the most important goals of universities is the promotion of students as professional knowledge workers. Therefore, knowledge sharing and transfer at the tertiary level between students and supervisors is vital in universities, as it decreases the budget and provides an affordable way to do research. Knowledge-sharing impact factors can be categorised in three groups, namely: organisational, individual, and technical factors. Individual barriers to knowledge sharing include: the lack of time and trust and the lack of communication skills and social networks. IT systems such as elearning, blogs and portals can increase the knowledge-sharing capability. However, it must be stated that IT systems are only tools and not solutions. Individuals are still responsible for sharing information and knowledge. This paper proposes a new research model to examine the effect of individual factors, organisational factors (learning strategy, trust culture, supervisory support) and technological factors on knowledge sharing in the research supervision process.

A simulation modeling approach to understanding information technology value cocreation

The business value of information technology (IT) is increasingly being cocreated by multiple parties, opening opportunities for new research initiatives. Previous studies on IT value cocreation mainly focus on analyzing sources of cocreated IT value, yet inadequately accommodating the influence of competition relationships in IT value cocreation activities. To fill the gap, this in-progress paper suggests an agent-based modeling (also simulation) approach to investigating potential influences of the dynamic interplay between cooperation and competition relationships in IT value cocreation settings. In particular, the research proposes a high-level conceptual framework to position general IT value cocreation processes. A relational network view is offered, aiming at decomposing and systemizing several typical cooperation and competition scenarios in practical IT value cocreation settings. The application of a simulation approach to analytical insights and to theory building is illustrated.

Towards a multiple-goal pursuit and multilevel view of continuing information technology usage : a process model integration and a research agenda

The value of information technology (IT) is often realized when continuously being used after users’ initial acceptance. However, previous research on continuing IT usage is limited for dismissing the importance of mental goals in directing users’ behaviors and for inadequately accommodating the group context of users. This in-progress paper offers a synthesis of several literature to conceptualize continuing IT usage as multilevel constructs and to view IT usage behavior as directed and energized by a set of mental goals. Drawing from the self-regulation theory in the social psychology, this paper proposes a process model, positioning continuing IT usage as multiple-goal pursuit. An agent-based modeling approach is suggested to further explore causal and analytical implications of the proposed process model.

Security and Privacy in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks : Survey and the Road Ahead

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) can make roads safer, cleaner, and smarter. It can offer a wide range of services, which can be safety and non-safety related. Many safety-related VANETs applications are real-time and mission critical, which would require strict guarantee of security and reliability. Even non-safety related multimedia applications, which will play an important role in the future, will require security support. Lack of such security and privacy in VANETs is one of the key hindrances to the wide spread implementations of it. An insecure and unreliable VANET can be more dangerous than the system without VANET support. So it is essential to make sure that “life-critical safety” information is secure enough to rely on. Securing the VANETs along with appropriate protection of the privacy drivers or vehicle owners is a very challenging task. In this work we summarize the attacks, corresponding security requirements and challenges in VANETs. We also present the most popular generic security policies which are based on prevention as well detection methods. Many VANETs applications require system-wide security support rather than individual layer from the VANETs’ protocol stack. In this work we will review the existing works in the perspective of holistic approach of security. Finally, we will provide some possible future directions to achieve system-wide security as well as privacy-friendly security in VANETs.

Detection of sinkhole attack in wireless sensor networks

Generally wireless sensor networks rely of many-to-one communication approach for data gathering. This approach is extremely susceptible to sinkhole attack, where an intruder attracts surrounding nodes with unfaithful routing information, and subsequently presents selective forwarding or change the data that carry through it. A sinkhole attack causes an important threat to sensor networks and it should be considered that the sensor nodes are mostly spread out in open areas and of weak computation and battery power. In order to detect the intruder in a sinkhole attack this paper suggests an algorithm which firstly finds a group of suspected nodes by analyzing the consistency of data. Then, the intruder is recognized efficiently in the group by checking the network flow information. The proposed algorithm's performance has been evaluated by using numerical analysis and simulations. Therefore, accuracy and efficiency of algorithm would be verified.

Security in wireless sensor networks : issues and challenges

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are employed in numerous applications in different areas including military, ecology, and health; for example, to control of important information like the personnel position in a building, as a result, WSNs need security. However, several restrictions such as low capability of computation, small memory, limited resources of energy, and the unreliable channels employ communication in using WSNs can cause difficulty in use of security and protection in WSNs. It is very essential to save WSNs from malevolent attacks in unfriendly situations. Such networks require security plan due to various limitations of resources and the prominent characteristics of a wireless sensor network which is a considerable challenge. This article is an extensive review about problems of WSNs security, which examined recently by researchers and a better understanding of future directions for WSN security.

Information Experience : Approaches to Theory and Practice

"The German word for experience - Erlebnis - the experience of the life, to live through something - underpins this book: making visible scholarly opportunities for richer and deeper contextualizations and examinations of the lived-world experiences of people in everyday contexts as they be, do and become." (Ross Todd, Preface). Information experience is a burgeoning area of research and still unfolding as an explicit research and practice theme. This book is therefore very timely as it distils the reflections of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, with interests ranging across information, knowledge, user experience, design and education. They cast a fresh analytical eye on information experience, whilst approaching the idea from diverse perspectives. Information Experience brings together current thinking about the idea of information experience to help form discourse around it and establish a conceptual foundation for taking the idea forward. It therefore "provides a number of theoretical lenses for examining people's information worlds in more holistic and dynamic ways." (Todd, Preface)

Introspective service interface synthesis in business networks

Service mismatches involve the adaptation of structural and behavioural interfaces of services, which in practice incurs long lead times through manual, coding e ort. We propose a framework, complementary to conventional service adaptation, to extract comprehensive and seman- tically normalised service interfaces, useful for interoperability in large business networks and the Internet of Services. The framework supports introspection and analysis of large and overloaded operational signa- tures to derive focal artefacts, namely the underlying business objects of services. A more simpli ed and comprehensive service interface layer is created based on these, and rendered into semantically normalised in- terfaces, given an ontology accrued through the framework from service analysis history. This opens up the prospect of supporting capability comparisons across services, and run-time request backtracking and ad- justment, as consumers discover new features of a service's operations through corresponding features of similar services. This paper provides a rst exposition of the service interface synthesis framework, describing patterns having novel requirements for unilateral service adaptation, and algorithms for interface introspection and business object alignment. A prototype implementation and analysis of web services drawn from com- mercial logistic systems are used to validate the algorithms and identify open challenges and future research directions.

Using enterprise information architecture methods to model wicked problems in information systems design research

Design Science is the process of solving ‘wicked problems’ through designing, developing, instantiating, and evaluating novel solutions (Hevner, March, Park and Ram, 2004). Wicked problems are described as agent finitude in combination with problem complexity and normative constraint (Farrell and Hooker, 2013). In Information Systems Design Science, determining that problems are ‘wicked’ differentiates Design Science research from Solutions Engineering (Winter, 2008) and is a necessary part of proving the relevance to Information Systems Design Science research (Hevner, 2007; Iivari, 2007). Problem complexity is characterised as many problem components with nested, dependent and co-dependent relationships interacting through multiple feedback and feed-forward loops. Farrell and Hooker (2013) specifically state for wicked problems “it will often be impossible to disentangle the consequences of specific actions from those of other co-occurring interactions”. This paper discusses the application of an Enterprise Information Architecture modelling technique to disentangle the wicked problem complexity for one case. It proposes that such a modelling technique can be applied to other wicked problems and can lay the foundations for proving relevancy to DSR, provide solution pathways for artefact development, and aid to substantiate those elements required to produce Design Theory.

Understanding the information literacy experiences of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students

Purpose – This paper outlines research that explores the information literacy experiences of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students. The question explored in this research was: how do EFL students experience information literacy. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study used phenomenography, a relational approach to explore the information literacy experiences of EFL students. Phenomenography studies the qualitatively different ways a phenomenon is experienced in the world around us. Findings – This research revealed that EFL students experienced information literacy in four qualitatively different ways. The four categories revealed through the data were: process, quality, language and knowledge. This research found that language impacted on EFL students’ experiences of information literacy and revealed that EFL students applied various techniques and strategies when they read, understood, organised and translated information. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted in a specific cultural and educational context, therefore the results might not reflect the experiences of EFL students in other cultural or educational contexts. Practical implications – The findings from this research offer an important contribution to information literacy practice by providing important insights about EFL students’ experiences and perceptions of information and learning that can be used to inform curriculum development in second language learning contexts. Originality/Value - There is currently a lack of research using a relational approach to investigate EFL students’ experiences of information literacy. There is also limited research that explores the impact language has on information literary and learning in English as a foreign or second language contexts.

Information Experience : New Perspectives and Research Directions

In this closing chapter the editors review key themes that have emerged through the book. We recognize the varied and dynamic nature of information experience across multiple contexts, and present our own conceptualization of information experience. Finally, we consider possible future directions for information experience research.

The role of interpersonal influence in budget decision making: The Canadian public library experience

This study determined factors which influenced Canadian provincial (state) politicians when making funding decisions for public libraries. Using the case study methodology, Canadian provincial/state-level funding for public libraries in the 2009-2010 fiscal year was examined. The data were analyzed to determine whether Cialdini’s theory of influence and specifically any of the six tactics of influence (i.e., commitment and consistency, authority, liking, social proof, scarcity, and reciprocity) were instrumental in these budgetary decision-making processes. Findings show the principles of “authority,” “consistency and commitment,” and “liking” were relevant, and that “liking” was especially important to these decisions.

Education for Australia’s information future

Digital disruption and an increasingly networked society drive rapid change in many professions and a corresponding need for change in tertiary education. Across the world, information education has, to date, prepared graduates for employment in discrete professions, such as librarianship, records management, archives, and teacher librarianship. However, contemporary information practices are less defined and are demanding of new professional skill-sets and understandings. This paper reports a study that consulted Australia’s tertiary academics about the current circumstances of information education in the academy and elicited a vision and a concern for future directions in Australian information education.

Information Experience : Contemporary Perspectives

The purpose of this book is to open a conversation on the idea of information experience, which we understand to be a complex, multidimensional engagement with information. In developing the book we invited colleagues to propose a chapter on any aspect of information experience, for example conceptual, methodological or empirical. We invited them to express their interpretation of information experience, to contribute to the development of this concept. The book has thus become a vehicle for interested researchers and practitioners to explore their thinking around information experience, including relationships between information experience, learning experience, user experience and similar constructs. It represents a collective awareness of information experience in contemporary research and practice. Through this sharing of multiple perspectives, our insights into possible ways of interpreting information experience, and its relationship to other concepts in information research and practice, is enhanced. In this chapter, we introduce the idea of information experience. We also outline the book and its chapters, and bring together some emerging alternative views and approaches to this important idea.