Geographical information systems for dengue surveillance

This review provides details on the role of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in current dengue surveillance systems and focuses on the application of open access GIS technology to emphasize its importance in developing countries, where the dengue burden is greatest. It also advocates for increased international collaboration in transboundary disease surveillance to confront the emerging global challenge of dengue.

Identifying satisfaction factors in tertiary education: The case of an information systems program

This paper introduces a modified Kano approach to analysing and classifying quality attributes that drive student satisfaction in tertiary education. The approach provides several benefits over the traditional Kano approach. Firstly, it uses existing student evaluations of subjects in the educational institution instead of purpose-built surveys as the data source. Secondly, since the data source includes qualitative comments and feedback, it has the exploratory capability to identify emerging and unique attributes. Finally, since the quality attributes identified could be tied directly to students’ detailed feedback, the approach enables practitioners to easily translate the results into concrete action plans. In this paper, the approach is applied to analysing 26 subjects in the information systems school of an Australia university. The approach has enabled the school to uncover new quality attributes and paves the way for other institutions to use their student evaluations to continually understand and addressed students’ changing needs.

Deriving information systems innovation execution mechanisms

Despite a wealth of studies focusing on innovation, types of innovations and their outcomes, the process of innovation has largely been under studied. In 2010, Swanson calls for researchers to address the ‘innovation process black box’, to better understand how IT innovation potential can be exploited upon. This study derives and instantiates three unique and mutually exclusive innovation execution mechanisms: Continual, Progressive and Plug and Play. The innovation execution mechanisms of this study are developed with reference to Swanson (1994) Information Systems innovation types.

The dual nature of information systems in enabling a new wave of hardware ventures: Towards a theory

Hardware ventures are emerging entrepreneurial firms that create new market offerings based on development of digital devices. These ventures are important elements in the global economy but have not yet received much attention in the literature. Our interest in examining hardware ventures is specifically in the role that information system (IS) resources play in enabling them. We ask how the role of IS resources for hardware ventures can be conceptualized and develop a framework for assessment. Our framework builds on the distinction of operand and operant resources and distinguishes between two key lifecycle stages of hardware ventures: start-up and growth. We show how this framework can be used to discuss the role, nature, and use of IS for hardware ventures and outline empirical research strategies that flow from it. Our work contributes to broadening and enriching the IS field by drawing attention to its role in significant and novel phenomena.

Infrastructure, investment and development evaluation: A Complex Stakeholder Perception Mapping approach for improving local and regional economic development outcomes

Partial evaluation of infrastructure investments have resulted in expensive mistakes, unsatisfactory outcomes and increased uncertainties for too many stakeholders, communities and economies in both developing and developed nations. "Complex Stakeholder Perception Mapping" (CSPM), is a novel approach that can address existing limitations by inclusively framing, capturing and mapping the spectrum of insights and perceptions using extended Geographic Information Systems. Maps generated in CSPM offer presentations of flexibly combined, complex perceptions of stakeholders on multiple aspects of development. CSPM extends the applications of GIS software in non-spatial mapping and of Multi-Criteria Analysis with a multidimensional evaluation platform and augments decision science capabilities in addressing complexities. Application of CSPM can improve local and regional economic gains from infrastructure projects and aid any multi-objective and multi-stakeholder decision situations.

ADAMIS: a database for medical information systems

This paper describes the design and implementation of ADAMIS (‘A database for medical information systems’). ADAMIS is a relational database management system for a general hospital environment. Apart from the usual database (DB) facilities of data definition and data manipulation, ADAMIS supports a query language called the ‘simplified medical query language’ (SMQL) which is completely end-user oriented and highly non-procedural. Other features of ADAMIS include provision of facilities for statistics collection and report generation. ADAMIS also provides adequate security and integrity features and has been designed mainly for use on interactive terminals.

HR Information Systems: Exploiting the Full Potential

[Excerpt] Human resource management has always faced a fundamental paradox: Top managers in any company will readily agree that the people are the keys to success, but few believe they know whether their people are well managed or if they are prepared to fortify and enhance the transformations facing the organization. The information tools applied to the employees of an organization pale by comparison with the tools used to analyze markets, financial resources and production design.

Toward a design theory for green information systems

We report on ongoing research to develop a design theory for classes of information systems that allow for work practices that exhibit a minimal harmful impact on the natural environment. We call such information systems Green IS. In this paper we describe the building blocks of our Green IS design theory, which develops prescriptions for information systems that allow for: (1) belief formation, action formation and outcome measurement relating to (2) environmentally sustainable work practices and environmentally sustainable decisions on (3) a macro or micro level. For each element, we specify structural features, symbolic expressions, user abilities and goals required for the affordances to emerge. We also provide a set of testable propositions derived from our design theory and declare two principles of implementation.

Integration of clinical information systems in Saudi Arabian health care contexts: A grounded theory exploration

This research examined the implementation of clinical information system technology in a large Saudi Arabian health care organisation. The research was underpinned by symbolic interactionism and grounded theory methods informed data collection and analysis. Observations, a review of policy documents and 38 interviews with registered nurses produced in-depth data. Analysis generated three abstracted concepts that explained how imported technology increased practice and health care complexity rather than enhance quality patient care. The core category, Disseminating Change, also depicted a hierarchical and patriarchal culture that shaped the implementation process at the levels of government, organisation and the individual.

Simulation design in information systems research: example of studying it value cocreation with NK model

As an emerging research method that has showed promising potential in several research disciplines, simulation received relatively few attention in information systems research. This paper illustrates a framework for employing simulation to study IT value cocreation. Although previous studies identified factors driving IT value cocreation, its underlying process remains unclear. Simulation can address this limitation through exploring such underlying process with computational experiments. The simulation framework in this paper is based on an extended NK model. Agent-based modeling is employed as the theoretical basis for the NK model extensions.

A review of travel time estimation and forecasting for advanced traveler information systems

Providing on line travel time information to commuters has become an important issue for Advanced Traveler Information Systems and Route Guidance Systems in the past years, due to the increasing traffic volume and congestion in the road networks. Travel time is one of the most useful traffic variables because it is more intuitive than other traffic variables such as flow, occupancy or density, and is useful for travelers in decision making. The aim of this paper is to present a global view of the literature on the modeling of travel time, introducing crucial concepts and giving a thorough classification of the existing tech- niques. Most of the attention will focus on travel time estimation and travel time prediction, which are generally not presented together. The main goals of these models, the study areas and methodologies used to carry out these tasks will be further explored and categorized.