Enterprise Services have been proposed as a more business-friendly form of web services which can help organizations bridge the gap between the IT capabilities and business benefits of Service Oriented Architecture. However up until now there are almost no methodologies for creating enterprise services, and no lists of definite criteria which constitute a good enterprise service. In this paper we present a model which can aid Service Oriented Architecture designers with this by giving them a set of researched criteria that can be used to measure the quality of enterprise service definitions. The model and criteria have been constructed by interviewing experts from one of the big five consultancy firms and by conducting a literature study of software development lifecycle methods and Service Oriented Architecture implementation strategies. The results have been evaluated using a quantitative survey and qualitative expert interviews, which have produced empirical support for the importance of the model criteria to enterprise service design. The importance of business ownership and focusing on business value of enterprise services is stressed, leading to suggestions of future research that links this area more closely with Service Oriented Architecture governance, Service Oriented Architecture change management, and Business Process Management.
Business Rule Management (BRM) is a means to make decision-making within organizations explicit and manageable. BRM functions within the context of an Enterprise Architecture (EA). The aim of EA is to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals. Ideally, BRM and EA should be well aligned. This paper explores through study of case study documentation the BRM design choices that relate to EA and hence might influence the organizations ability to achieve a digital business strategy. We translate this exploration into five propositions relating BRM design choices to EA characteristics.
The importance of sustainability is rapidly increasing and by now has an increasing impact on the operations of organizations. In modern organizations many of the business processes are supported by IT, which makes the relation between sustainability and IT an important subject. However, how to integrate business strategy with IT operations in relation to sustainability is unclear. In this paper we focus on the role of Enterprise Architecture in this process and try to answer “How Enterprise Architecture may contribute in the traceable transformation from sustainability principles towards requirements on Green IT in the field of higher education.” Based on a literature study and qualitative research at different organizations we adapted the Sustainable Information Systems Management (SISM) model of Erek et al (2012). The SISM Revisited model not only guides organizations in identifying areas of interest for aligning the sustainability strategy of an organization with its IS/IT activities, but we expect it will be useful to implement sustainability in organizations as well.
The BECEE initiative represents a transformative collaboration between four leading European HEIs—Hanze University of Applied Sciences (HUAS), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), South East Technological University (SETU), and Universiteti "Aleksandër Moisiu" Durrës (UAMD). Our consortium embodies the essence of BECEE and the EIT Knowledge Triangle Model because it also comprises of 4 industry partners (KPN, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Innofuse, Zurich, Switzerland, Dungarvan Enterprise Centre, South East, Ireland, and Linda Laboratory, Durrës, Albania) bringing together partners from education, research, and business who are equally committed to collaborate on innovation action plans to fostering balanced collaborative entrepreneurship ecosystems in our respective regions. This consortium, therefore, is strategically designed to pool diverse strengths, creating a synergetic force for innovation and entrepreneurship that transcends the capabilities of any single organisation.
Historical sites, specifically former military fortifications, are often repurposed for tourism and recreation. While some of over 100 Dutch forts are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites, a substantial number are currently underdeveloped, putting their heritage value and biodiversity at risk. This demands action, as forts are well-positioned to relieve overtourism in other locations, responding to the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Convention's call to spread visitors to lesser-known areas. Furthermore, developing lesser-known fort sites could provide tourism and recreation opportunities near populated areas, thus contributing to the well-being not only of visitors but also the environment. Development initiatives depend on a transition from isolation to cooperation across sites. However, for cooperation to be effective, enterprises and agencies managing these forts still lack data regarding visitor expectations and experiences. We will employ a multidisciplinary approach to capturing visitor demographics, motivations, and experiences, through conducting quantitative questionnaires, lab-driven physiological experience measurement, and location tracking. This proposal builds on the previous project, “Experiencing Nature”, funded by Centre of Expertise in Leisure, Tourism, and Hospitality, which utilized Breda Experience Lab technologies to explore visitor experiences at Fort de Roovere. In sum, the purpose of the present project is to measure and analyze visitor demographics, motivations, and experiences at less-developed forts, and to develop a toolkit to inspire, support, and monitor development of these forts for heritage preservation, visitor experience, and biodiversity. The project will be conducted in collaboration with Flemish partners, thereby forming the consortium comprised of the Alliantie ZuiderWaterlinie (NL), Regionale Landschappen (VL), and Agentschap Natuur en Bos (VL), with support from municipalities in both countries. The project will promote regional synergies and facilitate long-lasting cross-border collaboration, especially toward coming Interreg EU proposals, whilst informing the design of interregional marketing campaigns and supporting planning for visitor flows and biodiversity conservation efforts. Collaborative partnersNHL Stenden, Alliantie Zuidwaterlinie, RLRL, Agentschap Natuur en Bos.
The scientific publishing industry is rapidly transitioning towards information analytics. This shift is disproportionately benefiting large companies. These can afford to deploy digital technologies like knowledge graphs that can index their contents and create advanced search engines. Small and medium publishing enterprises, instead, often lack the resources to fully embrace such digital transformations. This divide is acutely felt in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Scholars from these disciplines are largely unable to benefit from modern scientific search engines, because their publishing ecosystem is made of many specialized businesses which cannot, individually, develop comparable services. We propose to start bridging this gap by democratizing access to knowledge graphs – the technology underpinning modern scientific search engines – for small and medium publishers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Their contents, largely made of books, already contain rich, structured information – such as references and indexes – which can be automatically mined and interlinked. We plan to develop a framework for extracting structured information and create knowledge graphs from it. We will as much as possible consolidate existing proven technologies into a single codebase, instead of reinventing the wheel. Our consortium is a collaboration of researchers in scientific information mining, Odoma, an AI consulting company, and the publisher Brill, sharing its data and expertise. Brill will be able to immediately put to use the project results to improve its internal processes and services. Furthermore, our results will be published in open source with a commercial-friendly license, in order to foster the adoption and future development of the framework by other publishers. Ultimately, our proposal is an example of industry innovation where, instead of scaling-up, we scale wide by creating a common resource which many small players can then use and expand upon.
