Computer Magazine Column in November 2010 Issue

A column article on "Systems Integration and Web Services" was published in the Computer magazine November 2010 issues. This column provides overview of outstanding issues that remains to be solved for using Web services technology based solutions for systems integration problems.


See DOI: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2010.328

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Paper on Collaborative Sensemaking accepted at the CSCW 2010 CIS Workshop

Paper Title: Requirements to support Collaborative Sensemaking

Abstract:
Collaborative sensemaking occurs when a group of people with diverse backgrounds engage in the process of making sense of information rich, complex and dynamic situations. Our understanding of collaborative sensemaking and critical functionalities to support such sensemaking is limited. In this paper, based on review of relevant literature, we outline a set of broad requirements critical for supporting collaborative sensemaking. Requirements identified are: support for creating explicit representations, support co-existence of different representations, support for developing shared representation, support for creating representations using templates, providing workspace for developing shared representations, support for building consensus and reaching agreement, support for facilitating and moderating interactions, support for exchanging documents, and support for retrieving and visualizing information. We argue that a collaborative systems designed to satisfy above requirements would provide better support for collaborative sensemaking activities.

Conference Link: http://workshops.fxpal.com/cscw2010cis/

Paper on Standardization Activities accepted at the WEB 2009

Paper Title: Analyzing Processes behind Web Service Standards Development

Abstract:
Anticipatory standards such as Web service standards are artifacts ‘designed’ by consortium-based standards development organizations. Intricate processes followed to develop anticipatory standards are not well-understood. Recently, the D-S-N model was developed to explain these processes, and suggested that these processes contain cycles of design (D), sense-making (S), and negotiation (N) activities. In this paper, we provide an initial report of a case study that empirically analyzes archival documents of SOAP standard development. Our findings reveal that the D-S-N model is applicable to the Web service standardization process followed at W3C but this model provides only partial explanation of the process, and that design and sense-making are the core activities of the process. Our findings also show that participants spent most of their time discussing technical issues and identifying action items to be performed, large organizations dominated the process, and negotiation is the least frequent activity.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, Sandeep Purao, and John Bagby

Conference Link: http://www.som.buffalo.edu/isinterface/Web09/

Paper on W3C Standardization Process accepted at the AIS SIGPrag 2009

Paper Title: An Investigation of W3C Standardization Processes Using Rational Discourse

Abstract:
Standards, in particular Web standards, have become critical and complex information technologies as they influence our everyday activities. Standards making is a social practice where in experts engage in discussions to develop standards by weighing various alternative design solutions. Processes followed to develop these standards and how decisions for core features are made is not well understood. In this paper, we drawn on concepts of rational discourse described by Habermas to examine whether processes followed at W3C meets requirements of rational discourse. Our investigation shows that processes followed at W3C do exhibit an approximation of rational discourse, while some concerns exist.

Conference Link: http://www.sigprag.org/phoenix_2009.html

Paper on Computing Professional Association Membership accepted at the CONISAR 2009

Paper Title: Factors that Persuade and Deter Membership in Professional Computing Associations

Abstract:
A decision to join a professional computing association is, generally, considered a decision to affiliate with a group. The value of a professional association can be measured in terms of services it offers. Professional computing associations play a critical role in advancing professional growth of its members by offering a variety of services such as career development, networking opportunities, and dissemination on current advancements in the profession. In particular, the computing discipline consists of several sub-disciplines each having substantial differences among them, which creates considerable differences among computing professionals. Due to differences among computing professionals, it is important for computing professional associations to identify services that are valuable for its members and help in retaining their membership. Towards that, in this paper, we identify factors that persuade and deter membership in professional computing associations. We present results of a survey conducted with the Association of Information Technology Professionals’ members, with primary focus on qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions. Persuading factors identified are networking opportunities, dissemination of technical information and advancement in the field, professional development programs, advocacy opportunities, leadership and community service opportunities, and reputation of the association. Deterring factors are solicitation and unwarranted emails, timing and location constraints of events, lack of a local chapter, and behavior and characteristics of peer members in the association.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, Lisa Jamba, and Albert D. Ritzhaupt.

Conference link: http://conisar.org/

Paper accepted at the ISECON 2009 Conference

Paper Title: Role of Web Server in Capstone Course

Abstract:
Web applications has become commonplace in the information systems curriculum. Much of the discussion about Web development for capstone courses has centered on the scripting tools. Very little has been discussed about different ways of incorporating Web server into Web application development courses. In this paper, three different ways of incorporating Web server are discussed: shared Web server (minimal student control), managed Web server (configuration control), and controlled Web server (full student control). This paper argues that capstone courses oriented towards Web applications development should provide certain amount of Web server control to students as it is an important skill set to acquire.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, and F. Layne Wallace

Conference link: http://www.isecon.org/

Paper on Web Services Choreography accepted at the AMCIS 2009

Paper Title:From Service Conversation Models to WS-CDL

Abstract: Changing business environments are forcing organizations to develop flexible and adaptable enterprise systems. To accomplish this and to solve associated systems integration issues, many are moving towards web service technology. Two key ingredients of web services based solution are service composition and service choreography. While there has been lot of advancement in respect to service composition, service choreography rather largely remains an open problem. WS-CDL specification is considered to be a candidate standard for service choreography; however, consensus on support mechanisms to develop conversation models depicting peer-to-peer interactions are yet to be reached. In this paper, we develop an approach as well required heuristics for identifying service interaction patterns from business process models and using them to develop conversation models. We provide detailed discussion on heuristics, illustrate our approach through an example, as well as indicate how these conversation models can be used for generating WS-CDL specifications.

http://www.amcis2009.org/

Paper accepted at the SAIS 2009 Conference

Paper Title: Information Extraction From Different Data Representation Forms: Charts and Tables

Abstract:
Presenting data in the form of graphs and tables has long been considered as an important tool for decision making. Extracting information from these presentation forms are considered to be cognitively intensive tasks. Prior research works on aspects of presentation forms have produced inconsistent and conflicting results. In this study, we examine effects of tabular and graphical (bar, line, and pie) forms on information extraction. Graphs were examined with solid and textured patterns as well. We conducted a laboratory experiment where in subjects answered set of questions which would require them to extract information from the presentation display. Our study reveals that tables, even though they have higher response rate, produced more accurate results than graphs. Comparison within graphs showed that bar charts had a lower response rate than pie and line charts, while pie charts produced the least accurate results. Comparison of solid and textured patterns in graphs revealed that they are not an influencing factor in regards to information extraction. We also provide detailed comparison of current research findings against to prior research results.

Authors: Janice M. Engberg, Karthikeyan Umapathy, and F. Layne Wallace

Conference Link: http://sais.aisnet.org/2009/

Won Meritorious Award at the CONISAR 2008 Conference

On November 8, 2008 paper titled "Computing Professional Association Membership: An Exploration of Membership Needs and Motivations" won Meritorious Award at the CONISAR 2008 Conference.

The first annual Conference on Information Systems Applied Research (CONISAR) 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. CONISAR conference is sponsored by the Education Special Interest Group of Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP). CONSIAR conference focuses on research dealing with real-world practical applications of information sciences, systems, and technology, and provides a valuable forum for both researchers and practitioners. Topics include IS applications, ethics, technological changes, emerging applications, and IS research.

For more about CONISAR: http://conisar.org/

As per conference organizers, Award winning papers selection went through 3 rounds of review involving total of 12 reviewers.

There were three Meritorious Award and one Best Paper award for CONISAR 2008 conference. Three Meritorious Award papers are in top 5% and the Best Paper Award is in the top 1% of the conference papers.

Authors of the paper are Albert D. Ritzhaupt (University of North Carolina Wilmington), Karthikeyan Umapathy (University of North Florida), and Lisa Jamba (University of North Florida).

Here is the link to access our paper: http://isedj.org/isecon/2008/3524/index.html

Position Paper accepted for publication at the ONISW 2008

Position paper titled "Toward Generic, Immersive, and Collaborative Solutions to the Data Interoperability Problem which Target End-Users" is accepted for publication in the 2nd International workshop on Ontologies and Information Systems for the Semantic Web (ONISW 2008) to held along with the ACM 17th Conference on Information and Knowledge Management in Napa Valley Marriott Hotel & Spa: Napa Valley, California, October 26-30, 2008.

Authors: Arturo J. Sánchez-Ruíz, Karthikeyan Umapathy, and Pat Hayes

Abstract:
In this position paper we describe our vision of a “just-in-time” approach to the Data Interoperability Problem (a.k.a.INTEROP.) It empowers data stakeholders (e.g. data producers and data consumers) with integrated tools to interact and collaborate with each other while directly manipulating visual representations of their data in an immersive environment
(e.g. implemented via Second Life.) The semantics of these visual representations and the operations associated with the data are supported by ontologies defined using the Common Logic Framework (CL). Data operations gestured by the stakeholders, through their avatars, are translated to a variety of generated resources such as multi-language source code, visualizations, web pages, and web services. The generality of the approach is supported by a plug-in architecture which allows expert users to customize tasks such as data admission, data manipulation in the immersive world, and automatic generation of resources. This approach is designed with a mindset aimed at enabling stakeholders from diverse domains to exchange data and generate new knowledge.

Link to ONISW 2008: http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/hhan/ONISW2008/

Publicity Chair for DESRIST 2009

Fourth International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST) will be in Philadelphia, PA on May 7‐9, 2009.

This year conference theme is "Diversity in Design Science."

Here is the link to the conference site - http://desrist2009.ist.psu.edu/

Here is the link to call for papers - http://desrist2009.ist.psu.edu/submit.html

Important Dates

• Submission: Jan 22, 2009
• Acceptance: Mar 10, 2009
• Camera Ready Submission: Apr 10, 2009
• Early Registration Closes: Apr 10, 2009
• Conference Dates: May 7‐9, 2009

Select Papers will be invited to Journal of the AIS

Review of Language-Action Perspective (LAP)

Book chapter titled "A Review of the Language-Action Perspective (LAP) Approach in Information Systems Research" is accepted to be published as a book chapter in Handbook of Research on Contemporary Theoretical Models in Information Systems.

ABSTRACT

The Language-Action Perspective (LAP) provides an alternative foundation for analyzing and designing effective information systems. The fundamental principle of the LAP approach is people perform actions through communication; therefore, the role of information systems is to support such communications among people to achieve business goals. Basing on linguistic and communicative theories, the LAP approach provides guidance for researchers to gain understanding on how people use communication to coordinate their activities to achieve common goal. Web services, a leading technology to develop information systems, aims to support communication among services to achieve business goals. The close match between fundamental principles of web services and the LAP approach suggests that researchers can use the LAP approach as a theoretical guidance to analyze and resolve web service problems. This chapter provides a comprehensive starting point for researchers, practitioners, and students to gain understanding of the LAP approach.

Nominated for Best Paper Award at DESRIST 2008

I presented paper titled "Designing Enterprise Integration Solutions - Effectively" at the Design Science Research Conference in Atlanta, GA, USA on Thursday May 8.

Paper was nominated for Best Paper Award.

However, the award went to Paper titled "Twelve Theses on Information Systems as a Design Science" authored by Juhani Iivari (University of Oulu).

Best student paper award went to paper titled "Secure Activity Resource Coordination: A Method to Design Secure Business Processes" authored by Fergle D'Aubeterre, Rahul Singh, and Lakshmi Iyer (University of North Carolina at Greensboro).

Jay Nunamaker (University of Arizona) and Salvatore March (Vanderbilt University) were inducted to the Information Systems Design Science Hall of Fame.

Next year Design Science Conference (DESRIST) 2009 will be held at Philadelphia, PA, USA. Program Chair for DESRIST 2009 would be Sandeep Purao from College of Information Science and Technology, Pennsylvania State University.

Paper accepted at the IEEE Symposium on SOA Standards

Paper Title: Standardizing Web Services: Overcoming ‘Design by Committee’

Abstract:
Web service standards, like several other IT standards, are anticipatory, i.e., they are designed and codified in anticipation of actual adoption and use. As a result, the setting of web service standards takes on properties that resemble the designing of software artifacts. In contrast, the traditional perspective on standards views them as law-like systems that legislate modes of
behavior, product structures or specifications. The two perspectives – ‘design’ and ‘legislation’ – can sometimes be at odds. In the software engineering community, the phrase ‘design by committee’ has come to symbolize designs that are not effective, not elegant and not addressing issues that are core to the original intentions. Current efforts and recent outcomes in web
services standards appear to have overcome this taboo. We demonstrate, with the help of an empirical study, how the participants interact, and the roles they take on to produce web service standards.

Authors: Sandeep Purao, John Bagby, and Karthikeyan Umapathy

This paper will be published in the IEEE Symposium on SOA Standards, which will be held along with IEEE Services 2008 conference.

http://conferences.computer.org/services/2008/ieee.htm

Paper accepted at the Services Computing Conference (SCC) 2008

Paper Title:
Representing and Accessing Design Knowledge for Service Integration

Abstract:
Process construction from existing services requires use of appropriate design knowledge. For services that are mapped to underlying legacy applications, this takes the form of enterprise integration solutions. Design knowledge in this domain is available in the form of Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP). These patterns are, however, difficult to understand; they also use primitives that are different from those used for process representation. As a result, accessing EIP based on process requirements remains a cognitively demanding task for designers. In this paper, we describe a knowledge-base that represents the EIPs, infusing them with semantics derived from speech acts; and a set of heuristics, which can be used to retrieve EIPs for a set of requirements. An example serves to illustrate how the two can work in tandem to assist the designer.

Co-Authored with Sandeep Purao.

IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2008) will be held on July 8-11, 2008, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2008/

Paper accepted at the Design Science Research 2008 Conference

Paper Title: Designing Enterprise Integration Solutions - Effectively

Abstract: The design of large and complex enterprise integration solutions is a difficult task because designers must respond not only to the ‘requirements’ from a diverse set of users, but also because a successful design outcome must respond to the ‘constraints’ provided by the current set of legacy applications. The problem, therefore, belongs to a category of problems where design knowledge is difficult to articulate and reuse. In particular, the nature and form of knowledge for conceptual design of systems integration solutions continues to be a concern. In this paper, we investigate whether design knowledge in the form of patterns can be reused to develop systems integration solutions, and whether such reuse leads to more effective design outcomes. The research follows Design Science guidelines in that we describe a research artifact, and evaluate it to assess whether it meets the intended goals. The results indicate that approaches to facilitate reuse of conceptual design knowledge are feasible in the domain of enterprise integration, and that such reuse does, in fact, lead to more effective design solutions.

Co-authors: Sandeep Purao and Russell R. Barton

Link to DESRIST 2008 Conference

When Requirements Go Bad: Requirements Errors

Yesterday I attended a talk on “When Requirements Go Bad: Requirements Errors - Sources and Avoidance Strategies” by Kurt Bittner. Kurt Bittner has co-authored two books: Managing Iterative Software Development Projects and Use Case Modeling.

Kurt Bittner Bio on InformIT
http://www.informit.com/authors/bio.aspx?a=4B75C773-9B16-4283-88F9-888B641A7058&rl=1

He categorized requirements errors into three categories
1. Misconception errors – user needs misconstrued
2. Specification errors – user needs understood but written ambiguously
3. Implementation errors – communication breakdowns and lack of enough reviews and testing

While above were the core of the talk, he also provided some typical errors and strategies to avoid them. The entire talk was excellent and worth the money, given that I am teaching a requirements management course this spring.

Date of the talk: January 8, 2008
Venue: University center, University of North Florida
Organized by: North Florida Rational Users Group
http://www.nf-rug.com/index.php

Visual Interactive Search Engine

I recently came across a flash-based, interactive and visual search engine, that groups search results into different categories. It visually shows which categories has associated links. I thought it is really interesting and does produce good results.

Below is the link for it
http://www.kartoo.com/

Joined School of Computing, University of North Florida

From Fall 2007 onwards I will be Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the School of Computing, University of North Florida (UNF). UNF is located in Jacksonville, Florida. For Fall 2007, I will be teaching Introduction to Object Oriented Programming with Java.

My contact address at UNF is
Karthikeyan Umapathy
3214 Mathews Building (15)
School of Computing
University of North Florida
1 UNF Drive
Jacksonville FL 32224
Email: k . umapathy @ unf . edu (remove blank spaces when you send email)
Work Phone: 904-620-1329
Fax: 904-620-2988
website: http://www.unf.edu/~k.umapathy/