Abimbola Soriyan

Information Systems Research and Development by Activity Analysis and Development: Dead Horse or the Next Wave?

We argue that the currently dominant methods in Information Systems are not satisfactory for emancipatory research and development whose starting point is work. Activity theory was proposed as such an emancipatory research-cumdevelopment approach in IS a decade ago. However, the potential identified in the theory has not fully materialized. As our own contribution toward making activity theory more operational in IS, we present an elaborated framework, ActAD, and review our experience in applying it to descriptive research, practical analysis, and constructive research. We claim that in order to fully unleash the potential of activity theory, activity-based methods should be developed further for IS requirements analysis projects and IS implementation projects, as well as for facilitating software development. The most appropriate way of developing such applied methods is through collaborative action research in real-life information systems work—the information systems practitioners developing their own work through activity analysis and development, with researcher participation.

From Software Risks to Sustainable Information Systems: Setting the Stage for a Delphi Study in Nigeria

AbstractIn this paper, we argue that the research framework used in western software risk research - software projects - must be expanded to include information system implementation and use contexts, particularly in developing countries.The literature of software risk management indicates that the risk of failure in information system development (ISD) can be mitigated by identifying and analyzing the threats to success. In Africa the understanding of success or failure in ISD has a broader meaning than in industrialized countries. The magnitude of constraints in Africa makes the sustainability of information technology (IT) a major issue. The question of how ISD is practiced in Africa is very little studied.We are in the process of conducting a Delphi study in Nigeria to produce a rank-order list of the most common risk factors in software projects. However, the goals when implementing new technology in Africa, taking socio-economic develop-ment into consideration, are manifold. IT is anticipated to pro...

Ontology Matching: An Ultimate Solution for Semantic Interoperability in Healthcare

healthcare domain is a complex domain which lacks a unified terminological set, most especially in clinical cases. As a result of this, the messaging standards employed in the healthcare domain use different terms for the same concept which often results in clinical misinterpretation, knowledge mismanagement, misdiagnosis of the patients illness or even death. Consequently, the healthcare system is characterized by high error rate and semantic heterogeneity. A lot of efforts have been made to resolve this problem through the use of standards, clinical terminologies, web services as well as the use of achetype. However, these solutions have proved unsuccessful in resolving semantic heterogeneity in healthcare. Ontologies have also been developed to resolve this problem by making explicit the meaning of terms used in healthcare. Ontologies provide a source of shared and precisely defined terms, resulting in interoperability by knowledge sharing and reuse. Unfortunately, the variety of ways that the healthcare domain is conceptualized results in the creation of different ontologies with contradicting or overlapping parts. Thus, the available ontologies also introduce semantic heterogeneity to this domain. An effective solution to this problem is the introduction of methods for finding matches among the various components of ontologies in healthcare in order to facilitate semantic interoperability. Therefore, this paper aims at examining the various attempts for achieving semantic interoperability in healthcare and also motivates the critical needs for ontology matching in healthcare systems. General Terms Ontology, Interoperability, Semantic. Keywordsntology, ontology matching, semantic heterogeneity, interoperability, semantic interoperability.

Trends in Multi-document Summarization System Methods

formation is knowledge if it is rightly applied. Information are stored with different formats in databases but retrieving such from different documents has been a challenge. People want ready-made information for the purpose of decision making in minimal time and thereby crave for summary of information. Automatic summarization helps in mining data and delivering timely and cogent information to users. These systems attempt to address the issue of data mining using different summarization methods. This paper discusses existing methods and state of the art in automatic summarisation system from recent articles. Achievement and challenges involve are also discussed.

ICT Implementation in the Nigerian Healthcare System

In Nigeria, the use of ICT in the healthcare sector has transformed the delivery of care. ICT has had significant effects in terms of the quality of healthcare services delivery. Here, the authors discuss how Nigeria has advanced in its use of ICT for citizen services and examine the widespread application of ICT for healthcare delivery across the country.