Jintae Lee

Design rationale systems: understanding the issues

Most current design rationale systems fail to consider practical concerns, such as cost-effective use and smooth integration. The author identifies seven technical and business issues and describes their implications.

Extending the Potts and Bruns model for recording design rationale

An extension of the model proposed by C. Potts and G. Bruns (1988) for recording design rationale is presented. The extension consists of enriching the internal structure of justification in the Potts and Bruns model by making explicit the goals presupposed by arguments, the relations among arguments, and the first-class nature of these relations. The author describes the Potts and Bruns model briefly. A language whose underlying model extends the Potts and Bruns model and a system that supports the use of this language are presented. Related studies on recording design rationale are briefly discussed. The limitations of the language presented are discussed as further research problems.<<ETX>>

A holistic model of computer abuse within organizations

Past studies suggest that computer security countermeasures such as security policies, systems, and awareness programs would be effective in preventing computer abuse in organizations. They are based on the general deterrence theory, which posits that when an organization implements countermeasures that threaten abusers, its computer abuse problems would be deterred. However, computer abuse problems persist in many organizations despite these measures. This article proposes a new model of computer abuse that extends the traditional model with the social criminology theories. Focusing on computer abuse within organizations, the model explains the phenomenon through social lenses such as social bonds and social learning. The new model contributes to our theoretical body of knowledge on computer abuse by providing a new angle for approaching the problem. It suggests to practitioners that both technical and social solutions should be implemented to reduce the pervasive computer abuse problems.

An end-user perspective on file-sharing systems

P2P file-sharing systems enable their users to share files directly among themselves without the need for a central file server. They form one of the most well-known categories of P2P systems, thanks largely to the Napster controversy and its appeal to the large potential user base. At its peak, Napster boasted a registered user base of 70 million [9] and 1.57 million simultaneous users. Now, after Napsters downfall, over 50 systems have taken its place. The files shared through these systems include not only music files but also videos, audio books, and pictures. P2P file-sharing applications account for five of the top 10 downloads from the download.com Web site, together representing over 4.5 million downloads in the last week of June 2002 alone. Also, as of June 2002, 19% of Americans over age 12 (about 40 million users) have downloaded music files from these systems, according to cyberatlas.internet.com. These systems are interesting in many ways. They blur the distinction between server, client, and router because individual computers fill these roles, communicating and sharing resources without dedicated servers [6]. They challenge the ability to enforce copyright. They form a backbone for other types of P2P applications, such as groupware and content distribution.

The Process Interchange Format and Framework

This document provides the specification of the Process Interchange Format (PIF) version 1.2. The goal of this work is to develop an interchange format to help automatically exchange process descriptions among a wide variety of business process modelling and support systems such as workflow software, flow charting tools, planners, process simulation systems and process repositories. Instead of having to write ad hoc translators for each pair of such systems each system will only need to have a single translator for converting process descriptions in that system into and out of the common PIF format. Then any system will be able to automatically exchange basic process descriptions with any other system. This document describes the PIF-CORE 1.2, i.e. the core set of object types (such as activities, agents and prerequisite relations) that can be used to describe the basic elements of any process. The document also describes a framework for extending the core set of object types to include additional information needed in specific applications. These extended descriptions are exchanged in such a way that the common elements are interpretable by any PIF translator, and the additional elements are interpretable by any translator that knows about the extensions. The PIF format was developed by a working group including representatives from several universities and companies, and has been used for experimental automatic translations among systems developed independently at three of these sites. This document is being distributed in the hopes that other groups will comment upon the interchange format proposed here, and that this format (or future versions of it) may be useful to other groups as well. The PIF Document 1.0 was released in December 1994, and the current document reports the revised PIF that incorporate the feedback received since then.

Partially shared views: a scheme for communicating among groups that use different type hierarchies

Many computer systems are based on various types of messages, forms, or other objects. When users of such systems need to communicate with people who use different object types, some kind of translation is necessary. In this paper, we explore the space of general solutions to this translation problem and propose a scheme that synthesizes these solutions. After first illustrating the problem in the Object Lens system, we identify two partly conflicting objectives that any translation scheme should satisfy: preservation of meaning and autonomous evolution of group languages. Then we partition the space of possible solutions to this problem in terms of the set theoretic relations between group languages and a common language. This leads to five primary solution classes and we illustrate and evaluate each one. Finally, we describe a composite scheme, called Partially Shared Views, that combines many of the best features of the other schemes. A key insight of the analysis is that partially shared type hierarchies allow “foreign” object types to be automatically translated into their nearest common “ancestor” types. The partial interoperability attained in this way makes possible flexible standards from which people can benefit from whatever agreements they do have without having to agree on everything. Even though our examples deal primarily with extensions to the Object Lens system, the analysis also suggests how other kinds of systems, such as EDI applications, might exploit specialization hierarchies of object types to simplify the translation problem.

Social influence on technology acceptance behavior: self-identity theory perspective

Social influence on technology acceptance behavior has been acknowledged but needs to be further articulated. While Subjective Norm (SN) has been dominantly used to capture the essence of social influence, the findings to date has led some researchers to question whether it captures the full extent of social influence. Recently, social psychologists have examined Self-Identity as a construct reflecting social influence on behavior. In particular, Self-Identity has been shown to have significant influence on voluntary behavior and have enduring effects, situations where the Subjective Norm had little effect. This study examines the effect of Self-Identity on technology acceptance decision in the context of a web-based class support system under the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The result demonstrates a significant direct and indirect effect of Self-Identity on technology acceptance. The result also confirms that Self-Identity has significant direct effect on the acceptance in voluntary and experienced situations, while Subjective Norm has no significant effect in both situations. Key implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Process grammar as a tool for business process design

The space of design alternatives for a business process is typically very large, with technology, location, and other factors combining to generate seemingly endless possibilities. This paper introduces a set of artifacts that support process designers in their efforts to manage this critical business problem: (1) a grammar-based method to generate and manage business process design alternatives and (2) a software prototype that provides support for the use of this method. The method and prototype software are demonstrated with a grammar for a sales process. The method improves on existing approaches by offering the generative power of grammar-based methods while addressing the principal challenge to using such approaches in the design of business processes: the limitations on automated evaluation of alternatives and thus the need to provide designers with tools to manage the potentially overwhelming array of choices generated by design grammars.

Applying specialization to process models

Object-oriented analysis and design methodologies take full advantage of the object approach when it comes to modeling the objects in a system. However, system behavior continues to be modeled using essentially the same tools as in traditional systems analysis: state diagrams and dataflow diagrams. In this paper we extend the notion of specialization to these process representations and identify a set of transformations which, when applied to a process description, always result in specialization. We analyze specific examples in detail and demonstrate that such a use of specialization is not only theoretically possible, but shows promise as a method for categorizing and analyzing processes. We identify a number of apparent inconsistencies between process specialization and the object specialization which is part of the object-oriented approach. We demonstrate that these apparent inconsistencies are superficial and that the approach we take is compatible with the traditional notion of specialization.

Relating motivation to information and communication technology acceptance

Motivational factors of Performance Expectancy and Perceived Enjoyment are examined.Presence of negative effect between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is conditional.Controlled extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation that precedes it.Autonomous extrinsic motivation augments such intrinsic motivation. Despite a large body of research on motivation in psychology, few in information systems have related it to the information and communication technology acceptance research. This study investigates the relation between the Self-Determination Theory of Motivation and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model and confirms significant relationship across the two theories. In addition, this study investigates the effect of time sequential introduction of different types of motivation and finds the presence of the negative effect between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is conditional on the type of extrinsic motivation. Controlled extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation that precedes it, but autonomous extrinsic motivation augments such intrinsic motivation. Implications of these findings are discussed.