Nancy Alexopoulou

Enabling On-the-Fly Business Process Composition through an Event-Based Approach

Agility is a key characteristic for modern enterprises operating in a highly dynamic environment. The attainment of agility is a difficult issue involving all organizational aspects, such as business processes, information systems, personnel, organizational structure, etc. The ability to respond rapidly to changes by utilizing agile business processes is an important constituent of an agile enterprise. The focus of this paper is business process agility outlining the benefits of event-based business process modeling. To this end, an event-based approach is proposed enabling on-the-fly composition of business processes. The introduced approach adopts the concepts of complex event processing. A conceptual architecture for an information technology infrastructure supporting event-driven business process execution is also proposed.

Introducing a Public Agency Networking Platform towards Supporting Connected Governance

Connected governance constitutes the current trend regarding the provision of electronic governmental services. In the connected governance paradigm, public agencies share objectives across organizational boundaries, as opposed to working solely supporting autonomous portals in the e-government era. The establishment of connected governance poses new requirements, such as cross-organizational connectivity as well as back-office to front-office integration. Towards supporting this concept, we propose a Public Agency Networking Platform (PANP) facilitating personalized cross-organizational services, based on the concept of life events which represent human situations that trigger public services. The key feature of the platform is the simplification of the process execution workflow, as life events are accomplished through a user orchestrated process combining the functionality of discrete public agency applications. Emphasis has been laid on the citizen data protection by adopting a profile mechanism that enables the citizen to administer his/her own data loaded in his/her profile.

Infusing agility in business processes through an event-centric approach

For business processes we consider agility to be the capability to modify and adjust them in the face of unexpected contingencies even during execution phase. Traditional process-centric approaches dictate action sequence definition within the context of a specific business process designed to cover organisations requirements at some former point in time. To address the phenomenon of business processes that fail to match newly evolved organisational needs we propose an event-centric approach identifying meaningful events that drive action execution. We consider actions as autonomous units being aware of only the events initiating them as well as the events they trigger. In that sense, the notion of business process sequence is eliminated; the needed functionality is modelled in a flexible manner in terms of autonomous actions, events and event combinations, promoting the dynamic formation of process instances at execution time. Our approach materialises through a set of methods, named actors-actions-events (AAE), which can be followed as a guide towards identifying the events and actions representing enterprise functionality. Its practical applicability is demonstrated through a simplified example in a medical setting.

Employing Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework to Systematically Perform Model-Based System Engineering Activities

There are numerous Enterprise Information System (EIS) engineering methodologies in the literature, each covering different aspects. However, in order to integrate them in an Enterprise Architecture, model-based engineering can be adopted. In such a case, a central system model is defined supporting all engineering activities. Zachman’s matrix may be used as a basis for constructing such a model. Based on this assumption, we propose a systematic approach for the support of model-based EIS engineering process using Zachman matrix as EIS central model. Basic EIS engineering activities and the way they may be served by specific rows is explored, while the contribution of each system aspect (matrix column) is also taken into account. A conceptual model for model-based EIS engineering is also introduced. To explore the proposed concepts in practice, the System Network cell is used as an example. Corresponding engineering tasks and sub-models are formed based on the proposed guidelines in a technology and methodology independent fashion. A case study based on the proposed concepts is also presented.

The Blended Learning Ecosystem of an Academic Institution in Greece

Blended learning has been recognized as the most promising emerging trend in higher education, offering new capabilities, as it may significantly enhance the interaction and communication between instructors and students. The challenge of blended learning is to balance weaknesses and strengths of face-to-face and e-learning teaching environments and effectively combining them to provide enhanced learning capabilities. Its success should benefit instructor-student relation. To this end, the authors adopt ecosystem-based approach to model the blended learning environment and identify its constituents, i.e., instructors, students, consultants, technology. and their evolving relations. The proposed concept was utilized to explore the potential of blended learning in the academic environment. A study was conducted at Harokopio University of Athens over a period of three years to explore the relations between blended learning ecosystem constituents, focusing on instructor -student relation.

An Event-Driven Modeling Approach for Dynamic Human-Intensive Business Processes

One of the most challenging business process categories in terms of agility are those exhibiting dynamic behaviour and involving intense human decision. Any effort to automate such processes may constrain their agility, which constitutes an intrinsic requirement for this process category. Therefore, these two factors, i.e. intense human involvement and dynamic behaviour, pose a challenge regarding the role of a BPMS for such processes. In this paper, we explore the role of BPMS for dynamic, human-intensive processes and propose an event-driven modeling approach that efficiently supports modeling requirements of such processes. To validate our approach we provided a case study from the medical arena concerning medical treatment, which is a typical example of dynamic, human-intensive processes. While the focus of this paper is to introduce the modeling concepts, enactment aspects of the proposed approach are also discussed.

Enterprise Information System Engineering: A Model-Based Approach Based on the Zachman Framework

Enterprise information system engineering involves heterogeneous methodologies, tools and system models focusing on different system aspects, which should be integrated. Model-based system engineering may contribute towards this direction, by providing a central system model that captures system requirements and decisions that fulfill them at different levels of abstraction. The central system model serves all engineering activities and should be multi-layered, technology-neutral and modular. Zachmans enterprise architecture framework may be used as a basis for constructing a central EIS model. Basic guidelines to incorporate model-based EIS engineering methodologies within Zachman framework are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, a model-based EIS design approach based on these guidelines is presented to explore related benefits and drawbacks.

A Consistent Framework for Enterprise Information System Engineering

System engineering is the process of defining the desired architecture of a system and exploring performance requirements, ensuring that all system components are identified and properly allocated and system resources can provide the desired performance. A consistent framework for enterprise information engineering, compatible to Zachman framework is proposed. It consists of a metamodel describing different system views and the relations between them, a corresponding methodology of discrete stages, performed by the system designer or software tools, and a UML 2.0 profile for view representation

Extending UML 2.0 to Augment Control Over Enterprise Information System Engineering Process

Enterprise Information Systems can be described according to the Open Distributed Processing Reference Model (RM-ODP), where five different viewpoints are specified analyzing various aspects of the system. Configuration issues are explored in the Engineering Viewpoint of RM-ODP. In practice, configuration issues are explored in discrete stages, supported by autonomous software tools, each of which adopts its own metamodel for system representation. We propose a platform independent framework, which focuses on the Engineering Viewpoint of Enterprise Information Systems managing application configuration and network design issues independently of application development progress. In order to apply this framework using existing tools, model exchangeability and tool coordination must be supported by standard, open methods. Thus, a common metamodel is proposed to generate enterprise information system models, which are stored in XML. A UML 2.0 profile is defined to visualize these models, facilitate the designer to interact with them and coordinate specific tool invocation.

Exploring the Business Process Agility Issue: An Experience Report

Business process agility has drawn the attention of numerous researchers. Whilst this research activity constitutes a useful contribution towards the attainment of business process agility, most of them focus on agility during execution phase. Therefore, although business process design is an equally important phase of the business process lifecycle the exploration of agility from the designer’s perspective has not been given the attention it deserves. In this paper, the authors discuss their point of view regarding business process agility, as it was shaped during a case study concerning medical processes. Through this study, they identified important requirements for the attainment of business process agility, which were subsequently combined into a holistic picture constituting a comprehensive suggestion for the practical realization of business process agility. The objective of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of business process agility and ultimately to its practical realization through the proposed holistic solution.