Razvan Bologa

Organizational learning networks that can increase the productivity of IT consulting companies. A case study for ERP consultants

This paper considers the use of social learning networks to increase the productivity of IT consulting companies. We advocate that using a carefully designed social learning network can reduce the learning time for enterprise software developers and consultants. By viewing learning as a social act, a consulting company can increase its productivity. Increased productivity is based on hastening the learning process. The focus of this paper is to identify the ways in which social networks catalyze the process of knowledge sharing in order to increase the productivity in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) consulting sector. We present a set of detailed practical results that were obtained from experiments with an original knowledge sharing method that was applied to training young software developers to enable them to work for some of the worlds most demanding IT companies. The experimental data were collected from 2004 to 2011 during 12 training sessions conducted by an IBM partner in conjunction with the Computer Science Department of a large Eastern European University. The main results of this study were: (1) designed a learning community that reduced the time needed to insert junior consultants into ERP projects; and (2) statistical data were generated that measured the increase in productivity that an ERP consulting company could obtain by employing organizational learning networks. We also discuss the positive impacts of social networks that can be established between private companies and universities.

Collaborative Network for the Development of an Informational System in the SOA Context for the University Management

Each university is mainly interested in improving higher education and this holds true both at national and international level. At first sight the activities within a university may seem simple, but in reality they are very complex and dynamic, including a wide range of domains and problems. We have to deal with virtual university campuses, virtual professional communities, virtual collaborative laboratories, virtual libraries, dynamic supply networks, e-learning platforms for students, research, planning and controlling, human resources, etc. With a view to improving U-governance we concentrated on creating a collaborative networking based on academic partnership aimed at conceiving an integrated informational system to be implemented and generalized. The informational system is going to be developed in the SOA context.

Success Factors for Higher Education ERPs

In this paper we have identified some critical implementation factors of an ERP project implementation in universities. Taking into consideration that for industry implementations there are already many performed studies we started by considering university implementations as a particular case for the industry ones. The purpose of our research is to make a list of the main success factors in implementing an ERP in the academic environment.

Hadoop Oriented Smart Cities Architecture

A smart city implies a consistent use of technology for the benefit of the community. As the city develops over time, components and subsystems such as smart grids, smart water management, smart traffic and transportation systems, smart waste management systems, smart security systems, or e-governance are added. These components ingest and generate a multitude of structured, semi-structured or unstructured data that may be processed using a variety of algorithms in batches, micro batches or in real-time. The ICT architecture must be able to handle the increased storage and processing needs. When vertical scaling is no longer a viable solution, Hadoop can offer efficient linear horizontal scaling, solving storage, processing, and data analyses problems in many ways. This enables architects and developers to choose a stack according to their needs and skill-levels. In this paper, we propose a Hadoop-based architectural stack that can provide the ICT backbone for efficiently managing a smart city. On the one hand, Hadoop, together with Spark and the plethora of NoSQL databases and accompanying Apache projects, is a mature ecosystem. This is one of the reasons why it is an attractive option for a Smart City architecture. On the other hand, it is also very dynamic; things can change very quickly, and many new frameworks, products and options continue to emerge as others decline. To construct an optimized, modern architecture, we discuss and compare various products and engines based on a process that takes into consideration how the products perform and scale, as well as the reusability of the code, innovations, features, and support and interest in online communities.

Elements that Advocate the Nurturing of Digital Fluency

The article extends the research of the authors in the field of digital fluency and presents new experimental results obtained while testing tools that have been developed for increasing the digital fluency of young students. It starts from the findings presented in a previous article and brings data that advocates the correlation between the level of digital fluency and the capacity of students to use common software tools. The conclusions of the article can be useful for all of those who are involved into building young minds for the Knowledge Age.

SOA--A Performant Paradigm of Developing Integrated Informatics Systems

It is a fact that the field of informatics is extremely dynamic. Producers and users of software products are looking solutions to the multitude of problems they are confronted with. The focus is on finding cheap, flexible interoperating and reusable for informatic solutions which should meet the requirements of software users and which may be implemented not only by big companies but also by small and middle-size companies. Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) could be such a solution. SOA refers to a set of services, in the field of Internet and Intranet, called “Web Services”. Being used to Internet services companies have also unanimously accepted a series of standards which support Web services and consequently their interest in using SOA has increased significantly. In this way a SOA can be a new alternative to the traditional integration technologies which are rigid, complex and very expensive.