Rose Alinda Alias

Collaborative Knowledge Management Systems for Learning Organisations

A knowledge management system (KMS) is a concept that can be used for creating knowledge repositories, improving knowledge access and sharing as well as communicating through collaboration, enhancing the knowledge environment and managing knowledge as an asset for an institution or organisation. In this paper, we propose a collaborative KMS framework for learning organisations (LOs) and discuss components in the framework that will help organisations to increase productivity and quality as well as to gain return on investment from a KMS. These components are KMS functionality, architecture, taxonomy, psychological, sociocultural and audit.

Mobile Phone Adoption and Appropriation in Malaysia and the Contribution of Age and Gender

This study investigates the adoption and appropriation of mobile phone technologies by building on the technology adoption and appropriation theories on different age group and gender in the Malaysian society. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a nationwide survey using computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) was conducted on 1710 randomly selected mobile phone users in Malaysia. The result of the study allows us to describe important elements of mobile phone appropriation in Malaysia and explore the influence of individual characteristics such as gender and age on different patterns of mobile phone use. The results of the study are expected to assist in understanding the use of mobile phone across different cohort groups in the society, particular those in different age group and gender, and serve as a mechanism in guiding the development of mobile phone applications and design by service providers and manufacturers respectively; as well as in aiding policy formulation on mobile phone use at the work place or school.

Scientometric assessment of engineering in Malaysians universities

There is a world trend for Research Performance Evaluation (RPE), developing of new scientometric indices and examining of their application. Consequently, concerns and anomalies arise about the convergent validity and reliability of these indices for the decision making purposes. This is especially prevalent in the region/countries/disciplines having less or emerging trends of publishing and getting citations. The present scientometric study addresses usefulness of the most noted metric h-index along with other selected indicators in the field of Engineering in Malaysians universities. To understand, the role of this metric if any, we examined the functional correlation, predictive value and its relationship with national assessment criteria. Results report that this indicator has good potential to work alone, ease in use and robust to get a broader snapshot for positioning and performance evaluation. However, for better decision making purpose, this can be used for broader contextual peer assessment process along with other indicators. Its validity is further checked with two size independent institutional h-indices: hG–H and hm.

A service based framework for integration of ITIL V3 and enterprise architecture

ITIL V3 could be introduced as a governance framework for IT service management (ITSM) and attempts to align IT investments with business objectives. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is also referred as a general framework for designing business and IT/IS architectures of organizations and it also attempts to align these architectures with business strategies. Our research tends to provide a service based framework for EA in order to meet IT Service Architecture requirements of ITIL V3. Regard to this issue our Integrated Service Architecture Framework (ISAF) is outlined here to be developed through main research. One of our goals is to provide a solution for practitioners in utilization of EA architectures in ITIL V3. Authors also hope this study would contribute in academic domain through bridging computer science and information system disciplines due to service-oriented technology and management aspects of the research.

Interaction Design Issues: A literature review

This paper presents an analysis on a literature review findings in Interaction Design Issues Journals from the year 2006 to 2010. Due to the limited literature review reported on Interaction Design Issues, this study is aiming to provide some input on the current topics, methods and theories, interaction design elements and future trends of research in the field of Interaction Design. We employ content analysis technique as to select words, phrases or common sentences in the articles based on Topic Classification Scheme adapted from Zhang and Li (2005). Findings from this study are fully addressed to further explore Interaction Design criteria as to improve Man Machine Interaction in the future.

Nascent research trends in MOOCs in higher educational institutions: A systematic literature review

The emergence of Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) has garnered widespread attention for revolutionizing open access learning and it is considered as the main driver of education innovation. The literature on MOOC is steadily growing. However, there is not much effort being conducted to systematically curate, review and analyse the emergent trends on MOOC in higher educational institutions. For this research, a systematic literature review is initiated using Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Model where the database comprises state-of-the-art researches on MOOC ranging from 2008 to mid-2014. There were 405 papers identified for primary study and 164 papers were found relevant to the research. State-of-the-art researches on MOOC in higher educational institutions were identified and current trends, issues and stances on MOOC were identified, analysed and discussed. This research is expected to assist policy makers, academicians and researchers to understand the trends and issues in the conceptualization and execution of MOOC in higher educational institutions and propagate future studies on MOOC.

Multiple perspectives criteria of Open Source Software appropriation: A case study of a city council

Adoption of new technology such as Open Source Software (OSS) is an important issue in organizations. Despite many claimed benefits, implementing OSS can be challenging. This paper describes a case study of a City Council in Malaysia that was migrating to Open Source based applications. It presents an integrated framework that allows the researcher to understand the multiple perspectives that influence appropriation of OSS in each level of the process. This understanding will assist in effective implementation decisions and lead to a more effective use of OSS.

An interpretive exploration on tacit knowledge dimensions in academia

This interpretive study explored tacit knowledge in Malaysian academia. Academicians are important assets in institutions of higher learning; therefore it is critical to understand tacit knowledge which resides in them. The lack of understanding of tacit knowledge impedes the efforts of managing it as a source of competitive advantage. The research employs the grounded theory approach and data are gathered through semi-structured interviews incorporating the critical incidences technique. It is discovered that tacit knowledge of Malaysian academicians is knowledge internalized in their work practices, which is externalized through action strategies in fulfilling the seven performance indicators introduced by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education. Three dimensions of tacit knowledge are discovered, namely the intellectual-affirmation tacit knowledge, self tacit knowledge and social tacit knowledge. Theoretical contributions from this study include a paradigm model of knowledge internalization and a theoretical model of tacit knowledge dimensions in Malaysian academia. Practically, the research highlights the tacit knowledge content of successful academicians which is imperative to improve the performance of an academician and the institution.

Evaluation of new research performance indices at the researcher level

Various new performance evaluation indices for impact have been proposed and studied in various contexts. This study carried out a quantitative evaluation of the case of Malaysian engineering researchers at the micro level using a scientometric approach. In order to understand the behavior of new developments, a comparative performance evaluation is carried out of h-index, a set of h-type indices along with publication and citation metrics. Findings are compared with earlier major studies. We looked for institutional h-index and researchers’ h-index scores and did not find any relationship. Exploratory Factor Analysis is employed to examine the valid categorization and to study the underlying dimensions of the studied metrics and indices. The inter-correlation among h-index, its variants, and traditional metrics is probed in detail. The h, q and g-indices along with publication and citation hold the position on ‘quantity of the productive core’, while the R index showed equal loading on both cores. For th...Various new performance evaluation indices for impact have been proposed and studied in various contexts. This study carried out a quantitative evaluation of the case of Malaysian engineering researchers at the micro level using a scientometric approach. In order to understand the behavior of new developments, a comparative performance evaluation is carried out of h-index, a set of h-type indices along with publication and citation metrics. Findings are compared with earlier major studies. We looked for institutional h-index and researchers’ h-index scores and did not find any relationship. Exploratory Factor Analysis is employed to examine the valid categorization and to study the underlying dimensions of the studied metrics and indices. The inter-correlation among h-index, its variants, and traditional metrics is probed in detail. The h, q and g-indices along with publication and citation hold the position on ‘quantity of the productive core’, while the R index showed equal loading on both cores. For the case of Malaysian engineering researchers, two conspicuous findings are observed about the total citation and g-index. These have association with the first component named as ‘quantity of the productive core.’ Our findings strengthen the point that citation count has a strong association with the ‘quantity of the productive core’ and cannot be used as sole impact evaluation measure.

Cost management skills among the owners of Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the era of globalisation

In the era of globalisation or internationalisation, as a developing country, it is crucial for the Malaysian Government to propose an SME development plan to assist the SMEs to meet the new business challenges in the competitive global business environment. This is because SMEs in Malaysia need to prepare themselves in various aspects, especially in respect of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to face the challenges in this new economic era. From the literature, globalisation or internationalisation is considered to be among the most important motivations for Malaysian SMEs owners to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to compete with the big world players. Among the important skills that have been discussed in the literature is cost management skills. Therefore, this paper will give an overview of the skill in costing among the owners of Malaysian SMEs in the era of globalisation. Furthermore, this paper will provide recommendations concerning how to improve cost management skills among Malaysian SMEs.