Rozilawati Razali

Comparative review study of reactive and proactive routing protocols in MANETs

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are generating a lot of interests due to 3G and 4G activities. The dynamic nature of these networks demands new set of network routing strategy protocols to be implemented in order to provide efficient end-to-end communication. Due to the diverse applications that use MANETs, such as battlefield, emergency services, and disaster discovery, MANETs offer many advantages to many organizations that need wireless roaming. For efficient and timely use, routing and synchronization are essential. Both are hot research topics in MANETs. This paper concentrates on routing, which is a challenging task and has seen a huge number of different strategies proposed, each claiming to provide an improvement over other strategies. These competing strategies make it quite difficult to determine which one may perform optimally under a number of different sets of network conditions as defined by their Quality of Service (QoS) offerings. This paper reviews some of the state-of-the-art and widely investigated MANET routing strategies in the literature. Moreover, a performance comparison of discussed routing protocol strategies is provided and suggestions are made to achieve improvement in performance of these protocols. This research is followed by presenting further research that will be pursued to define a radically most optimum set of strategies to satisfy different types of application domains.

A study of routing protocol for topology configuration management in mobile ad hoc network

Managing todays increasingly complex networks requires extra information, knowledge and autonomic training. Network is being used in various areas and it requires a tool to manage it. Configuration management is one of the functional areas of network management that monitor network and system configuration information so that the effects on network operation of various items like versions of hardware and software elements and routing tables can be tracked and managed. In configuration, topology management issues are even more important in the context of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In this review paper, we focus on three routing protocols and discussed it in related works. Then we compare these three protocols and derive at our new hybrid protocol for MANETs.

Cases development for teaching software engineering

Software engineering offers vast variety of methods and tools for improving the quality of software development. As software products seem to be more complex to build than any other engineered artifacts, selecting suitable methods and tools appears to be crucial. Software engineers should possess broad knowledge on various technologies so that their appropriateness for a particular project could be judged sensibly. Wise judgment however requires not only knowledge but also critical minds. Case method is a discussion-based learning technique where students explore and exploit the knowledge and understanding of a subject matter themselves. The method needs the preparation of specific cases that inspire the exploration and sharing of knowledge, and also encourage critical thinking. This paper discusses the issues and shares the experience of preparing cases for teaching a software engineering course at the undergraduate level. Some guidelines are offered for future case developers of such courses to produce cases.

Achieving Effective Communication during Requirements Elicitation - A Conceptual Framework

Requirements elicitation is one of the most important and critical phase in software development. It is the moment in which the users’ needs of a software system are captured, understood and validated. This is achieved through two-way communications between users and requirement analysts. The process however is not so straightforward to accomplish. The problem of poor communication among requirement analysts and users exists since both parties are different in many ways besides the environment in which the process happens. They face significant challenges to achieve common understandings and agreements on requirements. This paper discusses the contributing factors that affect communications between both parties during requirements elicitation phase. The factors were identified through reviews of related work. The data were analysed through content analysis. The collated factors form a conceptual framework of effective communication activity for requirements elicitation process. The aim of the framework is to ensure the produced requirements are comprehensible and thus leads to the production of a software system that satisfies its intended users.

Critical success factors of executive information systems development for education management - A preliminary investigation

An Executive Information System (EIS) is a set of management tools that supports the information and decision-making needs of an organisation. Previous studies have suggested various technical factors that play important roles in the successful development of EIS. The success of a system however is not solely dependent on technical aspects alone. Studies on EIS should focus on critical success factors (CSF) that affect its development in a holistic way. This paper explores several critical factors that influence the success of EIS development, particularly for education management. The factors were identified through a field study with semi-structured interviews, conducted on five key players from two institutions. The data were analysed qualitatively by using content analysis. Based on the factors, the study proposes a theory of successful EIS development.

A preliminary review of interface design elements for mobile electronic government systems

Electronic Government (e-Government) systems are intended primarily to deliver governmental information and services through the web. The rapid evolution of mobile technology has triggered the need for conventional web-based e-Government systems to move towards another era known as Mobile Government (m-Government) systems. Although the functionality remains the same, the use of mobile devices in m-Government systems has caused the interface design of such systems to be dissimilar from the conventional web-based e-Government systems. Mobile devices in some ways have limited capacity in terms retrieving and displaying information, which makes their interface design to be quite tricky. This study aims to review the existing interface design frameworks in order to identify and collate the essential design elements that should be considered in designing the interface for m-Government systems. The study analysed qualitatively four m-Government interface design frameworks, namely 7Cs Design Elements, A Functional Design Approach for Mobile Government Website, Adaptive Mobile Government Framework and Framework of information Quality of Mobile Interface e-Government. By using content analysis, the study identified eight design elements from such frameworks. The study also highlighted the limitations of the current frameworks that could be explored further by future studies in interface design for m-Government systems.

Key contributing factors towards successful Electronic Government systems interoperability

Electronic Government (e-Government) is an initiative of transforming public sector delivery system towards high performance services and citizen oriented. The emergence of broadband and communication technology has catalyzed the growth of online systems forming the main thrust of e-Government. However, the satisfaction level of e-Government systems remains low because of recurrent transactions in different users systems. In addition, most of e-Government systems are still not integrated. Successful integration can be achieved if interoperability factors are completely defined in a framework and introduced in the early stages of system development. This paper aims to review existing e-Government interoperability frameworks which are European Interoperability Framework, e-Government Interoperability Framework (UK), Standards and Architectures for e-Government Applications (Germany) and E-Government Interoperability Framework (Greek). These frameworks were analyzed using content analysis method to identify the key successful factors towards e-Government systems interoperability. The factors were grouped into two dimensions; people and process. These dimensions and factors subsequently become the basis for developing a holistic and integrated framework in the future.