Achieving Building Sustainability through the Application of Information Systems and Stakeholder Alignment

Focus Groups are a cost-effective way of assessing user and customer requirements for IT (information technology) systems or products. However, specifying such requirements is not a simple process. Understanding the working or domestic activities of users that may be supported by future IT systems can be a lengthy process if carried out on an individual basis and by observation. There may be many categories of user and stakeholder whose different perspectives and requirements need to be elicited and prioritised. Thus the concept of assembling groups of users and stakeholders to discuss their current activities or ideas on a particular topic can be a simple and quick way to help establish user requirements. This chapter examines the role of focus groups as a method for specifying user requirements for IT systems. Three distinctive styles of focus group are identified. These relate to: (1) current activities and needs, (2) new design concepts, and (3) review of developing prototypes. A series of case studies is presented to illustrate the use of focus groups for different stages of the system development lifecycle. Comments on the approach taken within each case study are given and guidelines offered on running successful requirements focus groups in the future.

The research study entitled “Areza Town Center Inventory System of Dealership” was an information technology (IT) system developed for the management and staff of Areza Town Center located in Pagsanjan, Laguna, Philippines. The main purpose of the study was to develop an IT system that can monitor and record the transaction and the information of customers and the accurate computation of billings, services and annual income of the company. Specifically, it aimed (1) To develop a system that will meet the requirement of the Areza Town Center; (2) To create and analyze the use of the IT system depending on the process of the transaction and functions of the Areza Town Center; (3) To test and evaluate the system in terms of system usability, design, user-friendliness, error handling and system security; and (4) To implement the system among the staff and management of the Areza. The Areza Town Center Dealership Inventory System is developed for the purpose of inventory of information and facilitates the management of Areza Town Center. The system has a restriction for any unauthorized use, decoding, and manipulation of information on the system. It can handle a large amount of information and the system can assure the security of data records. The system runs using Pentium 4 and a higher processor, at least 50 MB for the program and 1 GB for the database to store records of transactions, sales, stocks, and income. The system runs with the use of Microsoft XP and Windows 7 as an operating system. The capstone project is a local area network (LAN) based system and it does not need an internet connection to operate. The inventory system was presented to the client for verification of the details to identify errors and clarify the process of the company. To determine the overall performance of the developed system, the researchers used a questionnaire-checklist, which includes indicators such as system design, usability, user-friendliness and error – handling. The questionnaire-checklist was validated and was distributed to the selected respondents. A total of thirty (30) respondents were purposely chosen to assess the performance of the system using the questionnaire-checklist. All the data were gathered, tabulated and the overall performance of the system was determined through statistical tools such as weighted mean and standard deviation as well as the analysis of variance to determine the overall performance of the system. The researchers used Microsoft Excel for the computation of the statistical results. In light of the findings obtained, it was concluded that the Areza Town Center Inventory System of Dealership was highly usable, has a good design, and has excellent error-handling, highly user-friendly and highly secured. Based on the conclusion drawn, the following were recommended: (1) the Areza Town Center Dealership Inventory System is recommended to be used by the Areza Town Center; (2) the researchers may enhance the database of the system by adding database backup and more additional features; and (3) future researchers may use this study as their reference when they conduct similar study.

Security evaluation and management has become increasingly important for Web-based information technology (IT) systems, especially for educational institutions. For the security evaluation and management of IT systems in educational institutions, determining the security level for a single IT system has been well developed. However, it is still difficult to evaluate the information security level of the entire educational institution considering multiple IT systems, because there might be too many different IT systems in one institution, educational institutions can be very different, and there is no standard model or method to provide a justifiable information security evaluation among different educational institutions considering their differences. In light of these difficulties, a security evaluation model of educational institutions’ IT systems (SEMEIS) is proposed in this work to facilitate the information security management for the educational institutions. Firstly, a simplified educational industry information system security level protection rating (EIISSLPR) with a new weight redistribution strategy for a single IT system is proposed by choosing important evaluation questions from EIISSLPR and redistributing the weights of these questions. Then for the entire educational institution, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to redistribute the weights of multiple IT systems at different security levels. Considering the risk of possible network security vulnerabilities, a risk index is formulated by weighting different factors, normalized by a utility function, and calculated with the real data collected from the institutions under the evaluation. Finally, the information security performance of educational institutions is obtained as the final score from SEMEIS. The results show that SEMEIS can evaluate the security level of the education institutions practically and provide an efficient and effective management tool for the information security management.

To assess local, state, federal, and global pandemic influenza preparedness by identifying pandemic plans at the local, state, federal, and global levels, and to identify any information technology (IT) systems in these plans to support critical care triage during an influenza pandemic in the Canadian province of Ontario. The authors used advanced MEDLINE and Google search strategies and conducted a comprehensive review of key pandemic influenza Web sites. Descriptive data extraction and analysis for IT systems were conducted on all of the included pandemic plans. A total of 155 pandemic influenza plans were reviewed: 29 local, 62 state, 63 federal, and 1 global. We found 70 plans that examined IT systems (10 local, 33 state, 26 federal, 1 global), and 85 that did not (19 local, 29 state, 37 federal). Of the 70 plans, 64 described surveillance systems (10 local, 32 state, 21 federal, 1 global), 2 described patient data collection systems (1 state, 1 federal); 4 described other types of IT systems (4 federal), and none were intended for triage. Although several pandemic plans have been drafted, the majority are high-level general documents that do not describe IT systems. The plans that discuss IT systems focus strongly on surveillance, which fails to recognize the needs of a health care system responding to an influenza pandemic. The best examples of the types of IT systems to guide decision making during a pandemic were found in the Kansas and the Czech Republic pandemic plans, because these systems were designed to collect both patient and surveillance data. Although Ontario has yet to develop such an IT system, several IT systems are in place that could be leveraged to support critical care triage and medical response during an influenza pandemic.

Purpose– This study aims to investigates the possible gap between the logic of these information technology (IT) systems and industrial firms’ marketing practices. Industrial firms rely extensively on IT systems for their business.Design/methodology/approach– Based on the contemporary marketing practice (CMP) model, which depicts firms’ marketing practice as ranging from transactional to more relational and networked-based, the logic of IT systems and how users in industrial firms adopt them are amended to create an extended model. The extended model is used to analyze an in-depth case based on 63 interviews regarding one industrial firm’s business with customers and suppliers and how IT is utilized in this setting.Findings– Results show that industrial firms’ relationship-oriented business is poorly supported by currently used IT systems. This gap between the IT systems, which are transaction-focused, and industrial firms’ marketing practice, which is relationship-based, has severe effects on adoption and efficiency of IT systems. The marketers prefer local, non-integrated, IT with limited usefulness on an overall firm level while resisting the firms’ comprehensive IT systems. This forms an IT–marketing gap given that current IT does not match the marketing practice of relationship-oriented industrial firms.Originality/value– This study applies an extended CMP model in a novel way focusing one industrial firm, its customers and suppliers and the IT used in this setting. The study shows that all marketing practices of the CMP model can be found in one firm’s business, albeit one category, i.e. interaction marketing (a relationship approach), is dominating. The use of the CMP framework offers new and valuable insights into the fundamental cause to the industrial marketers’ limited use of integrated IT.

Aligning business processes and IT of multiple collaborating organisations

To review existing nursing research on inpatient hospitals' information technology (IT) systems in order to explore new approaches for evaluation research on nursing informatics to guide further design and implementation of effective IT systems. There has been an increase in the use of IT and information systems in nursing in recent years. However, there has been little evaluation of these systems and little guidance on how they might be evaluated. A literature review was conducted between 1995 and 2005 inclusive using CINAHL and Medline and the search terms 'nursing information systems', 'clinical information systems', 'hospital information systems', 'documentation', 'nursing records', 'charting'. Research in nursing information systems was analysed and some deficiencies and contradictory results were identified which impede a comprehensive understanding of effective implementation. There is a need for IT systems to be understood from a wider perspective that includes aspects related to the context where they are implemented. Social and organizational aspects need to be considered in evaluation studies and realistic evaluation can provide a framework for the evaluation of information systems in nursing. The rapid introduction of IT systems for clinical practice urges evaluation of already implemented systems examining how and in what circumstances they work to guide effective further development and implementation of IT systems to enhance clinical practice. Evaluation involves more factors than just involving technologies such as changing attitudes, cultures and healthcare practices. Realistic evaluation could provide configurations of context-mechanism-outcomes that explain the underlying relationships to understand why and how a programme or intervention works.

Many investigation have shown that the introduction of new investment in information technology/ information system (IT/IS) are profoundly affecting the processes, work environment, structures and strategies of an organization. This is due to the fact that new IT/IS will lies in changing the people system or better known as ‘soft issue’. The resistance to change might occur due to lack of creating a sense of need and urgency for change among the employee and consequently might lead to the IT/IS project failure. Therefore, to reduce the resistance to change among the employee, it is essential that an organisation needs to determine the level of readiness for change prior the introduction of new IT/IS implementation by measuring its internal capabilities. A failure to assess organisational readiness prior the IT/IS implementation may result in mangers spending more time dealing with the resistance to change or even worst may result in IT/IS failure. To date most of the traditional IT/IS performance measures are based on productivity and process, which focus mainly on method of investment appraisal and become obsolete and suffered with a many problem. Furthermore, majority of current IT/IS performance measure approaches are mainly post-investment measures which fail to address the readiness issues. On top of that, there are constantly lacks of understanding of the human and organisational issue in the current IT/IS measurement approaches. Those approaches also lack holistic perspective on IT/IS which unable to describe the complex impacts within organizations. Therefore, this paper will address the issue of organisation readiness prior IT/IS implementation. A proposed IT/IS maturity model is developed as an attempt to address the problem issues with current IT/IS measurement approaches. This model has been designed to measure the capability of organisation to “successfully implement IT systems” and it is applicable across industries. The idea is to provide managers with measurement tools to enable them to identify where improvements are required within their organisation and to indicate their readiness prior to IT investment. This model investigates four organisational key elements: IT, environment, process and people, and is composed of six progressive stages of maturity that a company can achieve its IT/IS capabilities.

The traditional channels of marketing are gradually being transformed by, or assimilated into, the global network represented by the Internet and modern information technology (IT) applications. Unfortunately, in most cases, the current IT systems are not fluid and dynamic enough to cope with ubiquitous customers who can contact the firm through a multitude of communication channels, such as mobile phones, Internet, or fax. The effective implementation of modern marketing strategies depends on the effective use of IT systems and procedures. Internet-based technology can facilitate information dissemination, file transformation, data mining, and processing (Roberts, Raymond, & Hazard, 2005), which creates opportunities for the development and implementation of efficient customer relationship management systems. On the other hand, the new information technologies can also be used to increase the employees’ satisfaction and productivity (Dorgan, 2003; Eichorn, 2004). Thus, the implementation and use of an efficient IT system for business and marketing activities becomes a fundamental task, which should be managed jointly by business specialists and IT professionals (Wierenga & Van Bruggen, 2000). Unfortunately, these opportunities are hindered by many challenges at organisational or managerial levels, such as defining and restructuring the internal and the external sources of information, centralising the marketing database, and integrating the IT and marketing procedures at operational level. Considering all these issues this paper attempts, on the basis of secondary data, to provide an overview of the main issues related with the implementation of IT systems in business organisations and the challenges related with the integration between information technology and marketing systems. After a brief presentation of the previous research on this topic, the paper presents the stages of a gradual integration of IT systems in a business organisation and proposes a theoretical model

The traditional channels of marketing are gradually being transformed by, or assimilated into, the global network represented by the Internet and modern information technology (IT) applications. Unfortunately, in most cases, the current IT systems are not fluid and dynamic enough to cope with ubiquitous customers who can contact the firm through a multitude of communication channels, such as mobile phones, Internet, or fax. The effective implementation of modern marketing strategies depends on the effective use of IT systems and procedures. Internet-based technology can facilitate information dissemination, file transformation, data mining, and processing (Roberts, Raymond, & Hazard, 2005), which creates opportunities for the development and implementation of efficient customer relationship management systems. On the other hand, the new information technologies can also be used to increase the employees’ satisfaction and productivity (Dorgan, 2003; Eichorn, 2004). Thus, the implementation and use of an efficient IT system for business and marketing activities becomes a fundamental task, which should be managed jointly by business specialists and IT professionals (Wierenga & Van Bruggen, 2000). Unfortunately, these opportunities are hindered by many challenges at organisational or managerial levels, such as defining and restructuring the internal and the external sources of information, centralising the marketing database, and integrating the IT and marketing procedures at operational level. Considering all these issues this paper attempts, on the basis of secondary data, to provide an overview of the main issues related with the implementation of IT systems in business organisations and the challenges related with the integration between information technology and marketing systems. After a brief presentation of the previous research on this topic, the paper presents the stages of a gradual integration of IT systems in a business organisation and proposes a theoretical model

This paper proposes an exergy-based approach to evaluating the sustainability of different information technology (IT) systems. In reviewing existing standards around IT sustainability, we find that most of these metrics are based on energy efficiencies. Thermodynamically, these metrics imply sufficiency of a first-law analysis. In this paper, we show that such metrics based on the first-law of thermodynamics are necessary but not sufficient for evaluating the sustainability of IT systems. We discuss how — within the context of sustainability theory — exclusively relying on first-law metrics implicitly assumes a narrow set of system boundary conditions, and we show using an exergy-based life-cycle analysis that various classes of IT systems violate these boundary conditions. Thus, we suggest the need for metrics that include a second-law component as well as a life-cycle view of the IT system. Having identified such a metric, we demonstrate applicability of the framework for a sample IT system. We conclude by reflecting upon additional research needs and challenges associated with widespread implementation of such a framework.

The advances in information technology (IT) systems and network security have become main necessary requirements for any business in current time and future. Any organization needs a full description of all the key elements and relationships for applying good IT systems and good network security. This is known as network security architecture. This architecture increases the capabilities of any organization in terms of its practical application. This work has a new approach to network security architecture by using the Zachman Framework capabilities. The network security architecture of nuclear and academic facilities academic centers is discussed to show how a conceptual model can be implemented in a real organization. This new approach makes any Local Area Network LAN more secure and more flexible than any conventional security procedures without affecting the performance of the LAN. Creating security architecture for nuclear and research facilities by the Zachman matrix (data, function, and network) provide the answers to what data assets the organization controls, how they are used, and where they are located. Nuclear facilities, as one of the major users of information and communication technology, present a good case study for applying the proposed architecture. Therefore the Zachman matrix provides the answers to what data assets the nuclear and research facilities controls by setting up the ideal use and ideal places for these data.

Digitalization is playing a major role in mastering the current coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, several outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in German hospitals last year have shown that many of the surveillance and warning mechanisms related to infection control (IC) in hospitals need to be updated. The main objective of the following work was to assess the state of information technology (IT) systems supporting IC and surveillance in German university hospitals in March 2021, almost a year into the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As part of the National Research Network for Applied Surveillance and Testing project within the Network University Medicine, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess the situation of IC IT systems in 36 university hospitals in Germany. Among the most prominent findings were the lack of standardization of IC IT systems and the predominant use of commercial IC IT systems, while the vast majority of hospitals reported inadequacies in the features their IC IT systems provide for their daily work. However, as the pandemic has shown that there is a need for systems that can help improve health care, several German university hospitals have already started this upgrade independently. The deep challenges faced by the German health care sector regarding the integration and interoperability of IT systems designed for IC and surveillance are unlikely to be solved through punctual interventions and require collaboration between educational, medical, and administrative institutions.

This paper reports on a study of Information Technology (IT) systems, their comparative analysis, issues and applications in electronic business activities with special reference to modern organizational setup. It covers the major challenges which usually hinder the successful electronic business functions. Due to the magnitude and growth in e-culture, the need for such studies has become very important but there is a still lot of room available to have theoretical and empirical work on the topic. This paper investigates the impact of technological size and organizational complexity of IT systems. Moreover, the paper also focuses on the study of Major IT issues from the individual perspective and organizational exposure with substantial and diverse involvement of ERP, DSS and MIS in Electronic Business platform. The paper comprises on four main sections: First is about the introduction of IT systems concerning Electronic Business environment. Second is about the success and failure phenomena of electronic business. Third section relates to the detailed comparative analysis among major IT systems and Fourth part is followed by few suggestions and conclusion as well.

Healthcare information technology (IT) systems can be used to inform workers and managers about changes to workplace vulnerabilities and new means that may be available to meet challenges such as widely varying demand. IT system success, though, depends on adaptability in the face of change, which is a property that IT systems do not currently demonstrate. Resilience engineering seeks to create and maintain systems that can cope and adapt to complex, changing environments and can be used to develop IT systems that are capable of adaptation as the sharp (operator) end of healthcare requires. Research into resilience needs to address questions that have genuine import for healthcare and IT systems that are intended to support it.