Information Systems Modeling Techniques Research Articles

The Cloud-Enabled Architecture of the Clinical Data Repository in Poland

In this article, the authors, using information-systems modeling techniques, and considering current national legal regulations, present the cloud-enabled architecture of a clinical data repository. The patient’s medical record is an important carrier of information necessary for accurate diagnosis and selection of the correct treatment process. Therefore, it is not surprising that since the beginning of the development of computer technologies, databases have been built to enable the management of a patient’s medical records. These systems were most-often deployed locally at individual healthcare units, which carried certain limitations both in terms of the security and availability of the stored information, and the possibility of exchanging it with other clinics. However, recent developments in the standardization of medical information exchange in Poland, together with the revolution in cloud computing, have opened up completely new perspectives for clinical-data-repository implementations helping to make them far more sustainable. Although, the practical aspects of implementing clinical-documentation repositories are studied both in forums of European countries and also around the world; so far, no similar research was conducted with respect to Poland. This study tries to fill that gap by proposing a flexible multi-variant cloud-enabled architecture of the system providing the services of a clinical-data repository. The goal of the work was to propose such a system architecture that allows having a system that is either cloud-agnostic, that uses specifically selected cloud services, or that is even deployable locally. Thanks to the use of cloud computing services, the implemented system is characterized by high availability, scalability, and the possibility of exchanging data between medical institutions, which enables the improvement in the quality of medical processes for the whole Polish population.

Business Process Simulation

This article discusses the idea that even though information systems development (ISD) approaches long have advocated the use of integrated organizational views, the modeling techniques used have not been adapted accordingly and remain focused on the automated information system (IS) solution. Existing research provides evidence that business process simulation (BPS) can be used at different points in the ISD process in order to provide better integrated organizational views that aid the design of appropriate IS solutions. Despite this fact, research in this area is not extensive, which suggests that the potential of using BPS for the ISD process is not yet well understood. The article uses the findings from three case studies in order to illustrate the ways that BPS has been used at different points in the ISD process. It compares the results against IS modeling techniques, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages that BPS has over the latter. The research necessary to develop appropriate BPS tools and give guidance on their use in the ISD process is discussed.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS: NEW ONTOLOGIES-BASED SCENARIOS

While ontology is still a fertile area of research in the field of Philosophy, Ontologies currently stands for research, development, and application fields in disciplines related with computing, information and knowledge. Information Systems (IS) are essentially knowledge artifacts that capture and represent knowledge in certain domains. Considering that ontologies is generally used to specify and communicate knowledge in a domain, and the growing recognition that ontological principles and concepts can be fruitfully applied to the IS field, one could say that an IS has its own implicit ontology when attributing meaning to the symbols used. Explicitly, however, ontology may play different roles in an IS. The scenarios presented in this article allow visualizing the roles that ontologies are now playing or will play in the near future in IS. There is a wide range of uses for ontologies in the different scenarios - they vary from the conceptual analysis of IS modeling techniques to their use as support for IS design, development and application. Our knowledge on the roles played by ontologies in IS is expected to be expanded.

Sistemas de información: nuevos escenarios basados en ontologías

Mientras la ontologia sigue siendo un area fecunda de investigacion en el campo de la filosofia, las ontologias son actualmente materia de investigacion, desarrollo, y aplicacion en disciplinas relacionadas con la computacion, la informacion y el conocimiento. Los sistemas de informacion (SI) son esencialmente artefactos de conocimiento que capturan y representan el conocimiento sobre ciertos dominios. Considerando que, las ontologias generalmente se usan para especificar y comunicar el conocimiento del dominio y que existe un reconocimiento creciente que los principios y conceptos ontologicos pueden aplicarse fructiferamente en el campo de los SI, se puede afirmar que un SI tiene su propia ontologia implicita, al atribuir significado a los simbolos usados. Sin embargo, de manera explicita, una ontologia puede tener distintos roles en un SI. Los escenarios presentados en este articulo permiten visualizar el rol que las ontologias estan teniendo o tendran en un futuro proximo en los SI. Se ofrece un amplio panorama del uso de las ontologias en diversos escenarios que varian desde el analisis conceptual de tecnicas de modelacion de los SI hasta su uso como soporte para el diseno, desarrollo y uso de los SI. Se espera de esta manera incrementar nuestro conocimiento acerca del rol de las ontologias en los SI.

A Taxonomy of Business Process Modeling and Information Systems Modeling Techniques

Modeling always has been at the core of both organizational design and information systems (IS) development. Models enable decision makers to filter out the irrelevant complexities of the real world, so that efforts can be directed toward the most important parts of the system under study. However, both business analysts and IS professionals may find it difficult to navigate through a maze of theoretical paradigms, methodological approaches, and representational formalisms that have been proposed for both business process modeling (BPM) and information systems modeling (ISM). This paper sets out to put an order to this chaos by proposing an evaluation framework and a novel taxonomy of BPM and ISM techniques. These findings, coupled with a detailed review of BPM and ISM techniques, can assist decision makers in comparatively evaluating and selecting suitable modeling techniques, depending on the characteristics and requirements of individual projects.