Office Information Systems Research Articles

Patterns in office information systems research increasing complexity and integration

Research in office information systems has been characterized as entailing a considerable variety of important topics. A review of the major OIS publications indicates patterns of topical areas that have gained primary attention. In attempting to draw a composite picture of the current definition and constituency of OIS research, it appears that progress is being made especially toward the design of increasingly complex, integrative, and interdisciplinary systems.

Data model issues for object-oriented applications

Presented in this paper is the data model for ORION, a prototype database system that adds persistence and sharability to objects created and manipulated in object-oriented applications. The ORION data model consolidates and modifies a number of major concepts found in many object-oriented systems, such as objects, classes, class lattice, methods, and inheritance. These concepts are reviewed and three major enhancements to the conventional object-oriented data model, namely, schema evolution, composite objects, and versions, are elaborated upon. Schema evolution is the ability to dynamically make changes to the class definitions and the structure of the class lattice. Composite objects are recursive collections of exclusive components that are treated as units of storage, retrieval, and integrity enforcement. Versions are variations of the same object that are related by the history of their derivation. These enhancements are strongly motivated by the data management requirements of the ORION applications from the domains of artificial intelligence, computer-aided design and manufacturing, and office information systems with multimedia documents.

The importance of a strategic plan in office information systems

Abstract Corporations and other large organizations are acquiring large numbers of personal computers, peripheral equipment, and software in their pursuits of office automation. Such organizations have strategic planners who oversee this evolution. Many pitfalls exist in automating America's offices. Discussed herein are examples of these pitfalls as they relate to compatibility, linking versus networking, security, privacy, ergonomics, records management, training, and justification. Avoidance of these pitfalls can result in increased acceptance of office automation and office worker performance.

Restructuring hierarchical database objects

A class of hierarchical structures arising in Database Systems (complex objects) and Office Information Systems (forms) is studied. Two formalisms for restructuring are presented. The first focuses on a class of algebraic operators based on rewrite rules, and the second on structural transformations which preserve or augment data capacity. These transformations are related to a subclass of the rewrite operations which is closed under composition.

On the malleability of people and computers: a focused approach to office ethnography

On the malleability of people and computers: a focused approach to office ethnography

Office Information Systems Cost Justification

The purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology for the cost justification of office information systems in engineering environments [1]. The methodology is called the hedonic wage model. It is based on the fact that the allocation of labor resources in an organization tends to conform to certain logical economic criteria. These criteria, along with information on the costs of labor and on how workers spend their time, permit inferences about the organizational values of key activities. The value of an information system can be estimated based on its contribution to the key activities.

A study in two-handed input

Two experiments were run to investigate two-handed input. The experimental tasks were representative of those found in CAD and office information systems. Experiment one involved the performance of a compound selection/positioning task. The two sub-tasks were performed by different hands using separate transducers. Without prompting, novice subjects adopted strategies that involved performing the two sub-tasks simultaneously. We interpret this as a demonstration that, in the appropriate context, users are capable of simultaneously providing continuous data from two hands without significant overhead. The results also show that the speed of performing the task was strongly correlated to the degree of parallelism employed. Experiment two involved the performance of a compound navigation/selection task. It compared a one-handed versus two-handed method for finding and selecting words in a document. The two-handed method significantly outperformed the commonly used one-handed method by a number of measures. Unlike experiment one, only two subjects adopted strategies that used both hands simultaneously. The benefits of the two-handed technique, therefore, are interpreted as being due to efficiency of hand motion. However, the two subjects who did use parallel strategies had the two fastest times of all subjects.

A society model for office information systems

A society model, which characterizes the behavior and procedure of offices, is proposed. It is our belief that an office system capable of dealing with all real office problems only through the modeling of the internal behavior of an office can be developed. In this society model, office entities are viewed as agents . An agent is modeled as a microsociety of interacting knowledge sources. Within the microsociety, there exists a microknowledge exchange system , which provides a set of microknowledge exchange protocols as a coordination system among those knowledge sources during their cooperative reasoning process. An office is then modeled as a society of various interacting agents using their knowledge to complete the office goals cooperatively. It is this unified view that allows offices to be modeled in a flexible and general way.

Knowledge based retrieval in an office

In this paper we discuss a novel approach for the design of a personal information retrieval system. Since 1984 the project KOFIS (Knowledge based Office Information System) is conducted in our research group at the ETH Zürich. KOFIS is a knowledge based personal information retrieval (IR) system running on a personal workstation. The system can be viewed as an expert system for storing and retrieving documents and domain dependent knowledge in an office environment

Artificial intelligence concepts for office automation

For the integration of office information systems with database systems coventional design tools (classical data models) are not adequate. Therefore, semantic data models developed by researchers of the area of artificial intelligence are investigated for automating office procedures. In this paper the RM/T model is extended for this purpose. Furthermore, the concept of a relationship-graph for representing complex objects (unformatted data) is proposed. This relationship-graph is sufficient for the representation of text objects and can be easily mapped to RM/T-relations.

Transformation and Verification of Office Procedures

An office procedure is a structured set of office activities for accomplishing a specific office task. A unified model, called office procedure model (OPM), is presented to model office procedures. The OPM describes the relationships among messages, databases, alerters, and activities. The OPM can be used to coordinate and integrate the activities of an office procedure. The OPM also allows the specification of office protocols in an office information system. A methodology for the verification of office procedures is presented. With this methodology, potential problems in office procedure specification, such as deadlock, unspecified message reception, etc., can be analyzed effectively.

A federated architecture for information management

An approach to the coordinated sharing and interchange of computerized information is described emphasizing partial, controlled sharing among autonomous databases. Office information systems provide a particularly appropriate context for this type of information sharing and exchange. A federated database architecture is described in which a collection of independent database systems are united into a loosely coupled federation in order to share and exchange information. A federation consists of components (of which there may be any number) and a single federal dictionary. The components represent individual users, applications, workstations, or other components in an office information system. The federal dictionary is a specialized component that maintains the topology of the federation and oversees the entry of new components. Each component in the federation controls its interactions with other components by means of an export schema and an import schema. The export schema specifies the information that a component will share with other components, while the import schema specifies the nonlocal information that a component wishes to manipulate. The federated architecture provides mechanisms for sharing data, for sharing transactions (via message types) for combining information from several components, and for coordinating activities among autonomous components (via negotiation). A prototype implementation of the federated database mechanism is currently operational on an experimental basis.

Time modeling in office information systems

article Free Access Share on Time modeling in office information systems Authors: F. Barbic Dipartimento di Elettronica, Politecnico di Milano Dipartimento di Elettronica, Politecnico di MilanoView Profile , B. Pernici CSISEI - CNR, Politecnico di Milano CSISEI - CNR, Politecnico di MilanoView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM SIGMOD RecordVolume 14Issue 4May 1985 pp 51–62https://doi.org/10.1145/971699.318902Online:01 May 1985Publication History 17citation296DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations17Total Downloads296Last 12 Months6Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Factors in Successful Implementation of Computer-Based Office Information Systems:

Factors affecting implementation of computer-based office information systems are reviewed. Three broad categories are discussed-characteristics of innovative systems, implementing offices and organizations, and the implementation process itself, with particular attention paid to the latter. The review concludes with a discussion of the importancec of non-technical factors in technological innovation and suggestions for issues of particular relevance to OBM researchers.

An object-oriented office data model: Simon J. Gibbs: Computer Systems Research Group, University of Toronto, (Jan. 1984)

Office activities involve the sharing of a large quantity and variety of stored information. Consequently computer-based systems for managing office information (referred to as office information systems) demand a specification of the structure and organization of information present within the system. Current database management systems and their underlying data models lack the flexibility required by office information systems. In this thesis a data model for the specification of data structures, operations, and constraints relevant to office information systems is presented. The model relies on techniques from conceptual data modelling to specify the structure and semantics of common office objects. The unusual features of the model include a constraint mechanism based on triggers, templates for presenting objects in different media, and unformatted data types such as text and audio. The representation of the office environment is described. An example is given of a high-level interface for which user commands can be translated to model operations.

A database design methodology and tool for information systems

A model and methodology for describing the information objects in an office information system and how such objects flow among the components of such a system are presented. The model and methodology support the specification of information objects at multiple levels of abstraction. An interactive prototype design tool based on the methodology and model has been designed and experimentally implemented.

Modeling and integrating procedures in office information systems design

This paper presents the OSIRIS methodology for the conceptual design of office information systems. The methodology is supported by the use of a semantic office model which incorporates structural and control elements; the model has a complete graphic representation. A comparison and evaluation of existing approaches to office systems modeling and design is proposed first, in order to provide guidelines and design criteria for the proposed methodology. The OSIRIS methodology stresses the difference between the design of office procedures, which is performed within smaller organization units and should be conducted top-down, and the integration of office procedures, which involves different office units, and should be conducted bottom-up. In the design phase, refinement rules are presented which allow to proceed from a high-level description to a detailed description. In the integration phase, rules and suggestions are given to understand the mutual synchronization requirements between procedures and to produce global representations of these requirements. Finally, the reduction of the integrated representation to a “canonical” form, which requires the minimum number of elements, is discussed.

Logical routing specification in office information systems

article Free AccessLogical routing specification in office information systems Authors: Murray S. Mazer Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., CanadaView Profile , Frederick H. Lochovsky Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., CanadaView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM Transactions on Information SystemsVolume 2Issue 4pp 303–330https://doi.org/10.1145/2275.2278Published:01 October 1984Publication History 27citation397DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations27Total Downloads397Last 12 Months20Last 6 weeks2 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

An experimental message management system using linguistic filters

We describe an experimental message management system which consists of three modules: the message manager, the message filter, and the adaptive protocol handler. The message manager utilizes a relational database for message management. To control message traffic in an office information system, the message filter determines whether the full message is to be sent, or a short alert message should be sent. Message filter and linguistic filter design algorithms are presented. The adaptive message protocol handler can transmit the short message several times to increase message reliability, and the desirable number of transmissions is determined adaptively. Comparison with usual protocols indicates the superiority of the adaptive protocol under noisy channel conditions. The experimental message management system was implemented using the C language on a PDP 11/70 minicomputer running under the Unix operating system.

How do people really use text editors? : Whiteside, J., et al In: SIGOA Conference on Office Information Systems, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 21–23, 1982, Edited by J.O. Limb ACM SIGOA, New York, 1982, pp 29–40

How do people really use text editors? : Whiteside, J., et al In: SIGOA Conference on Office Information Systems, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 21–23, 1982, Edited by J.O. Limb ACM SIGOA, New York, 1982, pp 29–40