Over the last few years 3D avatar virtual worlds (AVW) have emerged on the Internet. These are computer generated, multi-user, graphical spaces within which people meet, form social groups and interact with each other in real time, typically through the exchange of text or audio messages. Each user is represented within the space by a digital image known as an avatar, which is usually humanoid in form, and is predominantly under the control of the person it represents. This thesisd escribesa creativep roject that is concernedw ith aspectso f social communication between users of "Ws. In particular, an avatar is designed that is capable of performing body language, and a set of useful gestures are implemented that support aspects of social interaction and integrate with verbal discourse in a meaningful way. In addition to this, a number of scenic properties are derived that enable better comprehension of the non verbal communication, e. g. spatial arrangement, camera position and lighting effects. The research consists of a number of interrelated design activities which include reviewing the literature on avatar design in order to locate goals and variety of the project, therefore building on the on the work of others; a comparative review of three popular 3D AVWs to explore the design problem; a study that aims to gain an understanding of the social dynamics involved; the adaptation of a diagrammatic technique for the purpose of modelling social interaction; the development of 2D and 3D prototype techniques exploring the application of the social interaction modelling technique; a body of creative work developing ideas for conveying non verbal communication and the appraisal of the effectiveness of this creative work. The research contributes to the field of avatar design in a number of ways. Firstly, it develops our understanding of social dynamics in virtual worlds. Secondly, it postulates modes of non verbal communication for both individuals and social groups that supports multi-participatory social discourse. Additionally, a number of useful research techniques have been devised, such as a linear diagramming technique that can be used to represent the structure of conversation thereby facilitating the exploration and understanding of the dynamics of AVW social discourse. The work is of interest to those working in the field of avatar and multi-user virtual world design. It may also be of interest to anyone thinking of using an avatar virtual world for the application of collaborative leaming, collaborative games and conferencing.

Today a paradigm shift in the field of organisation and management theories is no longer disputed and the need to switch from the Command-and-Control to the Leaming Organisation Paradigm (LOP) in the area of organisational theory is well understood. However, it is less well appreciated that learning organisations cannot operate effectively if supported by centralised databases and tailor-made application programs. LOP emphasises adaptability, flexibility, participation and learning. It is important to understand that the changes in organisational and management strategies will not on their own be able to produce the desired effects unless they are supported by appropriate changes in organisational culture, and by effective information systems. This research demonstrates that conventional information system strategies and development methods are no longer adequate. Information system strategies must respond to these needs of the LOP and incorporate new information systems that are capable of evolving, adapting and responding to the constantly changing business environment. The desired adaptability, flexibility and agility in information systems for LOP can be achieved by exploiting the technologies of the Internet, World Wide Web, intelligent agents and intranets. This research establishes that there is a need for synergy between organisational structures and organisational information systems. To obtain this desired synergy it is essential that new information systems be designed as an integral part of the learning organisational structure itself. Complexity theory provides a new set of metaphors and a host of concepts for the understanding of organisations as complex adaptive systems. This research introduces the principles of Complex Adaptive Systems and draws on their significance for designing the information systems needed to support the new generation of learning organisations. The search for new models of information system strategies for today's dynamic world of business points to the 'swarm models' observed in Nature.

No description available.

Information Systems (IS) are being developed and used in organizations to achieve their business goals and to enhance organizational effectiveness. The rate of systems success is questionable. One of the causes of IS failures might be user dissatisfaction with the systems. The success of an Information System is difficult to measure directly, so user satisfaction and system usage are frequently used as surrogate measures of system success. User participation in IS development has been advocated to achieve user satisfaction with the system and consequently system success. Past research findings about the effect of user participation on user satisfaction leading to system success are mixed and inconclusive. Past research has not been successful in showing whether user participation in IS development is necessary or not. So further research in this respect is justifiable. This thesis investigated the effect of user participation/involvement on user satisfaction. The effect of user expectations, and user-developer effective communications on user satisfaction has also been explored. A research model was proposed to proceed with this research. Meta-Analysis was carried out to investigate the relationship between user participation, user expectations and user-developer effective communication each with user satisfaction respectively. This thesis found some relationship of these factors with user satisfaction. The strength of the relationship (i. e. correlation 'r') was found to be 'medium' but not large'. The results also show that user involvement has a larger correlation with user satisfaction as opposed to user participation. The findings not only lead to the conclusions that user participation/involvement, user expectations, and user-developer effective communication have positive relationship with user satisfaction, but also contribute to the existing alternative views among IS researchers. The relationship between system usage and user satisfaction was found to be positive and of 'medium' strength and contrasts with the prevailing view that no correlation exists between them. So research findings are not only useful to resolve controversies that exists in past research but also lead to conclusions that user participation may contribute towards successful IS development and consequently user satisfaction with IS. Further, the causes of the emergence of unrealistic user expectations are explored and suggestions for future research are made.

A review of the innovation and diffusion literature indicates a considerable amount of research, where attention is given to a range of features which may support integration technologies adoption. However, some literature suggests that the findings derived from the study of large enterprises cannot be generalised and applied in SMEs due to the distinct characteristics of SMEs. Although the adoption of integration technologies is recognised as being different between large and small companies, the literature on its adoption by SMEs remains limited. Nevertheless, in existing work, there is a lack of studies emphasising the reasons why SMEs and large companies take the decision to adopt integration technologies, focusing specifically on the different factors. This thesis therefore identifies the significant differences in the way that SMEs and large companies approach integration technologies, based on the existing literature, theoretical diffusion theories, and resource-based theory. In doing so, the parameters that can be used to explain the adoption of integration technologies in SMEs and large firms are identified, as nature of organisations, company size, integration needs, adoption factors for SMEs and large organisations, and time. Additionally, adoption factors are found and classified into three categories: adoption factors explicit to SMEs, adoption factors explicit to large organisations, and common factors. Based on this, a conceptual model is introduced to explain the different factors that influence adoption between SMEs and large organisations. The empirical contexts of the research are one project on integration technologies adoption, and four case studies on a large firm and three SMEs, which are analysed using an interpretive and qualitative research approach. The evidence suggests that the empirical data complement the identified dimensions nature of organisations, integration needs, company size and time. The empirical data also confirm that the current integration technologies adoption factors reported in the literature can be classified into common factors, factors explicit to SMEs, and factors explicit to large firms, to support a more comprehensive view of this area. An additional factor perceived future prospect has been considered as an influence on adoption in large organisations. The findings of this research can be useful to guide analysts and researchers in determining critical aspects of the complex issues involved for integration technologies adoption, and lead to suggestions for further valid research.

No description available.

The factors that influence the ultimate level of success or failure of systems development projects have received considerable attention in the academic literature. Two particularly significant areas of interest have been the importance of applying best practice during systems development and the need to explicitly consider organisational issues to ensure a positive organisational impact. However, despite the existence of a well developed best practice literature and an emergent organisational issues literature, many projects still fail. The record of the NHS has been particularly poor in terms of the successful development and implementation of information systems and it was thought that this area would provide a fertile domain for information system research. Whilst the use of information systems in community healthcare has increased greatly over the last ten years the majority of existing research has been conducted in acute hospital environments with little attention devoted to the community sector. Consequently, this research project has two main aims: To identify the key best practice variables and areas of organisational impact associated with the development, implementation and use of a Community Information System (CIS) in National Health Service Trusts; and to examine the relationships between these two sets of variables and the system's resultant level of effectiveness. This research project has a number of positive methodological attributes in that it studies a homogenous organisational sector using a common type of information system and so minimises the potentially confounding influences of sector and system. In addition, the research design involves a three stage approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The research project has produced several key findings. A positive relationship was identified between the adoption of best practice and system effectiveness and similarly, there was a positive relationship between the level of organisational impact and system effectiveness. In order to ensure a positive organisational impact it was found that the successful treatment of key organisational issues is required. In addition, two new variables have been identified, user ownership and positive user attitudes, that play an important mediating role in ensuring system effectiveness. Finally, it was also recognised that the adoption of best practice variables had a dual role, directly influencing the level of perceived system effectiveness but also as a method of effectively managing organisational issues, user ownership and user attitudes. In summary, this study has emphasised the importance of adopting best practice and assessing and managing organisational impact during a community information system development project to ensure system success. These results will be of particular interest to practising IM&T Managers in the NHS and to the wider academic community. A series of practical recommendations are presented at the end of the thesis.

There are far too many Information Systems (IS) projects which end in failure. It is widely recognised that the primary reasons for this are essentially human and organisational and rarely technical. Although it is found that the vast majority of IT specialists consider human and organisational issues to be of equal if not of greater importance than technical issues, in practice they are still focusing on technical aspects at the expense of human and organisational issues in Information Systems Development (ISD) and implementation. Despite the awareness of the importance of human and organisational issues in ISD, little is known about how these issues can actually be addressed. This study attempts to fill this gap by investigating empirically how, when and by tinhorn a set of 14 specific organisational issues are treated in practice, and explores whether the treatment of this set of issues is dependent upon the employment of specific Systems Development Methods (SDM) or the successful adoption of organisationally oriented best practice factors. In excess of 2,250 questionnaires were posted to IS/IT directors in different British organisations which had over 250 employees, and 344 valid responses were received. This mail survey was followed by a series of focus groups interviewees with IT practitioners. It was envisaged that the integration of the two strategies would provide a very effective mechanism for combining the complementary advantages of the qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The interviews provided a richer picture of the research statistical results and explored their meaning and implications. This research presents empirical evidence that the level of organisational issues consideration, the tinting of treatment, and the person/people responsible for the treatment during ISD significantly influence the overall level of systems' success. The findings also show that there is a significant correlation between the adoption of best practice factors and the overall success of IS and the treatment of organisational issues. There is, however, no significant relationship between the use of systems development methods and the overall success of IS or the treatment of organisational issues. These findings suggest that it is not the choice of a specific systems method that ensures the consideration of a wide range of organisational issues, but the successful adoption of the organisationally oriented best practices approaches.

The current state of electronic commerce in tourism shows that it has become an increasingly complicated task for travellers to locate and integrate disparate information as a result of the rapid growth in the number of online travel sites. Therefore, new means of automating the searching and decision-making tasks are needed. A review of current literature shows that software agents are deemed to be highly suitable for delivering solutions to these problems. However, agents have failed to penetrate the electronic marketplace so far. An analysis of the reason for this failure has led the author to conclude that a new type of architecture is required, allowing a simple and useful first wave product to accelerate the penetration of agents. For this purpose, a proof-of-concept multi-agent prototype - Personal Travel Assistant (PTA) was developed. Firstly, user requirements were compared against what existing network and agent technologies could deliver. Then, a number of obstacles were identified that were used as guidelines to derive the prototype architecture. To overcome the main obstacles in the design, PTA used existing HTTP servers to tackle the interoperability problem and keep development costs low. A multi-agent collaborative learning strategy was designed to speed up knowledge acquisition by transferring and adapting rules encoded in the Java language. The construction of PTA goes to prove that an open multi-agent system could be deployed in a short time by standardising a small but adaptable set of communication protocols instead of going through a complex and lengthy standardisation process. Also, PTA's structure enables fully distributed computing thus minimising the necessary changes in existing hardware and software infrastructure. The major contribution of PTA to this research area is that its architecture is unique. It is hoped that it will lay the first step on the roadmap that would lead the evolution of agents into the next stage of development.

The aim of this research is to improve the efficiency of the construction process through the application of electronic data interchange (EDI). This thesis describes the development and application of EDI messages. The messages described are targeted to provide a means for transferring construction specific information during the construction process. The definition of electronic data interchange and its technical issues are first described. The nature of EDI, replacing paper based communication with electronic messages, impacts on the way in which business is conducted, and also has far reaching legal implications due to the reliance of many legal systems on paper documents and signatures. The business and legal implications are therefore discussed in detail. The application of EDI in the construction industry is investigated by means of a literature review. This work is furthered by a longitudinal study of the construction industry's application of EDI, which consisted of two surveys at a five year interval. A model of the information flows within the traditional construction process is developed to assist in the identification of information flows suitable for EDI. A methodology for message development was produced. The methodology was then applied to develop a description data model that could be utilised in the existing bill of quantity and trading cycle messages. The bill of quantity message set was at a stage ready for trial. To determine the issues related to implementation specifically in the construction industry a trial implementation of this message set was undertaken. The official implementation undertaken by EDICON is described. Software was also developed to undertake the trial. This software was tested and proved the message set developed was suitable for the transfer of bill of quantity related information during a construction project. The factors causing the failure of the implementation of the bill of quantities message set are discussed. A number of these factors are considered valid for all construction project information flows. Finally, the use of shared project models to re-engineer construction information tasks is recommended as a means of achieving significant benefit from electronic data exchange in the construction process.