While it is widely acknowledged that alignment between Business and IT is important to remain competitive and for improving business performance, achieving, and maintaining alignment between IT and Business divisions is not always easy. While there are many ways to improve Business IT Alignment, a mature Enterprise Architecture has been proven as a contributor to Business and IT Alignment due to its holistic approach to considering all aspects from a technical and organisational perspective (Kurnia et.al, 2020). Other factors which are believed to improve Business IT Alignment culture, structure, communication, and strategy, to name a few. To the researcher's knowledge, not many studies have considered how these four factors, together with Enterprise Architecture fit together harmoniously to create, contribute to, and maintain strategic alignment between Business and IT divisions in a single organisation. This dissertation seeks to fill this gap by establishing which of these four variables contribute to improving alignment between Business and IT and if Enterprise Architecture has a role to play in achieving it. A conceptual model derived from the literature review guides this research through applying a moderation approach to determine if a balance in alignment can be achieved. This research is an empirical study conducted by an insider of Company A which followed a single organisation survey approach with 40 respondents at a South African Oil and Gas Company. It follows an objectivism ontology, with a positivist philosophical approach as an epistemology. A mixed method approach was followed for data collection, and data analyses was done using quantitative methods. Six hypotheses are presented of which two of the six hypotheses are rejected based on Regression Analysis testing. The key findings present that even though Enterprise Architecture and its' benefits appear to be largely understood at Company A, both maturity levels of business-IT alignment and Enterprise Architecture is relatively low so there are indeed opportunities for improving both maturity levels. While literature often indicates that Culture, Communication, Structure and Strategy have been identified as key enablers of BITA, the researcher only proved that two variables, Communication and Strategy has a significant effect of BITA. After establishing BITA and EA Maturity levels, provides recommendations for improving EA maturity and motivates how these improvements, if implemented, can strengthen alignment between business and IT so that EA can enable better alignment between Business and IT at Company A. These findings can support the existing EA and BITA body of knowledge in two ways: 1. As a case which proved that not all 4 common variables necessarily have a significant effect on BITA, 2, provides practical and implementable opportunities for improving EA at an organisation where its benefits is already understood.

This study aimed at investigating the requisite skills and their overlaps for Business Intelligence (BI), Business Analytics (BA), Big Data Analytics (BDA), and Data Science (DS) professionals in South Africa. Studies on benefits, challenges, and concepts on BI and Analytics have been conducted, but few contributions have been made on requisite skills for BI, BA, BDA, and DS. A multi-method approach was adopted using firstly online job advertisement analysis followed by the Delphi technique. A total of 482 online job advertisements were collected for analysis by using LinkedIn and Indeed.com. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze data from online job advertisements. Thematic analysis was used for the categorization of skills. For the Delphi technique, the final number of data professionals were 21 (7 experts from BI, 7 from BA/BDA and 7 from DS). Findings show that data professionals are required to have skills in programming languages such as SQL, Python, R, and Java, specifically for BA, BDA, and DS. They are required to be holders of a degree in Information Systems (IS) or Computer Science or Engineering. The significant skills categories which were shown as needed across all the domains were Data manipulation and processing (Manipulate data using SQL, Transform data from different sources and load it to extract insights (ETL), Formulate validation strategies and methods to ensure accurate and reliable data, Ensure correct data and error handling, Perform data analysis and validation, Soft skills (Communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, Exhibit time management skills, Prioritize workload and work well under pressure, Demonstrate problem-solving skills, Demonstrate excellent analytical skills, Be able to work independently, Apply creativity and innovation), Designing and Coding (Apply agile development processes to achieve outstanding data solutions, Perform data modelling with SQL), and Reporting (Extract insights and trends from data). This study contributes to descriptive knowledge by providing insight into BI, BA, BDA, and DS requisite skills in South Africa.

No description available.

No description available.

The advances in library net working technology has brought an inexpensive way of distributing and sharing information within the organization as well as libraries located in remote areas.The advantages of Intranet, Extranet and Internet being numerous, includes streamlining of the information processing and management, facilitating information dissemination and enriching communications and collaborations. Attempts have been made to discuss opportunities provided by these three advanced networks enabling librarians and information professionals in efficient collection development, management and serving users with value added information at ease.

Includes bibliographical references / The purpose of this research is to investigate the research problem: Why does emergent usage occur in adaptive information systems? Being motivated to explore this phenomenon from the experiential perspective, three research questions were posed: (1) What experiential factors describe emergent usage of adaptive information systems? (2) What generative mechanisms must exist for such emergent usage to be possible?" (3) What explains the relations of the mechanisms to effect emergent usage of such information systems? Emergent usage of adaptive information systems, predominantly accessed with smart mobile devices has become pervasive. The research problem, therefore, arises as a result of the continued under-theorization of emergent usage of adaptive information systems and lack of theory to explain why such usage occurs. To answer the research questions, an intensive single organization case-study, underpinned by critical realism, was deployed. The research explored an adaptive e-financial system developed by the case organization for public use. The research was aimed at identifying the causal mechanisms and the enabling contextual conditions that explain the system's emergent usage and the experiential factors that describe such usage. Multiple sources of qualitative data, namely, participant observation, interviews, and photography were used to collect data between 2012 and 2014. The retroductive data analysis employed a research model which was developed from a theoretical redescription of the phenomenon using a conceptual framework synthesized from literature and theories of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and meta-design. The findings were encapsulated in a concluding model termed, the Technology Emergent Usage Model (TEUM), as the key theoretical contribution of this thesis. TEUM is an explanatory case specific mid-range theory. The theory's relevance is based on its openness to flexible interpretation when applied to different contexts in future research, without making claim to its universality. Other contributions include methodological and practical contributions to highlight an area where there has been little or no empirical research to date.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Kong Yunfeng. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 280-312). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

<p>In our everyday tasks context plays an important role, we act based on the information we have or based on what we can see, hear or feel about surrounding. Using this information about context we use to adapt ourselves and our behavior for example in class room we usually whisper when we want to communicate with other class fellow, but in cafeteria we talk normally. Due to the advancements in technology and mobile computing, we are now able to carry computers and smart phones with us, almost everywhere and use them as an alternative to desktop computers. Ubiquitous computing goes step further and refers to the world where computation is being weaved into every day object. In typical ubiquitous computing scenario many invisible computers interact with each other to help user in getting his task done. The ability of being carried easily, i.e. mobility and their presence almost everywhere make it necessary for computer systems, taking part in ubiquitous computing environment, context-aware. If computers can sense the environment they are being used in, they can help user in providing only relevant information, information at correct place and time and such systems can also adapt their behavior according to their surroundings. For example, if would be nice if our mobile phone automatically set to silent profile, whenever we are in class room or in a meeting room. Ubicollab is a platform for supporting collaboration and is a result of research work done in the areas of mobility and ubiquitous computing. Mobility and ubiquity being the inherent properties of UbiCollab, requires it to be aware of context just like another ubiquitous system. It will help UbiCollab applications to adapt their behavior as per surrounding and will enhance the experience of collaboration by using the resources nearby. I researched in the area of context-aware ubiquitous computing and used the results of my research to design and implement a solution for making UbiCollab context-aware. The proposed solution answers research problem related with context itself and different aspect of context. Context definition for UbiCollab has already been defined in work previously done; my solution addresses how to represent this contextual information in simple and effective manner, how to gather location information using different and heterogeneous sensors in understandable and standard format. The outcome of this work comprises of proposed context model, design and implementation of Space Manager for working with spaces, design and usage of flexible data store for storing space information and design and implementation of Location Service Manager for gathering location information using different location sensing technologies.</p>

<p>This project is a continuation of research work done by (Asif, 2009) which proposed an extended architecture of Mobile Student Information System (MSIS) to integrate the systems available for the students to provide student centric services on mobile devices. The architecture was developed by using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to provide services for collaboration and communication among the students or between students and the teachers. The mobile services are built by integrating MSIS to Twitter, Feed based systems and NTNU email system. The services have the potential to provide students an experience of a virtual environment of class, project work and discussion groups anytime-anywhere. The project has been carried out in accordance with design-science research model over a number of implementation and evaluation iterations. A user-driven evaluation of the MSIS service has been conducted among a diverse group of NTNU students. The utility as well as the usability of the system were evaluated by applying observational and empirical evaluation methods in a real-world environment at the university. The usability test identified few issues with the initial design of services, and received feedback for enhancements. The Mobile Service Acceptance Model (MSAM) has been used to examine the factors that are influential for user adoption of mobile services in the light of this project. The MSAM instrument measures different facets of a mobile information service, such as the perceived usefulness, ease of use, and usage intention. Our findings confirm that the utility of the student centric mobile services are perceived as high, and students would likely benefit from such kind of services. There is no doubt about the great potential for a service like MSIS and it is believed to be a useful addition to the existing systems.</p>