Bibliography: p. 100-104. / Office automation systems have become an essential tool for the operation of the modern office. With the emphasis of a modern office being placed on efficiency and ease of communication, office automation systems have become the backbone of successful businesses. COSNET is a prototype office automation system designed and implemented at the Department of the University of Cape Town and runs on Personal Computers that are linked to a NCR UNIX TOWER, which acts as the host. This dissertation investigates the different facilities supported by some of the office automation systems compared in this thesis, and describes the COSNET features. This prototype office automation system supports many of the facilities that are supported by large office automation systems. COSNET allows the user to define any MS-DOS based editor or word processor, and uses a simple editor for the creation of mail. The electronic filing facility allows documents to be created, filed, retrieved and deleted, and thus provides the users with the necessary features for document exchange. A user may set access permissions to each of his documents and may grant other users either read or write access to a specific document. The mail facility lets the user read, file, forward, delete and print a message, and supports classification of mail. A calendar facility is used as an electronic diary and stores all the user's schedules. These schedules may be viewed in either daily, weekly and monthly display modes. Read and write access to the calendar can be set by the user, in order to allow other users to manipulate his schedules. Any MS-DOS based application software can be added to COSNET. This facility allows the COSNET user to configure the office automation system to simulate the office environment. COSNET thus supports most of the necessary features required by an office automation system.

Although electronic messaging systems (EMS) are an attractive business communication medium several studies on the usage and impact of EMS have shown that despite the benefits, they have been generally used for routine and informal communication activities. Theoretically, EMS have yet to find their niche in organizational communications. Technically, EMS designs are not flexible to support communication activities of managers, are not maintainable to permit easy integration with other office applications and access to information from data/knowledge bases, and are not easily extendible beyond the scope of their initial design. Behaviorally, end users are not directly involved in the development of EMS. This dissertation attempts to bridge the transition of EMS technology from message processing systems to communication support systems. First, the dissertation provides an analysis for a knowledge-based messaging system (KMS) through a framework. The framework provides a theoretical basis to link management theory to EMS technology. It suggests that the communication needs of the managers vary depending on the activity level, implying related variations in EMS functionality. Second, the dissertation provides a design for the KMS through an architecture which incorporates the design and implementation issues such as, flexibility, maintainability, and extendibility. The superimposition of the KMS on an existing EMS provides flexibility, the loose coupling between the KMS-interface components and the KMS-functions increases its maintainability, and the strong functional decomposition and cohesion enhances the extendibility of the system beyond the scope of its initial design. Finally, the dissertation provides a implementation through the development of a prototype KMS which involves users into the design process through a validation study conducted at University of Arizona. The prototype used GDSS tools in eliciting message attributes for the personal knowledge base. This method proved effective in reducing the bottleneck observed in the acquisition of knowledge from multiple experts, simultaneously. Similarly, the combination of observation with interviews proved effective in eliciting the organizational knowledge base. The validation method measured the system's accuracy (which was very accurate) in prioritizing messages for the users.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 H33 / Master of Science / Computing and Information Sciences

by Au Yuk Van, Maria Assumpta, Yung, Thomas. / Bibliography: leaves 116-118 / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1986

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

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Office operations are on the verge of a major technological transition. The current approach of continually adding newer and faster stand-alone office support devices has not solved long term administrative productivity problems. The transition will focus attention on a total integration of office technologies. This dissertation focused upon the key office technologies currently available in the marketplace and then concentrated on Texas-based public corporations1 use and desire for these tools. The major thrust of this research was to examine the relationship of a company's annual sales, industry type and geographic operation type with its present level of technological sophistication, strategies toward office systems and the optimum office configuration.