Business information systems have been targets for rapid application development because potential productivity gains can translate into huge returns on investment for organizations. However, to realize the perceived productivity improvement presents a major challenge to today?s information systems managers and requires new development approaches. End user computing is an approach to reduce the backlog of user requests for information needs through which end users are given the software tools to create their own reports and extract the information they need. Some end-users attempted to build their own information systems with fourth generation language (4GL) but failed partly due to the programming skills required of them. Although fourth generation languages have been promoted as a means to enhance programmer productivity by an order of magnitude more, later studies by researchers showed less dramatic results. The many problems and deficiencies of 4GL created obstacles to achieve spectacular improvement in productivity as promoted. A new knowledge-based approach to rapid business information systems development is attempted in this study to overcome the shortcomings of 4GL. A prototype system consisting of a knowledgebase is integrated with an object-oriented application generator to alleviate the need for conventional programming skills. Typical information system functionalities of database creation and updating are provided through a framework of reusable business information system components. These are object classes arranged and instantiated in a certain way directed by a specification language. The knowledgebase enables the translation of user requirements via the specification language that explicitly avoids the prerequisite programming skills required of the developer. The specification language is non-procedural in that specifications can be specified in any order. It does not follow the basic programming language constructs of sequence, decision and repetition. Additionally, the customizable rules allow the developer to validate the specifications before generating the desired application. Maintenance and enhancement of the generated application is modified by regenerating from the modified knowledge-based facts and rules, at a higher level than conventional programming languages or even 4GL. Experiments with small groups of end-users and developers found this approach to be viable. Although the specification process is tedious, no programming skills were ever required other than spreadsheet like expressions. The absence of programming logic prevents most of the errors caused by newly constructed information systems. Testing is still required, but the remedies are much easier. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the feasibility of a knowledge-based approach to rapid system development of business information systems. This approach enables technical and end-user alike to rapidly develop such systems without programming. The application generator is built with reusable business information system components that can be added and extended to support more capabilities. The knowledgebase can be enhanced with corresponding new rules and facts to enable the user developer to build new functionalities into existing or new systems. Business information system development can be lifted to a higher-level than procedural specifications, and assisted by knowledge-based inference to achieve spectacular productivity improvements. / thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2005.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/284129 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Ho, Michael Moon Tong |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | © 2005 Moon Ho |
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