Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'IS'

In recent years there have been repeated calls for universities to better equip students with skills which are relevant to business and industry. The field of Information Systems (IS), along with the wider discipline of computing, has often been described as outdated, slow to adopt new technologies and unable to keep up with the fast pace of change of the real world . Exacerbating the issue of academic relevance in relation to industry needs, universities around the world have experienced a growing disinterest in the study of IS and computing, resulting in worryingly low levels of new graduates who do not meet industry demands. To understand the contentious relationship between academia and business in relation to IS, the research presented in this thesis investigates the current IS undergraduate provision in the UK and its alignment with the skill requirements of the IS industry. This is achieved through a two-stage approach of examining the position and expectations of each stakeholder, followed by the development of a method to facilitate the alignment of their inter-related needs. As part of the first stage, the investigation into the academic stakeholder undertakes a holistic analysis of IS curriculum to quantify its content. This leads to the identification of original Career Tracks which specify the IS careers promoted by the curriculum. The second stage involves the investigation of the business stakeholder measuring the careers in demand and the skills that support them. The resulting findings from these investigations show that it is possible to determine the skills required by IS graduates in the UK to meet the demands of industry. This is achieved through the use of a newly developed IS Course Survey Framework that enables the configuration of IS courses to align to specific career tracks, thus mapping directly to the needs of industry as expressed through their job requirements and associated skills demand.

Information systems (IS) development represents a significant area of research interest in the IS discipline. Despite this interest, IS development projects consistently fall short in delivering anticipated outcomes within time, quality and cost constraints. Attempts by researchers to uncover contributors to high failure rates are complicated by fragmented views of the nature of the problem. These range from challenges to the validity of performance reports to contesting the conceptualization of success. Furthermore, there is a tendency in practice to address immediate symptomatic problems of IS project failure rather than resolve the fundamental issues. Consequently, recent measures indicate that 48% of IS projects fail to meet time commitments, 33% exceed their budget, 32% don’t achieve their business objectives and 15% fail outright. This PhD thesis presents research to explore and offer explanatory theory of how culture and leadership are implicated in the performance of IS development projects. Importantly, IS development is positioned as a form of social interaction. Thus, an understanding of the social context and the situated meanings that arise through social interaction are necessary conditions to effectively explore this research topic. Within this context the study reveals the performative nature of IS development work and offers explanations for the actions of organizational leaders and IS technical specialists involved in IS development. An interpretive research paradigm and inductive reasoning were adopted for this research and understanding is developed through a hermeneutic mode of inquiry. Two IS projects responsible for delivering strategic benefit to an organization in the financial services sector are the two cases in this study. Qualitative data were collected through interviews, observation and documentary evidence between January 2017 and June 2017. The nature of the relationships between culture, leadership and performance in the course of IS development work was revealed through two analytical iterations. The first iteration used the theory of Cultural Implications in Information Systems Development as a structural framework to support a thematic analysis of the data. A second iteration used frame analysis as a theoretical foundation to examine the interplay of culture, leadership and performance through a within-case and cross-case analysis of the two cases. Key contributions from this research include the development of a conceptual model explaining cultural implications in IS development, the development of an explanatory theory of the entangled nature of culture and leadership and the performance of IS projects, and 11 propositions that offer a basis for testing the emergent theory in future empirical studies. The findings from the research also reveal the performative nature of IS development work and identify concepts important to organizational managers and IS technical specialists. While the theory emerged in the context of IS development projects and the concepts in the emergent theory are central to the practice of IS development, each could be equally relevant to other IS phenomena where culture, leadership and performance are implicated, such as IS management and offshoring. The grounding of theoretical concepts to empirical data enabled the application of the theory to practice; practical guidelines are offered in respect of the influences of culture and leadership on the performance of IS development projects. This research supports the suitability of the Cultural Dynamics Model as a sensitizing lens for data collection in interpretive studies where culture is implicated.

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.

The thesis is focused on methodology of Information System/Information and Communication Technology (IS/ICT) projects management. The main goal of the thesis is to modify and extend the business informatics management model (applied on the Department of Information Technologies of University of Economics in Prague) with specifics of methodologies focused on setting up, management and coordination of IS/ICT projects. The analytical part of the thesis is focused on analyzing and consolidation of IS/ICT project management terms. Furthermore are delimited specification of setting up and management of IS/ICT projects. Follow out are described and evaluated current methodologies approaches focused on IS/ICT projects rules description. The thesis describes relation between several IS/ICT methodologies: IS/ICT project management methodology, IS/ICT development methodology and IS/ICT management methodology. Within thesis are presented and analyzed researches of current situation in IS/ICT project management methodology usage and level of IS/ICT project management around the world and within Czech Republic. The main part of the thesis extends the methodical framework MEFIS and describes proposal of IS/ICT management methodology pattern, which appends the reference model of informatics management and the MDIS methodology. Furthermore is IS/ICT project management delimited as standalone service. Main parts of methodology are defined and processes and data objects of IS/ICT project management methodology are outlined. The application part of thesis covers the proposal of the implementation procedure of conceptual proposal of IS/ICT project management methodology. The proposal of the implementation procedure was verified in practice. All experiences with implementation of conceptual model of IS/ICT project management are evaluated.

IS quality is an important concept. Basing their model on information communication theory, DeLone and McLean formulated Information Quality and System Quality as two quintessential elements in their 1992 IS Success Model. In recent years, DeLone and McLean (2003) added Service Quality to form a triumvirate of antecedents to success. Unfortunately, the addition of this construct has unintentionally uncovered an overall lack of coherence in the theoretical modeling of IS Success. Research to date on IS Service Quality has largely ignored the impacts of Information Quality and System Quality when service is delivered through an information system (IS). We believe deeper theoretical insights are needed to reconceptualize Service Quality and rationalize IS quality. After reviewing related literature, we apply marketing exchange theory as a reference framework to redefine service related terms and identify possible scenarios of delivering service through systems. Thereafter, we model IS quality in a new way, based on analysis of alternative scenarios. In validating our proposed model, we discuss our research methods and data analysis that will serve as empirical evidence. In particular, we focus on content validity, construct validity, nomological validity, and unidimensionality of the three IS quality dimensions: System Quality, Information Quality, and Service Quality. By furthering our understanding of IS quality, we hope to initiate coherent theory development; this exercise should then lead to a theory that integrates IS quality elements and helps organizations implement effective strategies for using IS to deliver service. Through the empirical validation of IS quality model, we contribute an empirical assessment of content, construct, and nomological validity of the IS quality constructs, as proposed by DeLone and McLean in their 2003 updated IS success model.

Abstract This dissertation is composed of three contributions. First, it recognizes a set of key security issues for information systems (IS), and examines the extent to which these issues have been studied and resolved by existing research efforts. Second, it analyses and discusses the existing approaches for designing secure information systems (SIS), shedding light on their underlying foundations. Third, based on the findings, a framework is put forth, addressing the fundamental shortcomings of the existing SIS design approaches. A meta-notation for adding security into IS development methods is presented as a framework-based example. An action research intervention is accomplished to test the relevance, suitability and feasibility of the meta-notation in practice. Overall, this dissertation sets forth a novel approach for extending security in IS/software development methods.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka hur IS-rekryteringen går till i Sverige samt att ta reda på möjliga anledningar till varför vissa personer från Sverige ansluter sig till IS. Jag ämnade även undersöka den nya lagstiftningens eventuella påverkan på IS-rekryteringen. För att uppnå mitt syfte genomförde jag sju semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer som i sina yrkesroller kommer i kontakt med frågor som rör våldsbejakande islamistisk extremism. IS-rekryteringen i Sverige sker både på sociala medier och i fysiska miljöer. Sociala medier och Internet utgör dock främst en inspirationskälla medan den största delen av rekryteringen sker på fysiska platser. Ofta sker rekryteringen inom informella grupper men det finns även specifika rekryterare. Det är främst unga personer som rekryteras. Ofta handlar det om en kombination av olika orsaker till varför dessa personer ansluter sig. Vissa gemensamma riskfaktorer har identifierats, exempelvis utanförskap, identitetssökande och sociala orättvisor men anledningarna är ofta väldigt individuella.
The aim of this study was to examine the recruitment to the Islamic state as well as viewing possible reasons and motives for joining the Islamic state. Furthermore I also intended to examine the impact of the new amendment of the law concerning terrorist crimes. The study is based on seven semi-structured interviews with persons who work with this kind of questions. Social media is an important part of the radicalization and recruitment to the Islamic state. General motives for joining the Islamic state are for example alienation, social injustice or a search for identity. Nevertheless the process of radicalization and recruitment are individual and vary between different persons.

This paper is focused on the process of design and implementation of information systems in small businesses and factors that influence this process. The course of the process per-formed by selected company is first mapped and subsequently analysed by means of case studies of real projects implemented by the company. This analysis points to the frequent occurrence of variances of the projects with the mapped process, especially in the analytical part of the process, and major impact of different psychological and sociological char-acteristics of the client or its representatives on the progress of the project. Based on these findings innovative process changes are suggested. The first change is modification of the analytical process to include acquisition of information on the characteristics of the client and to be more adaptable to the nature and scope of the project. The second is categoriza-tion of the client based on the identified characteristics and assessment of these characteris-tics as potential risks of the project. The last change is the adoption of agile approach to the process, allowing greater process flexibility with respect to the needs of specific clients and higher quality outputs.

In modern communication networks, routing protocols are used to determine the shortest path to the destination. Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) and Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) are the dominant interior routing protocols for such networks. This thesis presents a simulation based analysis of these protocols. We used the combination of EIGRP&IS-IS, OSPF&IS-IS routing protocols on the same network in order to reveal the advantage of one over the other as well as the robustness of each protocol combination and how this is measured. To carry out the network simulations, we used Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET). The comparison analysis is based on several parameters that determine the robustness of these protocols. The routing protocol convergence time is one important parameter which determines the time needed by the routers to learn the new topology of the network whenever a change occurs in the network. The routing protocol which converges faster is considered a better routing protocol. Point-to-point link throughput, HTTP object response time, database response time and e-mail download response time are other parameters we used to measure the routing performance of the network.
I moderna kommunikationsnät, är routingprotokoll används för att bestämma den kortaste vägen till destinationen. Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) och Intermediate System till Intermediate System (IS-IS) är den dominerande interiören routingprotokoll för sådana nät. Denna avhandling presenterar en simulering baserad analys av dessa protokoll. Vi använde en kombination av EIGRP & IS-IS, IS OSPF &-IS routingprotokoll i samma nätverk i syfte att avslöja fördel ovanpå varandra samt robustheten i varje protokoll kombination och hur detta mäts. Att utföra nät simuleringar har vi använt Optimerad Network Engineering Tool (OPNET). Jämförelsen Analysen bygger på flera parametrar som avgör hur starka dessa protokoll. De routingprotokoll konvergens tid är en viktig parameter som bestämmer den tid som krävs av routrar för att lära sig nya topologi i nätverket snart en ändring sker i nätet. Routing-protokoll som konvergerar snabbare anses vara en bättre routing protokoll. Punkt-till-punkt länk genomströmning, HTTP objekt svarstid, databas responstid och e-post nedladdning responstid är andra parametrar som vi använde för att mäta routing nätverkets prestanda.
Esuendale- +46738790290 Syed- +46738957792 Wendwossen +46738956203

This thesis deals with credit collection information system design and implementation. The thesis consists of three parts. The first part looks into invoice administration, credit collection, and trends of dedicated information systems. The second part analyzes a solution currently supporting credit collection processes in a selected consulting company. The last part contains a design and an implementation of a new solution for this company. The main out-come of this thesis is to create an easily extensible credit collection solution.

The research reported in this thesis was an exploratory study that investigated the relationship between Information Systems (IS) investment and organisational performance and which led to the successfd development and testing of a combined process and variance model that sought to explain this complex relationship. The focal industry was the Australian Financial Services Sector (FSS), with samples being drawn from both the credit union industry (largest industry by size in the FSS) and the commercial/retail bank industry (largest industry by volume). The research began with a detailed review of the literature and thus explored the concepts underlying the business value of IS in general and the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance in particular. To fuaher enhance understanding of this literature, a meta-analysis of the business value of IS in general, and IS investment and organisational performance in particular, was undertaken as it was noted that there did not appear to have been any such formal structured meta-analyses to date. The foregoing analyses led to the proposal and development of a conceptual model of the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance that was comprised of four main components, the level of IS investment as represented by the IT portfolio, Organisational performance (both internal and external), Considerations for Strategic Information Systems Planning and Managerial effectiveness. In addition, the conceptual model explicitly considered the effect and impact of Context on the conceptual model. Further, analysis of subsequent results was strongly grounded in the literature and utilised three key theoretical foundations, General Systems Theory, The Resource Based View of IT and Stakeholder theory.Thus, the conceptual model was developed and tested utilising a pluralist approach combining two research methods, a) Case research (model development and testing) and b) survey research (model refinement). The collection (and analysis) of data was achieved in two parts. First, given the complexity of the issues under investigation, a unique case study protocol was successfully developed and applied to a select group of Financial Institutions with the Commercial/retail Banking and Credit Union industries to confirm the components of the original conceptual model. Second, the resultant model(s) were tested via a survey targeted at the wider population of Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions in the Australian Financial Services Sector. The outcomes of this research were many, however the most notable were; 1) the development and testing of the conceptual model which were deemed to contribute to the development of theory within the discipline of Information Systems, 2) the development of a unique case study protocol that was deemed to contribute to IS research in general, 3) the derivation of a set of intermediary variables (Customer service quality, Operational efficiency, Staff and Product delivery) that was found to influence the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance and therefore extended and strengthened the conceptual model, and 4) the meta-analysis that was deemed to contribute to a better understanding of the state of the art with respect to research into this complex phenomenon.

This thesis conceptualises Use for IS (Information Systems) success. While Use in this study describes the extent to which an IS is incorporated into the user’s processes or tasks, success of an IS is the measure of the degree to which the person using the system is better off. For IS success, the conceptualisation of Use offers new perspectives on describing and measuring Use. We test the philosophies of the conceptualisation using empirical evidence in an Enterprise Systems (ES) context. Results from the empirical analysis contribute insights to the existing body of knowledge on the role of Use and demonstrate Use as an important factor and measure of IS success. System Use is a central theme in IS research. For instance, Use is regarded as an important dimension of IS success. Despite its recognition, the Use dimension of IS success reportedly suffers from an all too simplistic definition, misconception, poor specification of its complex nature, and an inadequacy of measurement approaches (Bokhari 2005; DeLone and McLean 2003; Zigurs 1993). Given the above, Burton-Jones and Straub (2006) urge scholars to revisit the concept of system Use, consider a stronger theoretical treatment, and submit the construct to further validation in its intended nomological net. On those considerations, this study re-conceptualises Use for IS success. The new conceptualisation adopts a work-process system-centric lens and draws upon the characteristics of modern system types, key user groups and their information needs, and the incorporation of IS in work processes. With these characteristics, the definition of Use and how it may be measured is systematically established. Use is conceptualised as a second-order measurement construct determined by three sub-dimensions: attitude of its users, depth, and amount of Use. The construct is positioned in a modified IS success research model, in an attempt to demonstrate its central role in determining IS success in an ES setting. A two-stage mixed-methods research design—incorporating a sequential explanatory strategy—was adopted to collect empirical data and to test the research model. The first empirical investigation involved an experiment and a survey of ES end users at a leading tertiary education institute in Australia. The second, a qualitative investigation, involved a series of interviews with real-world operational managers in large Indian private-sector companies to canvass their day-to-day experiences with ES. The research strategy adopted has a stronger quantitative leaning. The survey analysis results demonstrate the aptness of Use as an antecedent and a consequence of IS success, and furthermore, as a mediator between the quality of IS and the impacts of IS on individuals. Qualitative data analysis on the other hand, is used to derive a framework for classifying the diversity of ES Use behaviour. The qualitative results establish that workers Use IS in their context to orientate, negotiate, or innovate. The implications are twofold. For research, this study contributes to cumulative IS success knowledge an approach for defining, contextualising, measuring, and validating Use. For practice, research findings not only provide insights for educators when incorporating ES for higher education, but also demonstrate how operational managers incorporate ES into their work practices. Research findings leave the way open for future, larger-scale research into how industry practitioners interact with an ES to complete their work in varied organisational environments.

In a comprehensive review of literature on the strategic adoption of information systems (IS), various approaches to strategic IS adoption were unable to verify and coordinate different factors for IS investment as a strategic business unit. An assessment of different models in this area through the review of empirical case studies was required to identify the factors that affect IS strategic adoption, because these factors support the evaluation and adoption of both the process and result of IS strategic adoption. Thus, a study to investigate and evaluate the adoption of strategic information systems planning (SISP) within organisations is required in order to identify the factors that affect this type of adoption. The research in this thesis takes into account the adoption process and the factors for the adoption of SISP. There is also a need to understand and evaluate different IS planning techniques within a framework that can support decision-makers through the entire IS strategic adoption process. This framework is a component of the proposed novel model that considers other crucial factors that influence IS strategic evaluation and adoption. Decision-makers may employ such a model and evaluation framework that considers important SISP criteria, such as (a) SISP benefits, (b) SISP requirements and, (c) SISP drivers, as an important reference tool. After presenting the conceptual components of this research, the empirical side expresses the application of a qualitative research approach through a case study strategy to investigate the proposed model of SISP adoption. As a result, two global organisations were investigated, reported, and analysed. Additional factors for the adoption of SISP emerged from these analyses. The proposed conceptual model was modified to present 11 factors that influence the adoption of SISP, including (a) planning team; (b) benefits; (c) requirements; (d) drivers; (e) costs; (f) IS performance measurement; (g) framework for the evaluation of SISP techniques; (h) SISP methods; (i) SISP tools; (j) support; and (k) IS strategy. The primary contribution of this thesis is a comprehensive novel model for the evaluation and adoption of SISP. The model includes two levels of original contribution. Firstly, it accounts for previous studies in SISP and their factors, which supports the conceptual level of this contribution. The researcher incorporated and extended these studies to merge the factors which were recognised in the normative literature. In addition, factors from empirical work have also been combined in the proposed model, thus developing a consistent paradigm for the evaluation and adoption of SISP. Secondly, the concept and process of the proposed model can be applied as an educational guide throughout the IS strategic evaluation and adoption process. Nevertheless, this model contains a proposed framework for the evaluation of IS strategic planning techniques as factors that influence the adoption of SISP. This framework is novel, since it is a part of the proposed model as well as a classification of IS planning techniques, and supports decision-makers’ understanding and evaluation of planning techniques during the adoption of SISP.

Social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and online communities plays an important role for knowledge production and diffusion as well as discussions among people. Among social media, online brand communities (OBCs) have recently received attention from both academics and practitioners due to the practical benefits of OBCs for consumers and companies. For consumers, knowledge sharing and its collective activities help them to make purchase decisions and to protect themselves against firms’ monopoly and oligopoly or collusion and anticompetitive actions. For companies, new ideas and feedback on brand products created by OBC members are useful input to develop new products and enhance existing product lines. Therefore, active content generation by community members is one of the critical success factors of OBCs. However, many scholars argue that only a few members who are more devoted to a community are tending to engage in OBC activities and many community members tend to remain in the periphery (sometimes called ‘lurkers') of the community by using OBCs merely for gathering information without any contributions. Therefore, it is important to make members in the periphery of the community transit to the core to increase members’ intentions and ‘devoted members’ to produce more valuable benefits for both consumers and firms. In spite of its importance, the literature is lacking in efforts to explain how and when community members in the periphery transit to the core of the community in a long-term perspective. This study aims to reveal how and why OBC members transit from the periphery to the core of the community and how to increase their intention to use OBC from a long-term perspective. OBC use behaviour is classified into, largely, two categories according to the purposes of an OBC: behaviour with a brand product consumption purpose; and behaviour with a social relationship building purpose. This study classifies OBC members as three clusters by social identity theory: tourists, minglers, and devoted members (devotees and insiders). The devoted members have valuable consumption knowledge of brand and strong social bonds in the OBC and the OBC members become a devoted member by accumulated brand knowledge and experiences through long-term OBC use. Therefore, from a socialisation aspect, this study adopts organisational socialisation theory as the theoretical lens to explain how and why the members evolve from novice members as tourist to devoted members in OBC contexts. Socialisation theories argue that there are usually three sequential stages for a member to gain full membership in a community: pre-entry, accommodation, and affiliation. In addition, this study adopts IS implementation theory to understand OBC user behaviours from an IS use behaviour perspective: acceptance in the pre-entry stage and routinisation in the accommodation stage and infusion in the affiliation stage. By reviewing socialisation theory and IS implementation theory, this study finds four significant motivations, those of information quality, trust, sense of belonging, and brand loyalty for intention of OBC use from the acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation) stages. To integrate the socialisation perspective with the IS use perspective, this study adopts a technology acceptance model (TAM) as a theoretical framework to link to motivators in different OBC use behaviour from the acceptance to infusion stages. As a result, this study proposes a conceptual framework to explain the OBC members’ transition process from acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation). The aim of this study is to predict and explain the transition of motivators for OBC use from pre-entry to affiliation and how to improve members’ intention of OBC use from a long-term perspective ultimately to foster ‘devoted members’. This study adopts an online survey targeting 518 participants who belong to 17 OBCs in South Korea and the conceptual framework is validated. The results show that all factors (i.e. information quality, trust, sense of belonging, brand loyalty) are significant determinants to increase intention to use OBCs and the factors have a causal relationship with each other to form a transition process from the acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation) stages. This study also reveals that brand loyalty has a significant role to explain the transition process and directly influence user intention to use OBCs. The sense of belonging also directly affects members’ intention to use OBCs but has less impact than brand loyalty. In addition, the results indicate that TAM is an appropriate model to predict user behaviours in a long-term perspective to explain the change of OBC use behaviour from the acceptance to infusion stage and confirms that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have significant impact on the intention to use OBCs as in other IS studies. Understanding the transition process within OBCs has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it will extend our understanding of how IS end users transit from acceptance behaviour to continued use and extended use of information systems in virtual community contexts. For managers, this study will provide them with insight on how to retain potential consumers in OBCs and facilitate their activities to gain consumer feedback on existing and new products.

Rapporten handlar om routing och då med inriktning på interna routingprotokoll i första hand.

Studien är gjord med inriktning mot operatörernas nät, där det först finns en teoridel som beskriver det olika teknologierna och protokollen.

Sedan diskuteras hur det ser ut ifrån operatörernas sida och avslutas med en slutsats hur det ser ut i verkligheten idag..

This study proceeds from a central interest in the importance of systematically evaluating operational large-scale integrated information systems (IS) in organisations. The study is conducted within the IS-Impact Research Track at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The goal of the IS-Impact Track is, "to develop the most widely employed model for benchmarking information systems in organizations for the joint benefit of both research and practice" (Gable et al, 2009). The track espouses programmatic research having the principles of incrementalism, tenacity, holism and generalisability through replication and extension research strategies. Track efforts have yielded the bicameral IS-Impact measurement model; the ‘impact’ half includes Organisational-Impact and Individual-Impact dimensions; the ‘quality’ half includes System-Quality and Information-Quality dimensions. Akin to Gregor’s (2006) analytic theory, the ISImpact model is conceptualised as a formative, multidimensional index and is defined as "a measure at a point in time, of the stream of net benefits from the IS, to date and anticipated, as perceived by all key-user-groups" (Gable et al., 2008, p: 381). The study adopts the IS-Impact model (Gable, et al., 2008) as its core theory base. Prior work within the IS-Impact track has been consciously constrained to Financial IS for their homogeneity. This study adopts a context-extension strategy (Berthon et al., 2002) with the aim "to further validate and extend the IS-Impact measurement model in a new context - i.e. a different IS - Human Resources (HR)". The overarching research question is: "How can the impacts of large-scale integrated HR applications be effectively and efficiently benchmarked?" This managerial question (Cooper & Emory, 1995) decomposes into two more specific research questions – In the new HR context: (RQ1): "Is the IS-Impact model complete?" (RQ2): "Is the ISImpact model valid as a 1st-order formative, 2nd-order formative multidimensional construct?" The study adhered to the two-phase approach of Gable et al. (2008) to hypothesise and validate a measurement model. The initial ‘exploratory phase’ employed a zero base qualitative approach to re-instantiating the IS-Impact model in the HR context. The subsequent ‘confirmatory phase’ sought to validate the resultant hypothesised measurement model against newly gathered quantitative data. The unit of analysis for the study is the application, ‘ALESCO’, an integrated large-scale HR application implemented at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), a large Australian university (with approximately 40,000 students and 5000 staff). Target respondents of both study phases were ALESCO key-user-groups: strategic users, management users, operational users and technical users, who directly use ALESCO or its outputs. An open-ended, qualitative survey was employed in the exploratory phase, with the objective of exploring the completeness and applicability of the IS-Impact model’s dimensions and measures in the new context, and to conceptualise any resultant model changes to be operationalised in the confirmatory phase. Responses from 134 ALESCO users to the main survey question, "What do you consider have been the impacts of the ALESCO (HR) system in your division/department since its implementation?" were decomposed into 425 ‘impact citations.’ Citation mapping using a deductive (top-down) content analysis approach instantiated all dimensions and measures of the IS-Impact model, evidencing its content validity in the new context. Seeking to probe additional (perhaps negative) impacts; the survey included the additional open question "In your opinion, what can be done better to improve the ALESCO (HR) system?" Responses to this question decomposed into a further 107 citations which in the main did not map to IS-Impact, but rather coalesced around the concept of IS-Support. Deductively drawing from relevant literature, and working inductively from the unmapped citations, the new ‘IS-Support’ construct, including the four formative dimensions (i) training, (ii) documentation, (iii) assistance, and (iv) authorisation (each having reflective measures), was defined as: "a measure at a point in time, of the support, the [HR] information system key-user groups receive to increase their capabilities in utilising the system." Thus, a further goal of the study became validation of the IS-Support construct, suggesting the research question (RQ3): "Is IS-Support valid as a 1st-order reflective, 2nd-order formative multidimensional construct?" With the aim of validating IS-Impact within its nomological net (identification through structural relations), as in prior work, Satisfaction was hypothesised as its immediate consequence. The IS-Support construct having derived from a question intended to probe IS-Impacts, too was hypothesised as antecedent to Satisfaction, thereby suggesting the research question (RQ4): "What is the relative contribution of IS-Impact and IS-Support to Satisfaction?" With the goal of testing the above research questions, IS-Impact, IS-Support and Satisfaction were operationalised in a quantitative survey instrument. Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling employing 221 valid responses largely evidenced the validity of the commencing IS-Impact model in the HR context. ISSupport too was validated as operationalised (including 11 reflective measures of its 4 formative dimensions). IS-Support alone explained 36% of Satisfaction; IS-Impact alone 70%; in combination both explaining 71% with virtually all influence of ISSupport subsumed by IS-Impact. Key study contributions to research include: (1) validation of IS-Impact in the HR context, (2) validation of a newly conceptualised IS-Support construct as important antecedent of Satisfaction, and (3) validation of the redundancy of IS-Support when gauging IS-Impact. The study also makes valuable contributions to practice, the research track and the sponsoring organisation.

This master's thesis deals with the analysis of the requirements placed on the technical support information system which should be used in the software developing company. The basic functions of this system are the collecting of information about all kinds of work which the company employees concentrate on and the possibility of statistics generating. Moreover, it is also possible to implement further extensions to the system which will not only enable other functions, that are not related to the primary goal of the system, to be integrated; but also to define new user roles, for which various limited parts of the system will be accessible.

Information systems form an inseparable part of all business entities nowadays. They differ only in their size and complexity. Therefore each company should have its information system whose setting is adequate and maximally effective. The aim of this paper is to analyse the information system of NET4GAS, s.r.o., identify its weaknesses and propose changes to enhance it in order to increase the company efficiency.

In this study, Information Warfare (IW) and Information System (IS) security concept in the Turkish Land Forces Command (TLFC) are investigated. An approach that will enhance the success for a secure Information System to alleviate experienced risks is proposed. Starting with the general overview of the literature about IW and IS security, the relation between the concepts, the future, advantages and disadvantages of security development approaches, and the requirements for security are reviewed. Then the specific problems, security risks and IW threats of the TLFC are considered. After reviewing the specific problems, a proposal for IS security in Defensive Information Warfare process in the TLFC is presented and partially applied. The proposal is evaluated within the framework of a case study. The stronger points of the proposal are reviewed by comparing the proposed approach with some other approaches actually applied.

The aim of this research is to propose a sociotechnical framework to identify stakeholders involved in information systems and the benefit and barriers to the adoption of such systems. The proposed framework (BEBAF) would help to acknowledge the potential problematic areas for the implementation and adoption of information systems for each actor or social group and to be able to offer solutions based on the potential benefits for each of them. Precursors of BEBAF are social construction of technology (SCOT) and stakeholder identification process. Two case studies in the healthcare contexts, one in the UK and one in Spain, have been conducted in this dissertation using a qualitative approach to provide a rich picture of the influences on e-Health, and the users and organisational response to those influences. Both case studies aimed to support chronically ill patients at home or in nursing homes. BEBAF was then applied to both case studies. Among the most important implications are that those systems hold the promise for improving the quality of life of patients with chronic conditions, providing a better control over the disease. However, their impact on the organisational structures, the lack of funding and the difficulties of alignment of all the actors involved are relevant constraints to their adoption into the mainstream healthcare services. The main contributions of this thesis are: first, the definition and evaluation of a socio-technical framework to investigate IS adoption. Apart from the two closure mechanisms proposed by SCOT, BEBAF proposes a new closure mechanism by reinterpretation of benefits. In turn, the application of the framework has led to identify an extensive list of barriers and benefits for the adoption of e-Health systems with some suggested solutions. Another outcome is a comprehensive list of stakeholders involved in the adoption of such systems.

This thesis deals with project management and methodologies for information systems implementation, particularly for IS of SAP AG. The first part of the work describes basic problems of project management and introduces certain project management methodologies. ASAP and ASAP Focus methodologies are described in more detail. The second part of this work uses these fundamentals to analyze frequent problems on projects of real company that implements pre-customized IS of SAP AG. Solutions for these problems are proposed and a brief methodology is created as a result of the work.

This report represents the next step of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)related research at the Department of Information Business at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration following previous work on the selection process. Based on 209 datasets originating from a primary, national and industry independent survey, it provides a descriptive oriented overview of main characteristics of ERP in all stages of the system's lifecycle, emphasising differences between small-to-medium sized and large enterprises (SMEs and LEs). The given research topics in particular comprise software diffusion, resources allocated, strategic project guidance, investment drivers, considered and chosen solutions, team structures, selection criteria, information gathering, methodical support, implementation approaches, acompanying business strategies, implementation problems, perceived utilisation of ERP benefits, firm level ERP impact, and the role of ERP systems as technology enabler. Future work based on the gathered data will document analytical projects undertaken in particular focusing on ERP success, enterprise integration, organisational fit of ERP, and BPR/BPI related questions.
Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operations

Worldwide concerns over environmental issues and air travel’s continuous expansion have increased in recent years. This is due to rising carbon emissions caused by the aviation industry’s reliance on information technology and systems (IT/IS), which affects the environment. The review of the IT/IS and Green IT/IS investments evaluation literature has highlighted that there is a dearth of research on Green IT/IS evaluation regarding to the aviation industry. Most Green IT/IS evaluation studies focus mainly on benefits; however, cost is reported as one of the most crucial difficulties preventing organizations from adopting Green IT/IS. Generally, the focus is on the direct costs rather than the indirect costs because the latter are intangible and therefore hard to identify and quantify. However, they can have a great impact on the overall cost/budget and possibly on profitability. Although the traditional IS appraisal techniques are being used in the evaluation process, their incapability to capture the impact of intangibles and non-financial issues are apparent, which noticeably affects overall projects’ success. This research aim is to develop a model for Green IT/IS investments evaluation that enhances the understanding and management of the indirect cost associated with Green IT/IS investments within the aviation industry. The novel aspect of the model is its incorporation of the institutional theory, key internal organizational factors, together with human, organizational and environmental indirect cost factors into one model. This model was validated in the aviation industry in Thailand which had adopted and implemented Green IT/IS. The findings from an in-depth case study reveal that despite, Green IT/IS indirect costs not being perceived as costs and hence not being incorporated into the evaluation process, their effects remain, and lead to issues such as costs overruns, under-optimized budgets, and consequently projects failure. In addition, new Green IT/IS indirect cost factors have emerged which were missing from the current normative literature. Therefore, this research provides decision-makers with a useful model, a comprehensive taxonomy, a set of indirect cost factors that can be utilized during the evaluation process, and management strategies to assist in managing and controlling the impact of Green IT/IS indirect costs. Keywords: Green IT/IS Investments Evaluation, Indirect Costs, Costs Management, Costs overrun, Sustainability, Aviation Industry.

This diploma thesis describes a careful selection of an information system for Ekoplast Telc Ltd Company. Theoretical part deals with a problematic of information systems, ERP systems, and their evaluation and assessment in general. Practical part focuses on an analysis of the currently used system, main requirements and criteria for newly selected system. In addition to that, an evaluation of the preferred options, a choice of an effective system, and a proposal of its alteration as well as an overall economic assessment is included in this part.

This master's thesis deals with the analysis of the requirements placed on the technical support information system which should be used in the software developing company, lying emphasis on the improvement of the processes inside an organization. The basic functions of this system are the collecting of information about all kinds of work which the company employees concentrate on and the possibility of statistics generating. Moreover, it is also possible to implement further extensions to the system which will not only enable other functions that are not related to the primary goal of the system to be integrated; but also to define new user roles for which various limited parts of the system will be accessible.

Information System (IS) effectiveness assessment is an important issue for the organizations as IS have become critical for their survival. With the incorporation of Internet technologies into the business environment, it is now more difficult to measure IS effectiveness, because Internet provides a borderless, non-stop, flexible communication medium. Assessing the effectiveness of web-based information systems (WIS) is vital for survival and competitive advantage which is a complicated subject since there are several interacting factors to consider. In the literature there are several methods proposed for IS assessment. However, those studies have been far from providing a broad, comprehensive evaluation framework for any type of web-based IS independent of its domain. In this study, a generic WIS effectiveness assessment framework is proposed. The framework is applied in case studies consisting of four organizations in e-commerce and e-banking domains.

?rea de concentra??o: Qu?mica Org?nica.
Submitted by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2016-01-06T18:46:07Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 22974 bytes, checksum: 99c771d9f0b9c46790009b9874d49253 (MD5) juliana_martins_ribeiro.pdf: 7699332 bytes, checksum: 91cffdddf838d878f1c3ebe80aa3e053 (MD5)
Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2016-01-07T12:11:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 22974 bytes, checksum: 99c771d9f0b9c46790009b9874d49253 (MD5) juliana_martins_ribeiro.pdf: 7699332 bytes, checksum: 91cffdddf838d878f1c3ebe80aa3e053 (MD5)
Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-07T12:11:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 22974 bytes, checksum: 99c771d9f0b9c46790009b9874d49253 (MD5) juliana_martins_ribeiro.pdf: 7699332 bytes, checksum: 91cffdddf838d878f1c3ebe80aa3e053 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015
O caf? ? gr?o composto por uma variedade de subst?ncias, as quais conferem sabor e aroma ? bebida, dentre os quais, podem-se citar prote?nas, carboidratos e lip?dios. Essa fra??o lip?dica, quando extra?da do gr?o de caf? cru, ? utilizada, por exemplo, como emoliente em formula??es farmac?uticas e, quando do gr?o torrado, como aditivos em alimentos, para conferir aroma e sabor. Assim, o objetivo do presente estudo foi o de caracterizar quimicamente e avaliar as atividades antioxidante e antibacteriana dos ?leos extra?dos dos gr?os de caf? cru e torrado. Para isso, os gr?os foram submetidos a uma extra??o em aparato Soxhlet, durante seis horas, utilizando ?ter de petr?leo como solvente extrator. Ap?s o tempo decorrido, evaporou-se o solvente remanescente com nitrog?nio gasoso, obtendo-se os ?leos, que foram acondicionados e armazenados em geladeira at? o memento das an?lises. Observou-se que os gr?os de caf? torrado apresentaram maior teor de ?leo que o gr?o de caf? cru, 26,01% e 4,64 %, respectivamente. Apresentando o primeiro, cheiro e cor caracter?sticos de caf? e, o segundo, uma colora??o verde e cheiro de vegeta??o. As caracter?sticas f?sico-qu?micas avaliadas, mostraram que os ?leos estudados apresentaram resultados compar?veis a outros ?leos convencionais. Com rela??o ao teor de ?cidos graxos, os ?leos obtiveram como majorit?rios, os ?cidos linoleico (C18:2), palm?tico (C16:0) e oleico (C18:1) e, ambos s?o fontes ?cidos graxos insaturados. O ?leo de caf? cru apresentou maior quantidade de fitoester?is totais, sendo que nos dois, a ordem foi ?-sitosterol > estigmasterol > campesterol > brassicasterol. Ao contr?rio, o ?leo de caf? torrado foi o que se mostrou com maior concentra??o de tocofer?is, com predomin?ncia do is?mero ?-tocoferol. O ?leo de caf? cru apresentou maior quantidade de ?-tocoferol. Os compostos fen?licos totais tamb?m foram quantificados, e o ?leo de caf? torrado foi o com maior concentra??o. Com rela??o ? atividade antioxidante, o ?leo de caf? cru foi mais eficiente na captura do radical DPPH, enquanto que o torrado, frente aos m?todos ABTS e FRAP. A atividade antibacteriana evidenciou que, dentre as bact?rias testadas, a P. aeruginosa foi a mais sens?vel frente aos ?leos testados, apresentando halos de inibi??o pelo m?todo de difus?o em ?gar, mas quando analiada, foi resistente aos ?leos. A CIM foi determinada e observou-se que as menores concentra??es foram as que tiveram inibi??o do crescimento bacteriano. Diante do exposto, pode-se concluir que os ?leos de caf? cru e torrado s?o boas fontes de compostos bioativos, e suas composi??es, justificam seus usos nas ind?strias de v?rios segmentos.
Disserta??o (Mestrado) ? Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Qu?mica, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2015.
ABSTRACT Coffee beans is composed of a variety of substances, which give flavor and aroma to the drink, among which may be mentioned proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. This lipid fraction, when extracted from raw coffee beans, is used, for example, in pharmaceutical formulations as an emollient and when the roasted grain, as additives in foods for imparting aroma and flavor. The objective of this study was to characterize chemically and evaluate the antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the oils extracted from raw and roasted coffee beans. To this end, the grains were subjected to a Soxhlet extraction apparatus for six hours using petroleum ether as solvent extractor. After the elapsed time, it evaporates the remaining solvent with nitrogen gas to give oils which were packed and stored in refrigerator until analysis of memento. It has been observed that roasted coffee beans had higher oil content than the raw coffee beans, 26.01% and 4.64%, respectively. Introducing the first and characteristic smell of coffee color, and the second, a green color and smell of vegetation. The physico-chemical characteristics evaluated showed that the oils studied showed results comparable to other conventional oils. With respect to the content of fatty acids, oils obtained as the major, linoleic (C18: 2), palmitic (C16: 0) and oleic (C18: 1), and both are unsaturated fatty acids sources. The green coffee oil showed a higher amount of total phytosterols, and in both, the order was ?-sitosterol> stigmasterol> campesterol> brassicasterol. Rather, the roasted coffee oil was found that with higher concentrations of tocopherols, predominantly ?-tocopherol isomer. The green coffee oil had higher amounts of ?-tocopherol. The phenolic compounds have also been quantified, and the roasted coffee oil was the highest concentration. With respect to the antioxidant activity, the raw coffee oil was more efficient in capturing the DPPH radical, while the roasted, compared to ABTS and FRAP methods. The antibacterial activity showed that among the tested bacteria, P. aeruginosa was the most sensitive against the tested oils, with halos of inhibition by agar diffusion method, but when analiada, was resistant to oils. The MIC was determined and it was observed that lower concentrations were those who had bacterial growth inhibition. Given the above, it can be concluded that raw and roasted coffee oils are good sources of bioactive compounds and their compositions, justify their use in industries of several segments. Key ? words: Coffea arabica, coffee oils, toco

The research reported in this thesis was an exploratory study that investigated the relationship between Information Systems (IS) investment and organisational performance and which led to the successfd development and testing of a combined process and variance model that sought to explain this complex relationship. The focal industry was the Australian Financial Services Sector (FSS), with samples being drawn from both the credit union industry (largest industry by size in the FSS) and the commercial/retail bank industry (largest industry by volume). The research began with a detailed review of the literature and thus explored the concepts underlying the business value of IS in general and the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance in particular. To fuaher enhance understanding of this literature, a meta-analysis of the business value of IS in general, and IS investment and organisational performance in particular, was undertaken as it was noted that there did not appear to have been any such formal structured meta-analyses to date. The foregoing analyses led to the proposal and development of a conceptual model of the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance that was comprised of four main components, the level of IS investment as represented by the IT portfolio, Organisational performance (both internal and external), Considerations for Strategic Information Systems Planning and Managerial effectiveness. In addition, the conceptual model explicitly considered the effect and impact of Context on the conceptual model. Further, analysis of subsequent results was strongly grounded in the literature and utilised three key theoretical foundations, General Systems Theory, The Resource Based View of IT and Stakeholder theory.
Thus, the conceptual model was developed and tested utilising a pluralist approach combining two research methods, a) Case research (model development and testing) and b) survey research (model refinement). The collection (and analysis) of data was achieved in two parts. First, given the complexity of the issues under investigation, a unique case study protocol was successfully developed and applied to a select group of Financial Institutions with the Commercial/retail Banking and Credit Union industries to confirm the components of the original conceptual model. Second, the resultant model(s) were tested via a survey targeted at the wider population of Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions in the Australian Financial Services Sector. The outcomes of this research were many, however the most notable were; 1) the development and testing of the conceptual model which were deemed to contribute to the development of theory within the discipline of Information Systems, 2) the development of a unique case study protocol that was deemed to contribute to IS research in general, 3) the derivation of a set of intermediary variables (Customer service quality, Operational efficiency, Staff and Product delivery) that was found to influence the relationship between IS investment and organisational performance and therefore extended and strengthened the conceptual model, and 4) the meta-analysis that was deemed to contribute to a better understanding of the state of the art with respect to research into this complex phenomenon.

Syfte:Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att jämföra Aftonbladets nyhetsrapportering om IS i Sverige med den kunskap och de erfarenheter informanten besitter. Studien har även inkluderat ett genusperspektiv, detta för att reda ut hur vida kvinnor och män gestaltas olika i Aftonbladet. Metod:Det empiriska materialet i studien består av insamlad kvalitativ data genom en semikonstruerad intervju samt artiklar från Aftonbladet. Med framing som metod har ett ramverk skapats detta för att identifiera vad som står i de utvalda artiklarna samt för hur jag valt att gå tillväga i analysen av artiklarna. Slutsats:Resultatet av studien visar att Aftonbladet gestaltar IS och IS-krigare från Sverige negativt samt att informantens erfarenheter och kunskaper inom ämnet skiljer sig markant från hur tidningen beskriver det. Studien har också kommit fram till att kvinnor och män porträtteras olika i Aftonbladet när det handlar om IS i Sverige.
Purpose:The purpose of this study is to compare the news report from the swedish newspaper Aftonbladet about IS and IS-warriors with the knowledge and the experiences that the informant has. The study does also include a gender perspective, this to investigate how women and men frames differently. Method:The emperical material in this study comprises in gathering qualitative data existing of a semi constructed interview together with articles from Aftonbladet. I used the created framework as a method for analysing the articles. Conclusion:The result of the study show that Aftonbladet portrays IS and IS-warriors from Sweden in a negative way and also that the informants experiences and knowledge within the subject differ significantly from how the newspaper describes it. The study also shows that man and women are portrayed differently in Aftonbladet when the subject is IS in Sweden.

Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Information Systems (IS) as an integrated technology has been introduced recently to facilitate the demanding operational and financial environment of the enterprises. The implementation process and the adoption of such systems is considered as a significant parameter influencing the success of operational performance and financial governance and could support the competitive advantage practices within the organisations. However, GRC literature is limited regarding the analysis of the implementation and adoption success. Therefore, there is a need for further research and contribution about these systems and more specifically their implementation process. Consequently, this investigation and analysis can provide an insight of this process by examining the aspects of the implementation, the lifecycle phases followed and the enterprise value drivers in each of these phases. Therefore, a framework was developed for structuring the analysis of this implementation including all these three elements as these were provided by the theoretic background. The empirical context of this research includes three field investigation studies based on the experience of key implementation stakeholder groups as participants. These investigation studies were analysed using thematic techniques following an interpretative qualitative analysis approach. It was proved that organisations have, directly or indirectly, followed specific lifecycle phases when they implement GRC systems as these are also described in the framework. Also they should consider specific aspects about the GRC systems and enterprise value drivers for the different lifecycle phases but also for a holistic approach of the implementation process. Hence new GRC implementation projects can use the phases and the analysis of these elements to facilitate and ease their decision-making and strategic planning before launching the implementation project. The analysis of the GRC implementation proved that a strict GRC environment can be established in the organisations through the successful implementation of a GRC technology. The implementation process of such technologies would require a preparation for the organisational environment in order the implementation project to succeed the GRC goals and the system to be integrated and optimised harmoniously within the enterprise environment. This study provides insight of how this implementation projects could be planned and developed and gives a directive blueprint for preparing organisations hosting such technological initiatives. The results of all field investigation phases, which can be considered as the contributions to theory and practice of this research, can have twofold implications: initially the development of a theoretical framework based on enterprise systems theories, and also an analysis of the GRC implementation process in specific. The framework is designed to structure the analysis of the GRC implementation aspects, the lifecycle phases and the enterprise value drivers of the GRC implementation process. This framework is used for visualising and structuring a specific analysis of the GRC adoption and success, and therefore this analysis can be used by practitioners and researchers to further evaluate and analyse this process. Furthermore, organisations can use this analysis for decision-making processes; as this analysis can provide a primary view for the implementation projects.

The thesis deals with the development of an information system in terms of small and medium-sized process-driven organizations. The main objectives of the study is to analyze the requirements of IS process-driven SMEs, further analyze the problems in the creation of this IS, generalize the obtained conclusions and formulate methodical recommendations for the creation of the information process-driven SMEs. The thesis consists of the first, more theoretical part and the second more practical part, which is based on the knowledge formulated in the first part. The thesis builds on experience gained by author in the project of reengineering processes and information system design in a small process-driven organization. All procedures are illustrated for better understanding and verified on specific company from the project. The thesis is written in sufficiently general, however, that its conclusions and recommendations are applicable to the greatest number of process-driven SMEs. The first part presents the basic principles of process management, improvement and reengineering business processes and examines the relationship of information system and business of organization. The contribution of this part is mainly to clarify the role of IS in the process-driven organization, which must be respected in the development of IS. The second part of the thesis analyze the requirements of the IS process-driven SMEs which are necessary to ensure support of business described in the previous section. It also describes ways to acquire and formulate requirements. Then lists the problems that accompany the creation of the IS in an effort to meet the previous requirements. The thesis ends with the formulation of methodological recommendations for each phase of the creating IS and summary conclusions. Especially is accented the importance of BPR and SOA for the final form of the IS.

This dissertation is dealing with the issue of information systems in business environment. The practical part focusses on examining the contemporary solutions IS/IT at a chosen hotel with the help of analysis HOS 8 and ZEFIS. Based on these analyses the final part of this thesis proposes solutions for the improvement of the current state of IS from balance perspective as well as efficiency.

The need to provide currency in education in terms of the qualities and skills of graduates is a continuous requirement of higher education institutions. Industry expects that graduates from courses of study at universities have the necessary skills and attributes to be able to work in the modern work environment. The generic attribute agenda permeates all areas and sectors of education. Some of the areas of the generic attribute agenda include teaching, learning, assessment and the development of the generic attributes in students. This thesis specifically deals with a singular discipline, Information Systems, and the identification of the generic attributes applicable to this discipline. It does not attempt to enter the debate on the broader issues of how generic attributes are taught, assessed and developed in the educational sphere. The areas of teaching, learning, assessment and development of generic attributes in higher education are outside the scope of this thesis. This thesis presents an investigation of the extent of coverage of the identified generic attributes within the unit objectives. The generic attributes required from the Information Systems (IS) industry for graduates from IS courses of study were identified and validated using an extensive three round Delphi questionnaire of academics and industry representatives. Academic participants were from several Australian universities that offer IS undergraduate courses of study. Industry representatives were from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and local Australian IS industry employers that employ the graduates from the participating universities also took part in the survey. The validation process involved two surveys, one in Queensland and a second involving the other Australian states. The significant finding from this survey was that the attribute of working as part of a team in a productive and cooperative manner was rated as the most important. Other significant findings included the high correlation between the Queensland study and the national study in terms of the relative importance of the attributes. Another important finding is that the attribute relating to discipline knowledge was rated as relatively unimportant being ranked 13th out of 29 attributes. The extent of treatment of the attributes within a course of study was identified by means of mapping each of the unit objectives within a course of study against the generic attributes and then plotting this data on a Kiviat chart. The universities used in this study included Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Southern Cross University (SCU), Bond University and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology(RMIT). A similar mapping was performed for the major curriculum documents IS'97 Model Curriculum and Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Courses in Information Systems (IS'97), Information Systems-Centric Curriculum (ISCC'99) and the Australian Computer Society Core Body of Knowledge. Comparisons were then made between the curriculum documents and the courses of study in terms of the extent of treatment of the generic attributes. Statistical analysis of the combined data from both the Queensland and Australian studies identified eight underlying factors. These included Team Communications, Information Use, Individual Competencies, IS Knowledge, Professionalism, Project Management, Professional Development and Diversity. Team Communications are associated with the attributes of working as part of a team, oral communications, written communications, interpersonal skills, time management and define problems. Information Use is associated with the attributes of: retrieval, evaluation and use of information, and sensitivity to gender customs and cultures. Individual Competencies are associated with the attributes of: self-motivation, ability to learn independently, reflection on strengths and weaknesses and work independently. IS Knowledge is associated with the attributes of: programming language ability, IS knowledge, reference discipline knowledge and technical competence. Professionalism is associated with the attributes of: ethics, curiosity about technology, continuous learning and intellectual development, embracing change, and professional development. Project Management is associated with the attributes of: analyse and evaluate solutions, understand the profit motive of business, knowledge of business operations and its orientation, quality of solutions and project management skills. Professional Development is associated with the attributes of: research skills and related discipline knowledge. Diversity is associated with the attribute of operate in a diverse environment. An important finding from the mapping processes were that all the documents displayed a similar coverage of the generic attributes. All the graphs showed a strong treatment of IS discipline knowledge. IS'97 showed the strongest coverage of written and oral communications as compared to the other curriculum documents or the courses of study examined. A number of limitations were identified during the study. Some of the more important ones are: * This study identified a significant shortfall in the manner in which the objectives of the units of study that comprise IS courses of study at the tertiary level are written. The study found that the curriculum documents from the USA were often written with a specific number of objectives that often related to the length of the course or the number of times class was held during a week. In Australia the traditional unit has approximately 6-8 objectives. The objectives are often related to the content of the unit rather than what the student should be able to do at the end of the unit, in terms of the attributes identified by the university as being obtained by the students when they complete the course of study. * The lack of direct access to the large mailing list of the industry representative body. * The currency of the unit outline. * The fact that many course unit outlines are written when a course of study is accredited. This means that by the time the course of study is due for re-accreditation, that a long period of time has elapsed. This time period is often five years or more. In the IS discipline this is an extremely long period for any course of study to be accredited; * The emerging and constantly changing employer and IS professional desired attributes of graduates. This is a reflection of the changing nature of the IS environment. The fact that employers and IS professionals judge the quality of a university course based on what the graduates can actually do in the workplace; * There is a large difference between the percentage coverage of the model curriculum documents within the courses offered in the USA where they constitute approximately 30 percent of the total course content. In the Australian context the model curriculum coverage represents approximately 83 percent of the course content; * The study used curriculum documentation and there was no validation from a student perspective of what they learnt or what generic attributes were developed in units they studied; and, * The courses of study used in this research are restricted to the tertiary sector and the current educational offerings of universities in the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, in Australia. While this may represent the views of the eastern part of the country, they may not be totally representative of the offerings for the country as a whole. One of the most important outputs from this research has been the development of a replicable methodology for determining the extent of coverage of the generic attributes within units and courses in other disciplines. The process would be to identify the relevant curriculum documents for the discipline and the Core Body of Knowledge from the associated professional association. The generic attributes that may have a specific context within the discipline need to be validated using a similar method such as the Delphi technique. Mapping of the generic attributes would then be done and a set of similar graphs produced. This research process meets the third research objective of producing a replicable methodology for mapping the unit objectives against the generic attributes. This study is unique in that it sought the views of both industry and academics of the required generic attribute of graduates from IS courses of study. The study then mapped the generic attributes against the unit objectives to give an indication of the extent of treatment or development during a student's course. In an attempt to increase the response rate to the Delphi study email was used as a medium for data collection. This provided the necessary data for the identification and validation of the importance of the generic attributes in a relatively short period of time as compared to the time that a traditional Delphi study would have taken. The email medium also allowed for the easy follow up of any questions raised during the course of the questionnaires. Delphi studies may now be conducted in a relatively short time frame. This will give the researchers the ability to publish their findings more quickly than other methods of conducting studies using the Delphi method. Individually addressed email, where this was possible, enhanced the response rate and provided the researcher with added anecdotal evidence from comments made in the reply to the survey instrument. The generic attributes need to be developed within the courses of study at the institutions examined in this study. Specifically the wording of objectives needs to reflect not only the content of the material to be covered but also the process through which the student gains that knowledge or competency. The elicitation of the generic attributes is required as part of the unit outline and should clearly demonstrate to students what skills they will be developing within a particular unit. This information is then able to form part of the accreditation submission for institutions seeking accreditation from professional bodies such as the ACS. From the process of gathering information for this study it became clear that the writers of the unit outlines need to have professional development in the writing of the unit objectives to address the inclusion of the generic attributes. The identification of generic attributes needs to be continually reviewed and a follow-up study is suggested to identify any longitudinal trends that may be evolving since this study commenced in 1998. This follow-up is needed because of significant changes in society may suggest that there are new and additional attributes that are now considered to be generic skills. The relationship between the generic attributes identified in this study and the multi-literacies (Millard Sheets Library, 2003. -http://www.otis.edu/library/infolit.htm, Accessed 12 January, 2004) that are now the focus of educators will provide the platform for a follow-up study of the generic attributes agenda.

This thesis deals with the issue of market IS / ICT, particularly focusing on the analysis of the current situation. The first part is devoted to a slight look into the past and then the market IS / ICT has been analyzed in terms of factors and market actors. The following part of the paper focuses on the analysis of the structure of firms implementing its activities in the market IS / ICT. The last part of the paper explores the potential market developments and tries to predict the development and the key trends for the future are seen dynamic network services, teamwork, mobile enterprise, security, and last but not least, green computing for sustainable development.

The need to provide currency in education in terms of the qualities and skills of graduates is a continuous requirement of higher education institutions. Industry expects that graduates from courses of study at universities have the necessary skills and attributes to be able to work in the modern work environment. The generic attribute agenda permeates all areas and sectors of education. Some of the areas of the generic attribute agenda include teaching, learning, assessment and the development of the generic attributes in students. This thesis specifically deals with a singular discipline, Information Systems, and the identification of the generic attributes applicable to this discipline. It does not attempt to enter the debate on the broader issues of how generic attributes are taught, assessed and developed in the educational sphere. The areas of teaching, learning, assessment and development of generic attributes in higher education are outside the scope of this thesis. This thesis presents an investigation of the extent of coverage of the identified generic attributes within the unit objectives. The generic attributes required from the Information Systems (IS) industry for graduates from IS courses of study were identified and validated using an extensive three round Delphi questionnaire of academics and industry representatives. Academic participants were from several Australian universities that offer IS undergraduate courses of study. Industry representatives were from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and local Australian IS industry employers that employ the graduates from the participating universities also took part in the survey. The validation process involved two surveys, one in Queensland and a second involving the other Australian states. The significant finding from this survey was that the attribute of working as part of a team in a productive and cooperative manner was rated as the most important. Other significant findings included the high correlation between the Queensland study and the national study in terms of the relative importance of the attributes. Another important finding is that the attribute relating to discipline knowledge was rated as relatively unimportant being ranked 13th out of 29 attributes. The extent of treatment of the attributes within a course of study was identified by means of mapping each of the unit objectives within a course of study against the generic attributes and then plotting this data on a Kiviat chart. The universities used in this study included Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Southern Cross University (SCU), Bond University and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology(RMIT). A similar mapping was performed for the major curriculum documents IS'97 Model Curriculum and Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Courses in Information Systems (IS'97), Information Systems-Centric Curriculum (ISCC'99) and the Australian Computer Society Core Body of Knowledge. Comparisons were then made between the curriculum documents and the courses of study in terms of the extent of treatment of the generic attributes. Statistical analysis of the combined data from both the Queensland and Australian studies identified eight underlying factors. These included Team Communications, Information Use, Individual Competencies, IS Knowledge, Professionalism, Project Management, Professional Development and Diversity. Team Communications are associated with the attributes of working as part of a team, oral communications, written communications, interpersonal skills, time management and define problems. Information Use is associated with the attributes of: retrieval, evaluation and use of information, and sensitivity to gender customs and cultures. Individual Competencies are associated with the attributes of: self-motivation, ability to learn independently, reflection on strengths and weaknesses and work independently. IS Knowledge is associated with the attributes of: programming language ability, IS knowledge, reference discipline knowledge and technical competence. Professionalism is associated with the attributes of: ethics, curiosity about technology, continuous learning and intellectual development, embracing change, and professional development. Project Management is associated with the attributes of: analyse and evaluate solutions, understand the profit motive of business, knowledge of business operations and its orientation, quality of solutions and project management skills. Professional Development is associated with the attributes of: research skills and related discipline knowledge. Diversity is associated with the attribute of operate in a diverse environment. An important finding from the mapping processes were that all the documents displayed a similar coverage of the generic attributes. All the graphs showed a strong treatment of IS discipline knowledge. IS'97 showed the strongest coverage of written and oral communications as compared to the other curriculum documents or the courses of study examined. A number of limitations were identified during the study. Some of the more important ones are: * This study identified a significant shortfall in the manner in which the objectives of the units of study that comprise IS courses of study at the tertiary level are written. The study found that the curriculum documents from the USA were often written with a specific number of objectives that often related to the length of the course or the number of times class was held during a week. In Australia the traditional unit has approximately 6-8 objectives. The objectives are often related to the content of the unit rather than what the student should be able to do at the end of the unit, in terms of the attributes identified by the university as being obtained by the students when they complete the course of study. * The lack of direct access to the large mailing list of the industry representative body. * The currency of the unit outline. * The fact that many course unit outlines are written when a course of study is accredited. This means that by the time the course of study is due for re-accreditation, that a long period of time has elapsed. This time period is often five years or more. In the IS discipline this is an extremely long period for any course of study to be accredited; * The emerging and constantly changing employer and IS professional desired attributes of graduates. This is a reflection of the changing nature of the IS environment. The fact that employers and IS professionals judge the quality of a university course based on what the graduates can actually do in the workplace; * There is a large difference between the percentage coverage of the model curriculum documents within the courses offered in the USA where they constitute approximately 30 percent of the total course content. In the Australian context the model curriculum coverage represents approximately 83 percent of the course content; * The study used curriculum documentation and there was no validation from a student perspective of what they learnt or what generic attributes were developed in units they studied; and, * The courses of study used in this research are restricted to the tertiary sector and the current educational offerings of universities in the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, in Australia. While this may represent the views of the eastern part of the country, they may not be totally representative of the offerings for the country as a whole. One of the most important outputs from this research has been the development of a replicable methodology for determining the extent of coverage of the generic attributes within units and courses in other disciplines. The process would be to identify the relevant curriculum documents for the discipline and the Core Body of Knowledge from the associated professional association. The generic attributes that may have a specific context within the discipline need to be validated using a similar method such as the Delphi technique. Mapping of the generic attributes would then be done and a set of similar graphs produced. This research process meets the third research objective of producing a replicable methodology for mapping the unit objectives against the generic attributes. This study is unique in that it sought the views of both industry and academics of the required generic attribute of graduates from IS courses of study. The study then mapped the generic attributes against the unit objectives to give an indication of the extent of treatment or development during a student's course. In an attempt to increase the response rate to the Delphi study email was used as a medium for data collection. This provided the necessary data for the identification and validation of the importance of the generic attributes in a relatively short period of time as compared to the time that a traditional Delphi study would have taken. The email medium also allowed for the easy follow up of any questions raised during the course of the questionnaires. Delphi studies may now be conducted in a relatively short time frame. This will give the researchers the ability to publish their findings more quickly than other methods of conducting studies using the Delphi method. Individually addressed email, where this was possible, enhanced the response rate and provided the researcher with added anecdotal evidence from comments made in the reply to the survey instrument. The generic attributes need to be developed within the courses of study at the institutions examined in this study. Specifically the wording of objectives needs to reflect not only the content of the material to be covered but also the process through which the student gains that knowledge or competency. The elicitation of the generic attributes is required as part of the unit outline and should clearly demonstrate to students what skills they will be developing within a particular unit. This information is then able to form part of the accreditation submission for institutions seeking accreditation from professional bodies such as the ACS. From the process of gathering information for this study it became clear that the writers of the unit outlines need to have professional development in the writing of the unit objectives to address the inclusion of the generic attributes. The identification of generic attributes needs to be continually reviewed and a follow-up study is suggested to identify any longitudinal trends that may be evolving since this study commenced in 1998. This follow-up is needed because of significant changes in society may suggest that there are new and additional attributes that are now considered to be generic skills. The relationship between the generic attributes identified in this study and the multi-literacies (Millard Sheets Library, 2003. -http://www.otis.edu/library/infolit.htm, Accessed 12 January, 2004) that are now the focus of educators will provide the platform for a follow-up study of the generic attributes agenda.

In this thesis, we describe the principles of IS-IS routing protocol. We introduce the current state of implementation of this protocol within the simulation framework OMNeT++. We present the implementation of the IS-IS protocol created within the ANSA project. Moreover, we employ its variant called TRILL that is nowadays deployed as replacement of STP in data-center environment. The aim is to enable the modelling of the protocols without the need having to build physical architecture.

When thinking about architecture, I cannot help but think about my life and the things that have affected my life. How does the environment around us effect the daily decisions we make? How do the experiences throughout our life impact who we are and who we become? The people and surroundings we choose will ultimately decide the type of people we become. When we select our surroundings we are in turn selecting our ideal community. Everyone is trying to achieve community in some sense, from individuals to city planners. Council members, politicians, city officials... make decisions everyday based on their idea of what community is to them and their citizens.

In the following pages I will design a community and put in place the elements for it to prosper and grow...
Master of Architecture

The domain of this research are CASE tools, designated for requirements engineering, which are able to generate computerized information system prototypes. The main goal of this project is to design software, which would enable to generate an IS prototype from requirements specification, created re specification method, suggested by the Information Systems department. The software is a part of a CASE tool, designed by the IS department. The CASE tool is designated for creating requirements specification and the software will provide additional functionality to it. The opportunities of computerized IS prototyping using Oracle Designer, Visual FoxPro and MS Access were analyzed. In case of Oracle Designer, in order to create a computerized IS prototype we have to go through the whole design stage. In case of DBMS Visual FoxPro and MS Access we must have a database designed. And the software for generating computerized IS prototype enables you to generate a system prototype at an early design stage and without having the system project.

Under vintern bildas det is i vattendrag och när den smälter kan den börja att röra på sig, och blir då dynamisk. Isdynamik kan skada och hämma träd som växer i strandzonen. I denna studie inventerades träden och dess isrelaterade skador på träd längs med två vattendrag. Två områden, ett med och ett utan dynamisk is identifierades och områdena delades in i transekter på två avstånd från vattnet. Antal, art och mängden skador på träd jämfördes mot varandra i förhållande till de två områdena med och utan isdynamik. Tidigare studier har visat att is kan påverka vegetationen och artsammansättning längs vattendrag. Denna studie fokuserar därför på hur isdynamik påverkar träd som växer i strandzonen, med avseende på antal, artsammansättning och mångfald. Resultatet av studien visade att det inte fanns något samband mellan isdynamik och antal träd i de två områdena. I områden med isdynamik var artrikedomen lägre men det var en jämnare fördelning av arterna i jämförelse med områden utan isdynamik. En intressant slutsats av denna studie var att på avstånden där det skadades flest träd var det högre artrikedom och diversitet än på avstånd där färre skadades.
During winter, ice develops in streams and when it melts it may start to move, and it becomes dynamic. Ice dynamics can damage and obstruct trees that grow in the riparian zones. In this study, trees and the ice related damages on trees along two streams were examined. Two locations, one with and one without ice dynamics were identified and the areas were divided into transects at two distances from the stream. Quantity, species and the amount of damage on trees were compared against each other in relation to the two locations with and without ice dynamics. Previously it has been shown that ice can affect the vegetation and composition of species along streams. This study therefore focuses on how ice dynamics affects trees that grow in the riparian zone, with respect to the quantity, composition of species and diversity. The result of this study showed that there is no relationship between ice dynamics and number of trees in these two locations. In the areas with ice dynamics the species richness was lower, but there was a more even distribution of species compared to the areas without ice dynamics. An interesting conclusion of this study is that at distances where most trees were damaged, there was higher richness of species and diversity compared to distances were fewer was damaged.

The critical introduction to this collection of short fiction argues that writing is reading and that reading is writing. The argument draws descriptions of writing as reading from such diverse sources as Sherwood Anderson, Roland Barthes, Neil Simon, J. Hillis Miller and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, as well as from the author's own experience. Descriptions of reading from phenomenological and subjective criticism, including the theories of Georges Poulet, Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish and David Bleich, affirm the creative role of the reader, show that the reader, in fact, writes the text in the process of reading. The introduction concludes that reader, writer and text are all constructs of language, that both reading and writing are, ultimately and primarily, thought.

For as much as GfK Company is now reorganized, because all management has been changed, all processes are changing as well. One of this process is even process of communication, which until this time wasn't specifically solved itself. Especially due to this, is very hard to describe this process and sort. Object of this work is try to analyse process of extern and intern communication in GfK Company and simultaneously try to offer any suggestion to improve. To deals with all processes of this company isn't able due to extend of this work, and since GfK Company deals with market research and public mind, in this work is concentrated attention to communication by main activity of company. By these processes is communication with respondents and with clients, according to extern communication. In as much as communication with respondent, this work is focused mainly on household panel, because this company has from this most information (as primary data ). Same the internal communication is focused by main process of GfK Company, and that is data transmission and processing. These processes are for company basic, the most interesting and themselves right progress influenced the company as a whole, like a name and prestige and like an income. The work is separated to two main parts. The first part deals with theoretic problems. The main ideas are approached there, that are taking processes, information, communication and systems. The communication is research by social view and by technological view, so how communication is influenced by ICT, and it's positive or negative. The second part is focused to solve the concrete problem of GfK Company. In the first time is introduced the GfK, later are developed processes of internal and external communication. Next parts describe present situation and true using of ICT. According to this information are in conclusion mentioned any suggests and recommends how to improve these processes.

The essential theme of this thesis is the problems of information systems audit. Main aim is to analyze the position of this audit within the internal audit framework and the significancy of risk analysis for audit. This thesis subsequently identifies the most important international standards and methodics concerning this problem area. In the risk domain it focuses above all on risk specifics in the framework of information systems area and technologies. The main goal of this thesis is to create a guideline for audit process. The theme is elaborated in the way of study of accessible domestic and foreign literature and electronic resources. The outcome of this thesis is the settlement of work up of findings from internal audit area, from informational system audit and from risk analysis and risk management. Main contribution of this thesis is the self-constructed guideline covering the whole process of audit, which is based on evaluation of risks and their analysis. The surveyed area can be assessed as progressively developing with raising importance because of still bigger development in the information technology area.

Master thesis deals with implementation of helpdesk solution provided by Kayako Fusion in medium-sized IT outsourcing company. The first part focus on analysis of existing application in technical department, together with an analysis of management and customers functional requirements. Subsequently, the helpdesk system is designed to fulfill the objectives of analysis. In the last part of the thesis you will find detailed description of procedure for implementation and customization of mentioned helpdesk application. The proposed solution is based partly on provision of IT services (ITIL), especially the area of Incident and Problem management. In conclusion you will find the statement indicating if the implementation of Kayako Fusion fulfilled the expectations of management, meet predetermined requirements and become suitable tool to support and carry out daily business processes.

This thesis deals with the creation of individual information system for small business dealing with rental properties. The goal is to obtain a system that would meet the needs of the company. The paper focuses on information system design and development in its own by using the Grails web framework.

This thesis is about information system assessment in Wistron company. There is assessed for which reason the system is utilized, what the weaknesses of system or implementation are and these are followed by the relevant proposals for improving the problematic areas. The theoretical part deals with information systems in general, process methodologies and company and information systems assessments methodologies. Then followed by project management and information strategies. The practical part proposes new information strategy and implementation of company information system.

Práce shrnuje problematiku auditu informačního systému a tyto poznatky následně využívá při provedení auditu informačního systému v reálné společnosti. Audit je prováděn pomocí metodiky COBIT a respektuje nejen požadavky metodiky kladené na audit ale i speciální požadavky, které stanovila organizace. Práce zároveň ověřuje použitelnost metodiky COBIT při provádění auditu v podmínkách středně velké české společnosti.

One of the key processes of IS/IT service provider is Service Level Management. IT service provider faces a problem how the services should be defined, how a balanced service portfolio should be set up and how the processes covering the service management should be designed to meet strategic goals of the organization. The thesis focuses on IS/IT service portfolio design and management with a particular focus on infrastructure services. General goal of the thesis is to support IS/IT service provider's activities directly linked with service level management, IT financial management and IT service portfolio design. The thesis puts together theoretical sources in the area of IT Governance, generally accepted methodologies and best practices, actual market trends and author's experience. The theoretical part maps current development in the field of IS/IT service management, summarizes relevant theoretical inputs, categorizes IS/IT services, gives an overview of the most commonly used pricing models and presents actual IS/IT market trends, such as SaaS or Utility Computing. The application part, which follows the theoretical part of the thesis, is built upon fundaments of key findings and conclusions of the theoretical part. Application section introduces a method of service level management transformation and a business model suitable for IS/IT service provider. Furthermore a process of IS/IT service portfolio design is introduced. The process is supported by an analytical tool, which enables analysis of provider's financial and infrastructure data. The output of the analysis is a set of scenarios of IS/IT service portfolio including revenue, costs and utilization of resources and technologies. Academic benefit is seen not only in the consolidation of relevant theoretical sources dealing with IT service design and management. The thesis also introduces frameworks for optimization of service level management process and a concept of a IT service provider's business model. A practical contribution of the thesis is seen in a process of IT service portfolio design supported by an analytical tool for provider's real data processing, covering demand, capacity, utilization and financials.