Master Thesis

Computer Science

Thesis No# MCS-2006:07
July 2006 Support for Information Management in
Virtual Organizations
By:
B.B. Pavan Kumar Yadav
Kosuri Naga Krishna Kalyan

Department of Interaction and System Design
School of Engineering
Blekinge Tekniska Högskola
Box 520
SE- 37225 Ronneby
Sweden Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 2
S
PECIAL
T
HANKS
T
O First of all we would like to thank Rune Gustavsson our supervisor at BTH for giving us the
opportunity to do this thesis work, and for the help with the insight in making of this thesis.
Thank you Mr. Rune to provide us support in presenting our ideas clearly and for discussing
with us when we got stuck there your enormous knowledge has helped us a lot.

We also thank Karin Jakobsson for helping us with scheduling meetings on time with our
supervisor without which it would have been difficult for us to give this thesis a final shape in
the stipulated time.

We also thank the fellow students at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola for giving us the support

delivered to the students in future with the Instruction Technology and distance
education. According to us the education trend has changed its phase of delivery
of services form the management point of view to student’s point of view.
Leading to delivery of educational service’s which would have more impact on
student’s education, knowledge and experience within the institution. In our
thesis we try to provide some information about how to support and manage the
information in Virtual Organizations. We also explore the frameworks of the
university and discussed a case study about the different ways of providing
better support for information management resulting in delivery of best students
driven services and unique facilities. We would be looking at the different
aspects of the university work flows and procedures and gain an insight on the
student’s expectation from the organization. This investigation would be helpful
for the students to know what are the services they should expect from the
universities and also helpful for management to know better the needs of the
students and their needs and to develop a framework for proper execution of
these services. Key Words …
Virtual Organization (VO), Requirement Engineering,
Stake holders, Work flows, Web services, Semantic web, Student centric
services.

Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 4

which includes the different issues which we have gathered after discussing with students
about the issues they have faced within the university and what improvements they expect
within the university by conducting one on one sessions and also getting the feedback from
the questionnaire. The feedback questionnaire is shown in Appendix-A. We have then
analyzed the different feedback given by the students. After analyzing have proposed a
system which could be implemented for better students interaction with university. Also we
have discussed about “Student Centric Services” which is the current trend utilised by most
of the renowned universities.

Chapter 6 gives the conclusion of our thesis and the Future Work that could be performed
according to us.

Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 5
T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS Page No
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1) Setting up the Scene …………………………………………............................ 9
1.2) Background …………………………………………………………………..... 10
1.2.1) what is grid computing? What is its importance? ……………......... 10
1.2.2) what is VO? What is the required environment for VO? ................. 10

Chapter 1.5 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND CHALLENGES


3.2.1) Data-Base model …………………………………………………... 25
3.2.2) Client-Server Model ……………………………………………..... 25
3.2.3) Variant of Web Services …………………………………………... 26
3.3) Remote Laboratory Framework ……………………………………………….. 31
3.4) Semantic Web ……………………………………………………………......... 34
Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 6

Page No Chapter 4 NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS 4.1) Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 37
4.2) Challenges of Non-Functional Requirements …………………………………. 38
4.3) Classification of Non-Functional Requirements ……………………………... 38
4.3.1) Performance ……………………………………………………….. 39
4.3.2) Maintenance ……………………………………………………….. 39
4.3.3) Portability …………………………………………………………. 40
4.3.4) Scalability …………………………………………………………. 40
4.3.5) Security and Protection ……………………………………………. 41

IST OF
F
IGURESFig 1) Support of work flow by services………………………………………….. 13
Fig 2) Student Applying for Admission…………………………………………... 17
Fig 3) Student service for International Students (Accommodation/Pickup
Services)……………..………………………………………………………

18
Fig 4) Student Course Registration ……………………………………………….. 19
Fig 5) Identification of Stake Holders ……………………………………………. 22
Fig 6) Client-Service Model ……………………………………………………… 26
Fig 7) Fundamental participants of Web Services ……………………………….. 27
Fig 8) SOA Architecture…………………………………………………………... 29
Fig 9) Interaction of Stakeholders with Web-Services……………………………. 30
Fig 10) Prototype for Remote Laboratory………………………………………… 31
Fig 11) Remote Laboratory Framework…………………………………………... 33
Fig 12) Classification of Non Functional Requirements………………………….. 39
Fig 13) Classical process of getting the information (Rule Based)……………….. 47
Fig 14) Proposed Information System (Dialogue Based)…………………………. 47
At the end of the thesis the user would get to know the importance of the
following:
1. Understanding Requirement Engineering
2. Understanding Technical Ramification
3. Understanding Validation

Let us first describe what the Requirement Engineering is about
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to
discover them and this leads to discovering/gathering the requirements.
Requirements engineering is a term used to describe all the tasks that deals with
the investigation, scope and definition of a new or altered computer system. It is
the most important part in the business development. The requirements are
identified by the business analyst or the developers and then those requirements
are positioned to design a solution. There are set of activities in requirement
engineering to produce reliable, high quality and trustworthy system.

Eliciting requirements: Identify system stake holders its goals and expectations
with clearly defined system boundaries.

Modelling or specifying requirements: Here focus will be on systematic
modelling of both functional and non functional requirements. Functional
requirements are specified by system processing states, events (input events,
output events, process execution signals) and system data. System data may
include identification of data objects, data types, data sources, end-user screen
displays, and meta-data, as well as construction of a data dictionary. Functional
requirements should also specify system data flow through system or subsystem
states as controlled or synchronized by events.
In contrast, Non-Functional requirements can be goals, capabilities, and
constraints that situate the functional system within some context of operation.


defined as a “dynamic collection of individuals and institutions which are
required to share resources to achieve certain goals”. [2] Virtual Organization is
the temporary network of companies, customers, suppliers or employees linked
by information and communication technologies with a purpose of delivering a
service or product.
First we would like to give the brief description of the virtual organization. [4] A
“Virtual Organisation” is simply a group of users with similar interests and
requirements who are able to work collaboratively with other members of the
group and/or share resources (data, software, CPU, storage space, etc) regardless
of geographical location. The principle theory of virtual organization is some of
the key aspects they are: well defined processes and performance management
to deliver the quality service. Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 10
The process of creating Virtual Organisation:
•
Identify common goals and objectives.
•
Identify customers/clients and what are we going to do for them.
•
Identify the flow of work from beginning to end (Process)
•
What systems/IT/services will you need to service the customer without
acquiring people or buildings? (Systems)
•
Identify performance measurement systems to ensure that service levels

HALLENGES 1.5) Problem Statement

1.5.1) Motivation leading to thesis

Usually if we look the university in the organizational perspective then we could
find that university is the service provider by means of the Staff/employees
usually employed by university itself to deliver the services, and students are the
service consumers/seekers. The main aim of the universities is to provide the
better standard education with the maximum support from the staffs and
administrative department easing the work of the students. Today’s technology
and concern for delivering proper services is moulded in to such organizations
without any proper gathering of student requirements this leads to development
of a information system which is fully operational but which exists with
improper work procedures and often increases the work pressure on the staff and
management. This pressure is indirectly mounted over the students making a
negative impact on the experience of the students at the university. So these
drive our interest to find out how well the information management could be
processed for providing a better support for a virtual organization.

1.5.2) Challenge (research question)

Our research drives us to find out what are the most important aspects of
requirement engineering? Also what are the most important aspects of
validation? From the context of student centric services

1.5.3) Research methodology



Students now a day are also looking at the future prospectus, benefits of
pursuing the course with in a university either on-campus or through internet
learning. Due to this service organizations are facing much higher competition
with the rise in the non-traditional and alternative competitors, in maintaining
their fame and standard of education. Other factors also affect the organizations
some of them are:
9 Increase market demands and growing instability of available
resources.
9 Market conditions are unpredictable.
9 Making the services offered more flexible and creative by
maintaining the standards.
9 Broadening the services offered with maintaining internal
organizational behaviour and academic culture.

Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 13
1.5.4) Guidance to the Readers

In the chapter 2 we have described about the generic workflows within the university, Later
in Chapter 3 we have selected some work flows and discovered who the stake holders for
implementing those workflows and in detailed description of the implementation models. In
chapter 4 we have discussed the most important aspect of a system i.e., Non-Functional
Requirements and why they are important for any system development. Chapter 5 we have
taken up a case study about Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH) and we have investigated the

mission of the organization. Also there are lot of new technologies using which the system
“remote laboratory and dialogue based interactive information gathering system” can be
developed.

Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 14
C
HAPTER
2.

W
ORK
F
LOWS2.1) Introduction to Work-flows

Work flows can be defined in different ways in general workflow is the tasks
through a certain work process. (Or) Work flow is the graphical representation
of certain flow of a process in order to take a decision or conclude any work.

Specifically to say Workflow is the operational aspect of a work procedure with
details of how the tasks are structured, who performs the task, what is the order
of them and their information of the synchronization. Some workflows are
considered in the dimension of time.

In the context of information technology the workflow is a model to support the
internal part of the working /process methods of the software or the documents.

There are many more workflow paradigms which can be distinguished for

Decision
Data Base
Pre-Defined Process
M a n u a l In p u t
Input / output
Docum entation
F l o w c h a r t E l e m e n t s
Actor
Action
Send Event
Receive Event
Note
Flow Final
Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 16
2.2) BTH Organisation Work-Flow Design
2.2.1) Student Applying for Admission
student
fills up the
application form
submits the
application
with transcripts
receives the
automated application
reference number
BTH DATABASE
Admission Department

2.2.2) Student service for International Students (Accommodation / Pickup Services)
student
BTH NEW
STUDENTS DATABASE
BTH DATABASE
Set reminder depending on the
Importance of the request
Request
answered
Request is processed and answered
yes
Save the session for
monitoring the students requests
Request sent to the
authorised person

Requests / Sends
the Information
to student service
s
Student receives the
status of the request

NO
All the information
are maintained and
monitored for the

with the course details
(schedule,material,Assignments)

Professor takes the responsibility
to check the students approach
towardsstudies and learning
Details and students
performance are
documented and
updated in centralized
database
Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 19

They are:
1. Students
2. Information Providers
3. Maintainer
4. Staff
5. System owners
6. Responsible person ( the supreme head)
We could say that a stake holder is a person, or department or organization who
has an interest in a process in the form of an obligation or having a benefit or
service.

3.1.2) what is the roles of stakeholders?

The stakeholders have responsibilities which lies in the participation and
commitment to a process which involves learning and listening to the other
groups. This participation implies responsibility not to the individual process of
the organization with which the stakeholder is concerned about but also for the
whole. So the stake holder participation implies taking up the responsibility to
work effectively, to participate in the decision process, to create a common
vision and to act towards achieving it for the common good. Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 21


(Actor, Role)
1) (Course coordinator, provides course information)
2) (Program responsible, provides program information)
3) (Librarian, provides literature information)
4) (Students administrator, provides all student service information and
support)
5) (Administration dept, information regarding student’s admission)
6) (Students Expedition, answers student queries)
7) (International coordinator, information to the new students)
8) (Students union, takes care of students basic requirements for studies)
9) (Examination dept, provides the examination information and results) INFORMATION
SYSTEM
RESPONSIBLE
HEAD
STUDENT
STAFF
SYSTEM
MAINTAINER
SYSTEM
OWNER
SET

organize, maintain, implement and deliver the information to every student and
administration dept regarding the course structure.

The course structure is designed in such a way that the students gets the
maximum knowledge by learning the subjects, this is decided by the head of the
university (Rector/Dean) along with the course responsible we are not going to
concentrate on how they decide and how they go for structuring the course.

The prime responsibility of the maintainer is to maintain the proper information
in a proper channel. No wrong information or pseudo information should be
available for the concerned of the data.

Some of the lists of maintainers are:
1) (Course coordinator, maintains the course information on website)
2) (Program responsible, maintains the program schedule, slides and related
info )
3) (Computer administration dept, maintains the student lab info)
4) (Librarian, maintains and updates the library catalogue )
5) (Students administration dept, maintains the students course record)
6) (Examination dept, maintains the exam data and results information)

System Owners:

This is the most important and crucial part of the system where one information
provider or maintainer inputs any information in to the system or the website has
to make sure that the information is valid information. This part of the system is
left out unnoticed by the authorities of the university and they don’t take it
seriously.

We as a student have found that in the course website IDENET we get lot of

Services which are further classified in to (i) Web-Services (ii) Semantic Web.
One of the major aspect what we as a students look in for in a university is the
use of information resources and also getting the valuable information at the
right time in a right precision.
The most common means of gathering information is through the fellow
students, friends, course responsible, student’s information desk, students’
administration, course home pages and also the program responsible.

Though most of the resources through which the students gather information are
unofficial. Most official process of getting the information is the course website.
We would like to have the website in such a way that the students get the
updated information right at their finger tips.

Technology:

Implementing these services would drive the interest for the best of the current
technology in the market with better user driven approach for their ease of use.
Some of the implementation models used is mentioned above. These services
developed should be information transparent, (i.e. hiding the internal working
process) and should be able to handle multiple requests or events.

Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 24
3.2.1) Data-Base model

First basic model could be either to develop a static website and then put in all
the information in that but the technology and the market demands much more
than that. The most general model could be thought about is the Data-Base

requirements of the organization and the people, precise understanding of
the system and its requirements, working knowledge of the abstract
architectures to define the structure for effective client-server systems, using
the services model to design and verify the architecture.
• Having the in-depth analysis of the working strategies and proper
understanding of using the proven strategies along with the basic guidelines
for designing the scalable, fault-tolerant distributed system for providing
better data integrity and security.
The simple example of the client server model is the World Wide Web (WWW).
If a user wants to check his bank statement online first his system acts like a
client and it sends the request to the bank server which authenticates and gives a
secure connection to the user so that he can do the bank transaction online.
Support for Information Management In Virtual Organization Page 25