E&P information management: beyond Web portals

PurposeThis paper aims to gain insights about information management practices in public health-care organizations in Kuwait and offer recommendations to improve these practices.Design/methodology/approachThis study involves secondary analysis of quantitative and qualitative accreditation-related data pertaining to the compliance with the Information Management standard at seven public tertiary health-care facilities over two accreditation cycles.FindingsOverall, organizations improved their compliance with the Information Management standard. However, issues exist with effectively and efficiently transmitting data, aggregating clinical and administrative data and using the information for both strategic planning and quality improvement initiatives.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysed data set does not provide information about the improvements done between the accreditation cycles. Caution should be applied before assuming generalizability of the results, considering the context and social constructs around the health-care system is essential.Practical implicationsCompliance with predetermined criteria through accreditation can improve information management practices. Without proper management of information at health-care facilities, achieving safe and effective patient care is futile. The role of health information technology (IT) should not be sidelined; robust health IT solutions can help support good information management practices thereby improving care quality and aiding health-care reform.Originality/valueConcerning information management, health-care organizations providing focused services have clear advantages over organizations providing general care services. Considering the type of care organization (general vs specialized) can provide insights into how information management practices can affect the operations of the organization.

William Kettinger and Donald Marchand attempt to operationalize the constructs that together help define the ‘knowing organization’. Their intention to develop a construct that measures the capability of companies to manage their information is a substantial undertaking. According to the life cycle of information management, ‘information management practices’ is defined as a second order construct that involves sensing, collecting, organizing, processing, and maintaining information to enhance its use for decision making. The authors develop measures for these five sub-capabilities. Empirical data were collected from multinational firms to test the construct with confirmatory factor analysis used as the major method for statistical analysis. The authors have created a model of information use and conducted an extensive evaluation across a broad array of institutions to validate this measure of information management practices. Considering that effective information management and usage have become an asset for firms to achieve competitive advantage and that there is no existing comprehensive measurement for this important capability, this paper is valuable to practitioners and academics since it can be used to compare firms' information management capabilities. This paper lays a foundation towards the improvement of organizational use of information. Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson and Ojelanki Ngwenyama explore the potential of data mining technology, specifically decision tree generation, for providing support for systematic theory testing. This data mining technology is itself built on the principles of abductive inference and evaluating hypotheses based on Peirce's scientific method. They assert that this approach could assist scientists to explore alternative hypotheses for existing theories. They demonstrate their approach with empirical observations collected from twenty organizations in two countries using instruments from the user performance area of IS research, specifically task-technology fit and user satisfaction studies. The paper aims to help overcome the problem of the paucity of hypotheses for theory development in the positivist approach of Popper and others. The approach therefore aims to achieve significant savings in terms of the time and cost of conducting systematic theory testing and development. Stefan Henningsson and Sven Carlsson investigate the problem of information systems integration in the context of mergers and acquisitions. Information systems integration is critical for achieving the intended goals. The topic is eternal and timely in this current climate as financial institutions rise and fall and many of the challenges this brings are related to integrating information systems and maintaining operations. The authors have an ambitious approach as they try to combine existing research on both information systems integration and mergers and acquisitions with a multiple site case study into a model on information systems integration issues. They develop a six dimensional theoretical framework for information systems integration in corporate mergers and acquisitions. This can be used by companies since, through the combination of dimensions, it shows the information systems integration issues, decisions, and actions that a company has to address in the mergers and acquisitions process.

One of the important features of the “new information age” is “big data”. In the age of big data, with the introduction of student information management systems, colleges and universities are increasingly paying attention to systematically managing student information management and improving their efficiency, effective management of student information and innovative development to build a new model of management system. In studying the evolution of student information management, big data technologies emerging in the information age play an important role. By leveraging big data to improve systematic management of student information, colleges and universities can manage student information faster and more efficiently and make new contributions to the advancement of student information management. In this article, information management is considered as the theoretical basis for research, big data technology is used as the main search algorithm, and its important content is combined to analyze and study the possibilities of the student information management system. In this article, an information management system for university students is used as a research object, which is optimized and improved through big data technologies. Big Data technology can be seen as a kind of algorithm for analyzing and processing data. Therefore, it can be used to create a student information management strategy. The experimental results show that this research has a better impact on the creation and implementation of an information management system for students using Big Data technology and the application of Big Data technology in the information management system for students.

this system is design to complete the digital management of students' result files in middle schools' daily education work. The system focuses on conform the business process to the operation, and strives for comprehensiveness and versatility, making the system not only applies to one education organization. The combined method of life cycle approach and prototyping are adopted on the choice of development methods, which follows four phases, including research, analysis, design and implementation of the system to carry on the design. And in the detailed design, evolutionary prototyping is adopted. With the deepen understanding in the using, afresh analysis, design and implement one part or several parts will be processed. Finally through the test, this system has reached the design requirements of various functions, and achieved the expected design goal.

The South African Journal of Information Management explores the latest developments and trends in information and knowledge management to offer research that can be used to further the application of sound information and knowledge management practice.

This qualitative study aimed to identify UK health visitors’ management of information, with particular reference to their public health and community development activities. Widely recognized concepts, such as information audit to assess information need and process models of information management, were applied at operational level to represent health visitors’ information environment. The naturalistic methodology included interviews and observation, the use of NUD.IST to aid qualitative data analysis, and the code and retrieve method to develop theory. The results highlight information flows, categories of information need, and key issues relating to health visitors’ information management practice. It is concluded that the community development work of health visitors can be seen as information work, and that health visitors can be viewed as ‘information processors’ and ‘information facilitators’. It is suggested that health visiting requires an information policy that will inform the development of local information strategies and effective information management practices.

Although the specialty of information management and information system has already started mobile development courses, the current course orientation is not clear, and therefore the teaching plan, teaching content and experiment plan are not targeted. Aiming at this problem,we studies the teaching purpose and content of the mobile development course for specialty of information management and information system, and designs the experimental case base of information management and information system. By proposing training program for mobile device information system design curriculum, we designs and improves information system case base for mobile device, making students majoring in information management and information system master the basic function of mobile development, and design and develop multiple system oriented information system client and server. For information management and information system majors who have good information system development capabilities, they need not to increase investment in hardware and software or modify other teaching content. They can easily transfer to mobile platform oriented information system design and development, integrating with other development technology course as a whole, so as to improve the current isolating situation of mobile development technology course.

Some of the most extensive information management and decision support systems at state departments of transportation (DOTs) are used in maintenance for condition tracking, work planning, budget estimation, and quality assurance. DOTs are confronted with the challenge of managing these and emerging environmental information and decision support needs in integrated systems that incorporate transportation and environmental assets and quality and the activities, materials, labor, budget, and tools needed to assess and manage them. Systems integration remains an elusive goal. Although a few states are pursuing integrated asset management systems, recent leaps forward have been frequently limited to integration of management systems within a single functional area, e.g., integration of Pontis for bridge management with Virtis to bridge load rating. In that decentralized context, this paper presents several leading examples or best practices in asset and maintenance quality management in various areas of maintenance where environmental aspects that are difficult to quantify have begun to be incorporated.

Regulation compliance is one of the critical services to citizens and businesses for e-government, as identified by the U. S. Office of Management and Budget. Regulation compliance is a complex process and offers many challenges in the design and implementation of a regulatory information management system that is able to support the regulation compliance process. It is important to first gain an understanding of the information flow in the regulation and compliance process, and to develop appropriate IT tools for building such a system. Focusing on environmental regulations related to hazardous waste management, we investigate the issues towards building an information infrastructure for a compliance assistance framework. This paper describes a prototype distributive regulation framework for: (1) the management of regulations and related information to support compliance assistance; (2) an Internet-based information management system; and (3) supporting the interoperability among the parties (regulatory agencies, businesses and third party waste handling facilitators), who are involved in the environmental regulation compliance process.

SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)를 기반으로 하는 소프트웨어는 비즈니스 요구사항에 기민하게 대응할 수 있어 사용이 확대되고 있다. SOA는 느슨한 서비스 결합과 메시지 교환 중심 아키텍처라는 특징 때문에 기존의 테스팅 방법 적용이 제한된다. 본 논문에서는 BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation)을 이용해 테스트 케이스를 생성하는 기법을 제안한다. 먼저 프로세스를 모델링하고, 이를 통해 비즈니스 흐름 그래프(BFG)를 생성한다. BFG의 입출력 차수를 대칭하고, 오일러 경로를 탐색하여 테스트 케이스를 생성한다. BPMN을 이용한 테스트 케이스 생성 기법은 SOA 기반 시스템에 적용 가능하며, 테스트 케이스 수를 감소시킬 수 있다. The SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) based softwares are escalated because of quickly coping with business requirement. SOA can not apply to existing test method because of loosely coupled service and massage exchange architecture. In this paper, we suggest a method of test case generation using BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). First we model processes, then make Business Flow Graph (BFG). After searching the euler path through symmetrized BFG about input and output degrees, we generate test cases. A method of test case generation using BPMN can apply at SOA-based system, and reduce the number of test cases.

PurposeThe realization of the significant roles played by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in economic development and the crucial values attached to efficient and effective records and information management in decision making, and the fact that little seems to be done to improve on the management of records and information among the SMES in Uganda, necessitated this study. The study therefore aims to investigate the management of records and information among the SMEs in Tororo district in Uganda.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a quantitative approach in which a structured questionnaire was used as the main data collection method and supplemented with a telephone interview. Snowball sampling strategy was applied in identifying the respondents. A total of 61 SMEs could be identified. Off this 61, 42 (69 percent) participated in the study. Data were analysed using the Excel program.FindingsThe findings indicate that the SMEs have many issues and challenges related to records and information management. The paper concludes that a concerted effort should be made and proposes that SMEs managers be trained on key skills for records and information management.Originality/valueThe Government of Uganda, in a bid to improve on the SMEs sector, have mainly focused on provision of advice on business practices and counseling for entrepreneurs who seek to access credit and new markets ignoring the crucial component of records and information management. This study thus closes this gap and makes key recommendations regarding improvement of records and information management among SMEs.

In Knowledge Management (KM) discipline, the nature of KM itself has long been discussed and sometimes even its existence and meaning have been questioned. At the same time, research focusing on the difference between KM and Information Management (IM) was scarce. Therefore we tried through empirical investigation of differences between KM and IM to distinguish the KM from IM and to try to draw a distinct line between both approaches. To fulfil our goal we employed exploratory inductive qualitative research design as not many studies have tried to empirically distinguish KM from IM. For data gathering we used expert semi-structured interviews. The interviews and also results were structured according to 8 perspectives: conceptual, process, technological, organisational, implementation, human resources, economical, and administration. For each perspective, we examined the context of IM and KM and analysed, described and interpreted the differences.

Development of a conceptual model for an information management system in spatial planning projects. Case study of making-city project

Frameworks support the realization of goals. Information management is essential in all sectors in today's environment. It is essential to establish an information management framework to guide the realization of the goal of information management in different sectors. Information Management Frameworks (IMFs) are scanty and are designed for specific contexts leading to difficulty in thinking when developing and evaluating IMFs in sectors that want to streamline their information management practices. Documented IMFs were reviewed to establish elements of an underlying information management framework. The findings show that people, processes & practices, technology, budget, leadership, facilities and facilitation, and rules & regulations are essential elements.

A key property in tactical network environments is that the wireless network itself is typically the major limiting factor in how much information can be shared between users. In such environments, tactical operations often employ group communication protocols (one-to-many or many-to-many) to send information between users. This often results in situations where every message sent gets delivered to everyone on the network which can lead to network congestion, performance degradation, application failure, and even complete information loss. In light of today's computationally rich mobile devices, it is preferential to expend additional processing power to limit the messages being sent to only those required by interested clients rather than to simply deliver every message to every client. This paper summarizes the results of a research effort to explore and implement an Information Management (IM) prototype known as BANDIT that enables efficient and reliable information exchange across a swarm of Android devices within a decentralized Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network. BANDIT features a lightweight implementation of the Kademlia algorithm for P2P swarm management, and implements an efficient broadcast algorithm designed for minimal cost internode communication within structured P2P networks. BANDIT provides decentralized publish/subscribe IM services that, in contrast to more traditional IM systems, have no reliance on a centralized server (which requires additional dedicated hardware and poses the risk of being a single point of failure). Instead, BANDIT IM services are provided by each of the devices participating in the swarm. BANDIT is interoperable with traditional client-server based IM systems which further enables information sharing across tactical and strategic elements.