Innovations, Developments, and Applications of Semantic Web and Information Systems

The Interaction Effect of Strategic Information Systems on Performance of International Freight Forwarders: An Analysis of Gaps in Performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore useful Semantic Web technologies and ontology-based applications for digital libraries. It also investigates the perceptions of university librarians and academicians in Pakistan about Semantic Web technologies and their use in digital libraries.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory research design based on Delphi research strategy was conducted to answer the research questions. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 50 key informants including university librarians and academicians to explore their perceptions about Semantic Web technologies and their use in digital libraries. Thematic analysis of interview data was conducted to obtain results.FindingsThe results of this paper showed that DuraCloud, Semantic information mashup, OntoEdit and resource description framework (RDF) are the various Semantic Web applications which are useful for digital libraries to develop semantic relationships among digital contents and increase their accessibility in the web environment. Findings revealed that Semantic Web provides precise results and meets user information needs in an effective way. Results also showed that next-generation digital libraries use context-awareness technology, intelligent agent software and detecting sensors to analyze user information needs and provide dynamic information services. This paper recommended that librarians should embrace the use of emerging web technologies in libraries and offer library services through the medium of the web.Practical implicationsThis paper envisaged the future of digital library services and Semantic Web applications that can be used to re-structure metadata of digital library. This paper has practical implications for librarians to consider the useful applications of Semantic Web for digital library and enhance the interoperability of metadata among heterogeneous information systems. Practically, results obtained from this paper are highly useful for library schools and LIS teachers to up-date their curriculum by incorporating new contents related to web languages and Semantic Web applications for digital libraries.Originality/valueThis paper identifies various Semantic Web applications which are useful for developing Semantic Digital Libraries.

Semantic Web research relies on a number of key methodologies such as knowledge representation languages or reasoning algorithms. As a research community, however, we could not progress based on these methodologies exclusively, but require tools and systems that realize our research results as key technologies for the Semantic Web. There would be no Linked Data without repositories to store them, no Semantic Web applications without application programming interfaces to load and edit ontologies, and no semanticsbased user interfaces without reasoners. Consequently, some of these technologies are research enablers in their own rights. Unfortunately, the developers of such software— often researchers themselves—rarely get appropriate credit for their work. Attempts to publish papers describing their software systems frequently provoke reviews and decision letters questioning their ’conceptual contribution’. This criticism may be correct, be it because the conceptual underpinnings have been published previously, or because there may in fact be little conceptual underpinnings apart from excellent software engineering. As a result, developers of key research enabling software often have considerable difficulties publishing their work in high-quality journals. In turn, paradoxically, researchers using these systems within their own work lack a primary citation source for the used software, and may have to settle for a URL, a short demo paper, or for a workshop contribution as citation. These outlets, however, can not provide the rigid quality criteria and visibility compared to journal publications. There is a need for publishing Tools and Systems papers in primary journals. The criteria applied to evaluate such papers have to differ from those applied to classical research articles. Unfortunately, these alternative evaluation criteria are often not spelled out in detail and therefore not consistently taken into account by reviewers and editors. As a consequence, the Semantic Web journal has adopted the Tools and Systems article as one of its regular paper types and provides crisp criteria for their evaluation: Reports on tools and systems—short papers describing mature Semantic Web related tools and systems. These reports should be brief and pointed, indicating clearly the capabilities of the described tool or system. It is strongly encouraged, that the described tools or systems are free, open, and accessible on the Web. If this is not possible, then they have to be made available to the reviewers. For commercial tools and systems, exceptions can be arranged through the editors. These submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described tool or system (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Clarity, illustration, and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader both the capabilities and the limitations of the tool. The impact of the described tool or system is indeed decisive. Authors are asked to provide evidence for a substantial number of researchers using their software for research and applications. In exceptional cases, authors may also argue about the potential future impact of their software given that they can provide clear evidence for this. Clearly, software prototypes which were only implemented as proof-of-concepts, or software which is closely tied to a particular (externally funded) project, are out of scope. Originality or novelty—which are decisive dimensions for high-quality research articles—are not mentioned among the evalu-

A Stakeholder's Communication Approach for Balancing Hospital Information Systems Investment Priorities

In 1997-1998, the Netherlands experienced a large epidemic of classical swine fever (CSF). The magnitude of this epidemic stressed the role information systems could play in supporting the management during an eradication campaign. The enforcement of an eradication strategy can become very complicated, especially with large epidemics, due to time pressure and many different procedures that have to be executed at the same time. The application of comprehensive information systems may result in more control over the process and in a relief of the operational management. After a brief description of the Dutch epidemic the authors provide an overview and the general application of four different types of information systems, classified as decision support systems. The application of these information systems in animal disease control is illustrated by providing concepts for a system architecture for transaction processing, management and executive information support and decision support. The application of a data warehouse as part of this systems architecture is explained. The eradication of CSF from the Netherlands was complicated by several factors. It is important to notice that information systems cannot prevent these factors. However, information systems can support disease control authorities in controlling these factors.

Many organizations manage and maintain a diverse portfolio of information system (IS) applications. The integration of these applications is often necessary to support broader enterprise-wide business solutions such as e-business, automated supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Enterprise application integration (EAI) is one approach to IS application integration. The paper presents a case study of an integration project at Harmond Bank where an EAI approach was used to integrate the IS applications in its home loans division. The case-study highlights many of the management and architectural decisions that are pertinent to IS application integration projects, and lessons learned from the case are discussed.

The Design of the Aviation Products Semantic Information System Based on Ontology

Data warehouses have established themselves as necessary components of an effective Information Technology (IT) strategy for large businesses. In addition to utilizing operational databases data warehouses must also integrate increasing amounts of external data to assist in decision support. An important source of such external data is the Web. In an effort to ensure the availability and quality of Web data for the data warehouse we propose an intermediate data-staging layer called the Meta-Data Engine (M-DE). A major challenge, however, is the conversion of data originating in the Web, and brought in by robust search engines, to data in the data warehouse. The authors therefore also propose a framework, the Semantic Web Application (SEMWAP) framework, which facilitates semi-automatic matching of instance data from opaque web databases using ontology terms. Their framework combines Information Retrieval (IR), Information Extraction (IE), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and ontology techniques to produce a matching and thus provide a viable building block for Semantic Web (SW) Applications.

The common access to the broadband Internet allows small and medium enterprises (SME) simpler participation in various supply chains [3]. However the main problem still is lack of consistency between processes which are undertaken by various supply chain participants. The aim of this paper is to propose the concept of broader cooperation between manufacturing companies based on semantic web and multi-agent system. The background of this paper refers to previous experiences of the authors by implementation of the CORELOG project. It promotes cooperation in logistics services among manufacturing companies located in the Bologna metropolitan area in order to increase companies’ competitiveness as well as environmental sustainability through the rationalization of the logistics processes. The application of semantic web and multi-agent system in the above mentioned project allows the efficient automatic data collection about logistics services providers and their resources, as presented in the Internet.

The quality evaluation of Semantic Web applications (SWAs) in isolation is not enough. The future shall see almost all Web applications being deployed on the cloud and available to us as services, facilitating transparency and reusability. The business model of cloud computing provides services on demand, which are paid as per their use. The Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model of cloud computing segregates provider’s ownership from customer’s use. Since the concept of quality is crucial to services, therefore, it is plausible to build models for quality assessment of SWAs, which fit in the cloud’s SaaS paradigm. Such applications are referred to Semantic Web application as a service (SWAaaS), in the following text. In our knowledge, there are no quality factors, measures, or frameworks for tracking the quality of SWAaaS. The Semantic Web application quality framework described in Chap. 3 is not profusely appropriate for evaluation of SWAaaS, owing to the distinctive natures of Web application and service. Previously, some ways of assessing quality of SWA and SaaS have been invented, a few of which build on quality features from existing software and Web application quality models, whereas some formulate SaaS quality metrics. few works merely present quality attributes in the context of Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. Here, the representative quality factors influencing SWAaaS are recognized after the literature review and a Hierarchical Fuzzy System (HFS) has been developed to assess SWAaaS quality. The quality attributes of HFS have been validated using IEEE 1061 framework. Results of experiments show that our HFS handles multiple quality attributes, and may perform quality-based ranking of SWAs available as services. The hierarchical fuzzy quality model discussed here may serve as a beginning point toward an all-inclusive quality model aimed to facilitate a SWAaaS consumer to choose the best quality service among SWAs available as a service on the cloud. Additionally, HFS may act as a directive to SWAaaS provider for the betterment of quality of SWA that is being provided as a service.

The existence of tertiary institutions as one of the spearheads of improving human resources in the field of education is an indisputable fact. Higher education as a very complex institution requires benchmarks that can be used as a reference in assessing success in its management. One of the main benchmarks that can be used is the existence of an information system. Higher Education Management Information Systems In the Field of Higher Education Data Collection, colleges that are managed with a good information system will be able to control the management of the institution well. Management information system, which is often known by the acronym MIS, is the application of information systems within the organization to provide the information needed by all levels of management. Management Information System (MIS) can be defined as a collection of interaction information systems that are responsible for collecting and managing data to provide useful information for all levels of planning and control activities. Some of the supporters of MIS, the role of Information Technology (IT) as part of an Information System (SI) has changed dramatically. Currently, IT is not only positioned as a tool for organizational activities but has become an organizational strategy to achieve goals. A higher education institution is an academic organization that uses information technology in shaping various business processes in it. This form of organization has its own distinctive character, so that the form of the required information system must have its own character. The Islamic University of Kalimantan (UNISKA) Muhammad Arsyad Al Banjari is the oldest and largest private university in South Kalimantan, founded by the UNISKA foundation based on Bachtiar's notarial deed No. 6 dated July 7, 1981. Currently UNISKA MAB has 9, nine faculties, 20 undergraduate study programs, and 4 PACASARJANA Programs or Masters Study Programs. In this study, research procedures are shown to obtain the current management information system for higher education and the problems that arise in this collaborative higher education data collection activity. According to Sekaran (2000) there are 3 types of research, namely: 1) exploratory research, namely research that aims to seek clarity on a problem; 2) descriptive research, research that aims to find a description of an object; and 3) verificative research (explanatory research), research that aims to answer the problem formulation. This study is a descriptive-qualitative research (descriptive-caulitative research), because it wants to know and at the same time describe the objective conditions of the data collection mechanism carried out by UNISKA MAB and the problems that arise in the data collection collaboration. The approach used is a qualitative approach. Qualitative research starts from the phenomenological paradigm whose objectivity is built from the formulation of certain situations lived by certain individuals or social groups, and is relevant to the objectives of the research. A qualitative approach is used to get an overview of the problems faced by UNISKA MAB in order to improve and empower the higher education management information system. With the following conclusions: 1. Not all lecturers understand and use SIPEG so that it becomes an obstacle to the quality and quantity of Uniska's HR data collection and many lecturers do not take care of Jafung only as teaching staff, 2. Lecturers use Manual and Sipeg Uniska MAB data and 3. Support implementation Uniska HR Management Information System exists but it is not yet optimal because to maximize the need for good IT equipment and campus bandwidth, something good requires large funds.

Traveler-Oriented Advanced Traveler Information System based on Dynamic Discovery of Resources: Potentials and Challenges

The role and strategy of information sytems in all business sectors that exist at present have a very important priority for the company. This is inevitable because the information system has become an important part in the continuity of a company. Perhaps without the information system, the company’s operations will not be able to work properly because various sectors/divisions rely on business automation process. Planning strategy in an enterprise information system aims to enable companies to determine appropriate strategies in the information system implementation. Setting the information system and information technology strategically needs a way to understand the role of information technology on an organization. Most organizations will not hesitate to review the investment in information technology that has been done because the success of a company is also determined by the application of information systems. Evaluation of experience, success, and failure of the previous application is an important aspect in management strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conceptual role of Information System (IS) in the effectiveness of Supply Chain Management (SCM). The development of business competition in the field of products or services is increasingly competitive. Competition for product quality is intense in the market. Since products and services are the fastest growing industries in 2018, so it is very necessary to have a good and structured IS that serves to increase the effectiveness of SCM; this will eventually have a positive impact on business performance. At present the IS is needed to increase the effectiveness of SCM. SCM information systems can standardize, monitor, capture and utilize business potential in order to improve business performance. This study adopted a conceptual approach from related theories. To obtain data, interviews of experts/operational management experts (IS & SCM) were conducted with prompts or probing methods. Moreover, secondary sources such as journals, books and magazines were also used to obtain data. The findings of the study assured the significant role of management IS in achieving effectiveness in SCM. This study concludes that the application of information systems can reduce costs in distribution both from upstream to downstream, can implement good communication and can improve the performance of a company in carrying out SCM.

The application of information systems (IS) for supporting human resources management has become increasingly important for organizations in improving their competitiveness. The selection of the most suitable human resources management IS project, however, is complex and challenging due to the involvement of multiple decision makers, the multi-dimensional nature of the selection process and the presence of vagueness and imprecision inherent in the human decision making process. To adequately deal with this problem, this paper presents a multicriteria group decision making approach for selecting human resources management IS projects under uncertainty. Intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are used for effectively modelling the vagueness and imprecision of the decision making process. A multicriteria group decision making approach is developed for calculating an overall performance index for every human resources management IS project alternative across all criteria. A human resources management IS project selection problem is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.