[AISWorld] IJITSA 3(2) ToC

[Manuel Mora T.]

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International Journal of Information Technologies and Systems Approach
(IJITSA): ToC
Official Publication of the Information Resources Management Association
Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December 2010
Published: Semi-Annual in Print and Electronically
ISSN: 1935-570X EISSN: 1935-5718
Published by IGI Publishing, Hershey-New York, USA
www.igi-global.com/ijitsa
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Editors-in-Chief:
Frank Stowell, University of Portsmouth, UK
Manuel Mora, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, México

EDITORIAL PREFACE

IJITSA 2(3): July-December 2010

Frank Stowell, Editor-in-Chief of IJITSA, University of Portsmouth, England
Manuel Mora, Operational Editor-in-Chief of IJITSA, Autonomous University
of Aguascalientes, México

This issue of International Journal of Information Technology and the
Systems Approach (IJITSA) contains four peer-reviewed papers and an
interview with a senior systems scientist: Professor Barry G. Silverman,
who is Professor of Engineering (ESE & CIS), Medicine, and Wharton (OPIM)
at the University of Pennsylvania and also Director of the Ackoff
Collaboratory for Advancement of the Systems Approach (ACASA).

To read the preface, please consult this issue of IJITSA in your library
or click on the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=45122

PAPER ONE

Tracking Values in Web based Student Teacher Exchanges

Thomas Hansson (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden)

When vocational student teachers communicate on a virtual platform in a
combined campus and web based university course they focus on the contents
of teaching and learning. However, in communicating professional teacher
knowledge they implicitly express their personal values too. Without
giving it much thought, they embed values in their verbal entries and they
assess embedded values in their peers’ texts. This article introduces a
soft systems model for categorizing the influence of values on web based
interactions.

To obtain a copy of the entire article, click on the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=45157


PAPER TWO

A Holistic Approach for Understanding Project Management

Theresa Kraft (University of Michigan, USA)
Annette Steenkamp (Lawrence Technological University, USA)

Companies invest significant sums of money in major Information Technology
(IT) projects, yet success remains limited. Despite an abundance of IT
Project Management (ITPM) resources available to project teams, such as
the Project Management Institute (PMI) Body of Knowledge, IT standards and
IT governance, a large percentage of IT projects continue to fail and
ultimately get scrapped. Recent studies have shown an average of 66% IT
project failure rate, with 52% of the projects being cancelled, and 82%
being delivered late. The purpose of this research was to provide a way
for uncovering potential causes of IT project failures by utilizing a
systemic and holistic approach to identify critical success factors for
project management. The holistic approach has enabled the development of
an ITPM conceptual model, which provides a method to evaluate the critical
success factors of a given project, and their alignment with each other.
The adoption of the systemic methodology and its implementation increase
the potential for IT project success, and alert project leaders of
potential problems throughout the life of the project.

To obtain a copy of the entire article, click on the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=45158


PAPER THREE

The Importance of Systems Methodologies for Industrial and Scientific
National Wealthy and Development

Miroljub Kljajic (University of Maribor, Slovenia)

The relationship between industrial and scientific knowledge and systems
methodologies is discussed in this paper. As the measure of the former on
the macro level, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is assumed to be the
consequence of systems’ Research and Development (R&D), which is estimated
indirectly by the number of articles published in academic journals in the
last 40 years. It is assumed that Production, Management and Information
Systems (IS) can be considered suitable main representatives of the
quality of organizational processes and that GDP is their consequence. In
turn, the Systems Approach (SA), Systems Engineering (SE), Operational
Research (OR), Information Systems Development (ISD) and Simulation
represent the methodology set for coping with organizational complex
processes. We looked for the articles containing the aforementioned
variables as topic keywords in core scientific databases. Results show a
sufficient correlation between the number of publications and the GDP.

To obtain a copy of the entire article, click on the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=45159

PAPER FOUR

An Integrated Systems Approach for Early Warning and Risk Management Systems

Walter Hürster (Private Researcher and Independent Consultant, Germany)
Thomas Wilbois (T-Systems, Germany)
Fernando Chaves (Fraunhofer IITB, Germany)

An integrated and interdisciplinary approach to Early Warning and Risk
Management is described in this paper as well as the general technical
implementation of Early Warning and Risk Management Systems. Based on this
systems approach, a concept has been developed for the design of an
Integrated System for Coastal Protection. In addition to this, as a
prototype implementation of a modern environmental monitoring and
surveillance system, a system for the Remote Monitoring of Nuclear Power
Plants is presented here in more detail, including a Web Portal to allow
for public access. The concept, the architectural design and the user
interface of Early Warning and Risk Management Systems have to meet high
demands. It is shown that only a close cooperation of all related
disciplines and an integrated systems approach is able to fulfil the
catalogue of requirements and to provide a suitable solution for
environmental monitoring and surveillance, for early warning and for
emergency management.

To obtain a copy of the entire article, click on the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=45160

INTERVIEW

Interview: The Systems View from Barry G. Silverman: A Systems Scientist

Manuel Mora (Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, Mexico)
Miroljub Kljajic (University of Maribor, Slovenia)

To read the interview, please consult this issue of IJITSA in your library
or click the link below.
http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=45161

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For full copies of the above articles, check for this issue of the
International Journal of Information Technologies and the Systems Approach
(IJITSA) in your institution's library. This journal is also included in
the IGI Global aggregated “InfoSci-Journals” database:
http://www.igi-global.com/EResources/InfoSciJournals.aspx.
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CALL FOR PAPERS (next deadline is March 31, 2011)

Mission of IJITSA:

The International Journal of Information Technologies and Systems Approach
(IJITSA) is an academic and practitioner journal created to disseminate
and discuss high quality research results on information systems and
related upper and lower level systems as well as on its interactions with
software engineering, systems engineering, complex systems and philosophy
of systems sciences issues, through rigorous theoretical, modeling,
engineering or behavioral studies in order to explore, describe, explain,
predict, design, control, evaluate, interpret, intervene and/or develop
organizational systems where information systems are the main objects of
study and the systems approach – any variant –is the main research method
and philosophical stance used.

Coverage of IJITSA:

Topic macro-areas to be discussed in this journal are the following:

* Foundations on Systems Science and the Systems Approach
* Systems Methodologies
* Innovative Cases by using Systems Approach
* Review of IT Tools for Conducting Systems Research
* Philosophy of Systems Sciences

As the systems approach is an interdisciplinary one, the diverse research
methods are considered: conceptual, formal mathematical, systems
simulation (discrete, multi-agent, or hybrid), systems dynamics, soft
systems, action research, critical systems, and multi-methodology.

Interested authors should consult the journal's manuscript submission
guidelines at www.igi-global.com/ijitsa.

All inquiries and submissions should be sent to:
Editor-in-Chief: Frank Stowell at frank.stowell at port.ac.uk,
ijitsa at gmail.com, and Manuel Mora at mmora at securenym.net