Report 2002: Department of Informatics (INF)
Howitzvej 60
DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Head of Department: Morten Vendelø
Telefon: +45 3815 2400
Fax: +45 3815 2401
E-mail: inf@cbs.dk
DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Head of Department: Morten Vendelø
Telefon: +45 3815 2400
Fax: +45 3815 2401
E-mail: inf@cbs.dk
Highlights of 2002
- In August 2002, the Department of Informatics and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Roskilde organised IRIS (information systems research seminar in Scandinavia). Here, assistant professor Helle Zinner Henriksen received the Best Paper Award for her paper: Old Wine on Old Bottles: Conceptualising Motivators for Adoption of IOS through Well-known Adoption Models.
- In October 2002, the Danish Board of Technology published its report on the possibilities of using Open Source Software in the public sector. Professor Mogens Kühn Pedersen is one of the main authors of the report which had an overwhelming effect on the public debate. Several very well-attended seminars were held after publication of the report, and by 8 April 2003 it had been downloaded more than 40,000 times from the Board's website.
- In December, the Department won an IT Center research grant of DKK 5 mill. for the Mobiconomy research project (overall budget: DKK 25 mill.) in cooperation with Nokia Denmark Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Ltd, the Danish Broadcast Corporation (DR), TDC Inc., the Danish Consumer Information and Danish financial daily Børsen. The objective of Mobiconomy is to describe, analyse and develop guidelines for the design and implementation of mobile commerce services sensitive to location, situation and time.
Academic profile (and objectives)
The object of the Department is research into information and communication technology (ICT). Research comprises the development, application and management of ICT. Research conducted at the Department is primarily application-oriented, but it cannot develop without related basic research. The objectives of the Department are as follows:
- To be an internationally leading research institution
- To be the preferred partner of the business community
- To provide relevant, high-quality education and study programmes
A good and efficient academic and social environment is essential to fulfil these objectives. It is also necessary to acquire external research funds on a continuous basis and to have a technological infrastructure enabling the Department to be at the leading edge of ICT developments. Furthermore, it is important for the Department to be able to attract and retain the necessary number of high-quality researchers. This became somewhat easier in 2002, but it is still particularly difficult to attract and retain staff with competencies in more technically-oriented research areas.
Department research falls within three main areas:
Development of IT systems (1)
IT systems development concerns the design, construction and implementation of IT-based systems. This area includes more technically-oriented computer science topics as well as organisational and management-oriented disciplines. The research of the IT Systems Development Group concentrates on the design and construction of IT-based systems and is divided into two related areas: Systems Development Processes and Distributed Systems.
The Group attempts to strike a balance between a strong theoretical foundation and practical application of its research with the emphasis on major problems in the software industry. Most research projects of the Group involve industrial partners and international cooperation.
IT systems development concerns the design, construction and implementation of IT-based systems. This area includes more technically-oriented computer science topics as well as organisational and management-oriented disciplines. The research of the IT Systems Development Group concentrates on the design and construction of IT-based systems and is divided into two related areas: Systems Development Processes and Distributed Systems.
The Group attempts to strike a balance between a strong theoretical foundation and practical application of its research with the emphasis on major problems in the software industry. Most research projects of the Group involve industrial partners and international cooperation.
Systems Development Processes: Systems development is a complex process, and development projects often experience cost and schedule overruns and produce products of a less than desired quality. In recent years, several approaches to improve organisation, management and development practices have come together under the heading of Software Process Improvement. A central research theme of the Group is whether and how these approaches can be combined and how to apply them in software process improvement projects. Systems development processes and improvement projects are studied in the context of in-house development, development of standard software, dedicated systems and embedded systems software. Development for the World Wide Web creates new conditions for systems development; e.g. new types of applications, changing developer skill requirements and new relationships between clients, developers and users. These changing conditions may challenge 'traditional' thinking about how to organise and manage systems development processes. Another research theme of the Group therefore concerns development models and methods for web-based applications.
Distributed Systems: A distributed system is a collection of heterogeneous computers and processors connected via a network and working in concert to accomplish a common goal. As more and more computers are being connected, distributed systems are becoming ubiquitous and increasingly important, demanding new insight into important quality factors like secrecy, availability, efficiency, reliability, and consistency. Distributed solutions with many users scattered over different geographical areas require at least some degree of replication of data to ensure availability. The use of replication may also provide fault tolerance in a world of networked machines where the individual machines and network parts are bound to fail over time. While replication solves availability, it introduces potential inconsistency which needs to be encapsulated. ACID properties in distributed databases are studied in this light.
Management and Organisation of IT (2)
The major concern of this Group is the management and organisation of IT. The research undertaken by the Group focuses on three areas: IT - management and strategy, IT - innovation and change, and information economics.
The major concern of this Group is the management and organisation of IT. The research undertaken by the Group focuses on three areas: IT - management and strategy, IT - innovation and change, and information economics.
IT - management and strategy: IT has always held great promise for organisations, primarily as a cost saver and as a generator of competitive advantage. However, experience shows that this promise often remains unfulfilled. How to benefit from IT investments, whether to out-source or in-source IT, and how to align the use of IT with the strategy of the enterprise are therefore three of several eternal questions that enterprises need to deal with. Research in IT management and strategy aims at critical examination of new IT management concepts and ideas, as well as developing and conducting experiments with new IT management strategies and concepts. The Group also conducts research in IT policy challenges in relation to both business associations and government units. Recent research in this area includes strategies for e-commerce, integration of IT-based functions in service and maintenance, as well as re-engineering supply chains.
IT - innovation and change: Organisations constantly produce and attempt to implement new ideas for IT application, and the number of organisations embarking on this adventure is growing. Also, IT is probably one of the most influential technologies that the world has ever seen. Hence, organisations must constantly consider how to adapt to new applications of IT, and how to explore the potentials of IT in a changing and uncertain world. The adaptation to IT of research on organisations involves questions like how IT changes work, routines and authority in organisations, and how IT stimulates the emergence of new forms of organising. Research in the exploration of IT studies innovation in organisations in which IT constitutes a substantial component of the product or service. Research therefore aims at understanding the different types of organisations as settings for IT innovation, and how new products are conceived and developed using IT.
Information Economics: In economic terms, IT as an enabler provides cost-efficient business processes, while as an integral part of a business model IT ensures cost-effective provision of products and services. Electronic markets and hierarchies enabled by IT promote new business models, thereby reshaping organisational boundaries, supplier and customer relationships and transforming conventional products and services. Price (market) and non-price (organisational) mechanisms for IT-based collaboration are supplemented with information incentives and controls to form reliable business relationships. New business systems emerge from applications with an impact on the capacity for collaboration and the mode of competition between companies transforming competition from the single market into systemic competition.
Human-Computer Interaction (3)
The primary concern of the HCI Group is how to design computer interfaces which are better for humans to use. Interface design becomes essential in order to make systems effective, usable and aesthetic. Interfaces have to be intuitive, visually attractive, mentally engaging and smoothly functional if users are to use them. The research interests of the HCI Group are: Design of Interactive Interfaces and Computer-supported Cooperative Work and Learning.
The primary concern of the HCI Group is how to design computer interfaces which are better for humans to use. Interface design becomes essential in order to make systems effective, usable and aesthetic. Interfaces have to be intuitive, visually attractive, mentally engaging and smoothly functional if users are to use them. The research interests of the HCI Group are: Design of Interactive Interfaces and Computer-supported Cooperative Work and Learning.
Design of Interactive Interfaces: The research focus is on the integration of Human-Computer Interaction with Visual Communication with the aim of contributing theoretical and methodological knowledge to support interface design. Visual communication is seen as an essential basis for the design of IT interfaces. However, digital interfaces embed interactions, and this makes them radically different from traditional graphical products. The complex interaction is important in relation to the user, and focus is on new requirements to design, to the design process and to design methods.
Computer-supported Cooperative Work and Learning: The HCI Research Group looks at computer-supported cooperative work and learning from both a theoretical and applied perspective. Some of the subjects in focus are: identifying factors which are significant to the success of virtual communication; designing and using interactive multimedia systems for learning; as well as investigation of methods for analysis of computer-supported communication in any form such as observation and video analysis techniques.
Research strategy
The Department wishes to strengthen its position as the leading Nordic research department in the field of business economics ICT research and to become a leading research department in the field of business economics ICT research in Europe. It is our ambition to cover the IT management field in general, whereas the size of the Department limits its capability to cover the many different applications of ICT and ICT development areas.
The Department wishes to strengthen its position as the leading Nordic research department in the field of business economics ICT research and to become a leading research department in the field of business economics ICT research in Europe. It is our ambition to cover the IT management field in general, whereas the size of the Department limits its capability to cover the many different applications of ICT and ICT development areas.
Department research and presentation of results is aimed at national as well as international audiences. Its international research level is maintained through frequent contacts and working relationships with internationally recognised researchers at conferences and in research projects. Consequently, the Department's research results are mainly published in English in international journals, anthologies and in conference proceedings subject to peer reviews.
Research results
The below Figure shows Department research publications in 2003.
The below Figure shows Department research publications in 2003.
The number of Department publications increased from 75 in 2001 to 94 in 2002 - a highly positive 25% rise. A significant part of this rise is due to a substantial increase in the production of working papers from 4 in 2001 to 27 in 2002, i.e. from a very low starting point. On the other hand, contributions to conference proceedings increased slightly from 2001 (23) to 2002 (30). The publication of articles in international journals fell from 10 in 2001 to 6 in 2002. This is an unsatisfactory result, regardless of the fact that publication of chapters in foreign-language anthologies more than made up for this type of publication. However, the 2001 Research Report anticipated that the drastic decline in the production of working papers that year would have a spill-over effect on the number of publications in journals in coming years. In the light of the increased paper production in 2002, a rise in the number of foreign-language articles published in journals is also to be expected in 2003 and 2004.
Research relations to practice
In a national perspective, the presentation of research results to Danish private and public organisations is considered important. In addition, it is important to participate in groups and organisations creating and formulating policies. In summary, the Department has the following key 'clients':
In a national perspective, the presentation of research results to Danish private and public organisations is considered important. In addition, it is important to participate in groups and organisations creating and formulating policies. In summary, the Department has the following key 'clients':
- The Danish IT business (including IT user companies, software developers, IT sales companies, IT educational establishments);
- Danish and international students;
- Policy-creating and formulating groups and organisations (various ministries and NGO's);
- External research foundations, including the European Union.
During 2002, the Department was able to acquire far more external research funds than in the two previous years, and it sees this as an indication that Department research addresses issues which are considered relevant by the primary 'clients'.
Last updated by Anders Krag 09/02/2005
