Volume 4 Number 2
2001
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Salvaging Information Engineering Techniques in the Data Warehouse Environment

Anthony L. Politano, CEO
MIS-AG

The art of Information Engineering (IE) continuously evolves and, by today's standards, is considered an integral function in most any organization. Strategic planning teams weave methodologies, which are integrated to process information, the goal being to sort, store, and retrieve useful data.

The following article will describe three techniques that can utilize existing information engineering in a data warehouse project. First, the entity relationship diagram and its use in a three phase data model approach. Second, the functional decomposition diagram and its use in segmenting and defining key performance indicators and dimensions. Third, creating a modified CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) matrix that deals with logical entities and current systems.

Keywords: Entity Relationship Diagram, Data Warehouse, Information Engineering, Functional Decomposition,
Interaction (CRUD) Analysis. Data Modeling

Introduction to the Special Series on Widening the Focus

Elizabeth Boyd, Publisher

This series of articles presents some of the issues that go beyond or explore different aspects of using information technology to inform.

An Introduction to Computer Forensics: Gathering Evidence in a Computing Environment

Henry B. Wolfe
University of Otago, New Zealand

Business has become increasingly dependent on the Internet and computing to operate. It has become apparent that there are issues of evidence gathering in a computing environment, which by their nature are technical and different to other forms of evidence gathering, that must be addressed. This paper offers an introduction to some of the technical issues surrounding this new and specialized field of Computer Forensics. It attempts to identify and describe sources of evidence that can be found on disk data storage devices in the course of an investigation. It also considers sources of copies of email, which can be used in evidence, as well as case building.

Communicating Culture: An Exploratory Study of the Key Concepts in Maori Culture on Maori Web Sites

Zlatko J Kovacic
The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, New Zealand

We examine how accurately the belief system or cultural concepts of Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, is reconstructed in the virtual world of the Internet. Nine Maori web sites were searched using a list of 44 key concepts in Maori culture. We registered how many pages within a particular web site contain each of the key concepts. These numbers were set up in a data matrix for further statistical analysis. The Multidimensional Scaling method was used to construct a spatial representation of Maori web sites in the space generated by the key concepts in Maori culture. Using the correlation coefficients between derived dimensions and the key concepts we interpreted three dimensions as General Cultural, Intra-tribe Dynamics and Educational. The position of each Maori web site in this space has been located and described.
Keywords: Maori Culture, Web Sites, Internet, New Zealand, Multidimensional Scaling

New Technologies and New Paradigms in Historical Research

Antonio Cartelli
University of Cassino, Italy

Luisa Miglio
University "La Sapienza", Italy

Marco Palma
University of Cassino, Italy

After a short introduction on media evolution and its implication on human history, the paper presents an account of two experiences the authors had while using new technologies in disseminating bibliographical and historical information.
The first experience concerns the Web publication of a bibliography on Beneventan manuscripts and arose from the need to overcome the long de-lays in publishing printed information. The Web publication also serves as an online resource for all researchers involved in studies on the South Italian book script in the Middle Ages. The second one relates to recent studies on women copyists in the Middle Ages and uses an online database to disseminate findings on this subject.
The paper then analyzes similarities and differences between the two experiences and suggests they can be seen as a source of online information for scholars. Thus, they represent a first step towards the construction of new paradigms of knowledge and research in historical studies.
Keywords: Data Base, Historical Research, Knowledge Paradigm, Middle Ages, Web.
 

A Framework for Effective User Interface Design for Web-Based Electronic Commerce Applications

Justyna Burns
Kent State University
Gregory R Madey
University of Notre Dame

Efficient delivery of relevant product information is increasingly becoming the central basis of competition between firms. The interface design represents the central component for successful information delivery to consumers. However, interface design for web-based information systems is probably more an art than a science at this point in time. Much research is needed to understand properties of an effective interface for electronic commerce.
This paper develops a framework identifying the relationship between user factors, the role of the user interface and overall system success for web-based electronic commerce. The paper argues that web-based systems for electronic commerce have some similar properties to decision support systems (DSS) and adapts an established DSS framework to the electronic commerce domain. Based on a limited amount of research studying web browser interface design, the framework identifies areas of research needed and outlines possible relationships between consumer characteristics, interface design attributes and measures of overall system success.
Keyword: electronic commerce, user interface design, DSS, system success