Paper: Evaluation of an Augmented Reality Collaborative Process Modelling System

Just had our paper "Evaluation of an Augmented Reality Collaborative Process Modelling System" accepted for CyberWorlds 2012 in Darmstadt, run by Fraunhofer IGD.

Paper is found here.

Abstract - Identifying, modelling and documenting business processes usually requires the collaboration of many stakeholders that may be spread across companies in inter-organizational business settings. While there are many process modelling tools available, the support they provide for remote collaboration is still limited. This paper investigates the application of virtual environment and augmented reality technologies to remote business process modelling, with an aim to assisting common collaboration tasks by providing an increased sense of immersion in a shared workspace. We report on the evaluation of a prototype system with five key informants. The results indicate that this approach to business process modelling is suited to remote collaborative task settings, and stakeholders may indeed benefit from using augmented reality interfaces.

Ross

Paper: Assisting ICU training management with virtual worlds

Have just had an invited paper "Assisting ICU training management with virtual worlds," accepted for ICU-Management, the official management voice of the ‘International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine’ (ISICEM).  In this paper, we have focussed on benefits to the management of ICU training that can occur from 3D Virtual Worlds.

Submitted version of paper can be found here.

Abstract - Conventional training methods for nurses involve many physical factors that place limits on potential class sizes. Alternate training methods with lower physical requirements may support larger class sizes, but given the tactile quality of nurse training, are most appropriately applied to supplement the conventional methods. However, where the importance of physical factors are periphery, such alternate training methods can provide an important way to increase upper class-size limits and therefore the rate of trained nurses entering the important role of critical care. A major issue in ICU training is that the trainee can be released into a real-life intensive care scenario with sub optimal preparation and therefore a level of anxiety for the student concerned, and some risk for the management level nurses, as patient safety is paramount. This lack of preparation places a strain on the allocation of human and non-human resources to teaching, as students require greater levels of supervision. Such issues are a concern to ICU management, as they relate to nursing skill development and patient health outcomes, as nursing training is potentially dangerous for patients who are placed in the care of inexperienced staff. As a solution to this problem, we present a prototype ICU handover training environment that has been developed in a socially interactive virtual world. Nurses in training can connect remotely via the Internet to this environment and engage in collaborative ICU handover training classes.

Ross

#2 PhD scholarship available at QUT’s Information Systems School

PhD scholarships available with my colleague/co-author Prof. Jan Recker.  Contact details are below.

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PhD scholarship available at QUT’s Information Systems School

Applications are invited from suitable qualified graduates for a PhD scholarship at the School of Information Systems at Queensland University of Technology as part of the ARC project “Designing Process Models for Decision-Making”. The term of the scholarship is three years. The scholarships provide financial support towards study and living costs.

Project Background

When seeking to re-design business processes – a perennial top priority of chief information executives – organisations use graphical documentations of their business processes, so called process models. These models act as blueprints of organizational processes, and are a key tool for making re-design decisions, i.e., decisions about where, how and why changes to the processes should be enacted to warrant increased revenues, business growth, improved operational efficiency, cost reductions or increased compliance.

A process model that documents a business process in an incomplete, incorrect, cumbersome to decipher, or otherwise deficient manner will not convey the information about the business domain to the decision maker such that a good decision can be facilitated. Any organizational re-design of the processes, in consequence, will then fail to deliver the expected benefits. When creating process models, therefore, analysts require principles that guide them in conceiving graphical representations of business processes that are useful, intuitive and accurate to the decision-makers (process owners, process managers, business analysts, systems designers and the like) working with these models.

This project aims to develop a theory, and theory-driven guidelines, for developing understandable process models. Specifically, it will deliver:

•       A fundamental theory about factors and consequences of process modelling for decision-making tasks; and

•       on the basis of the new and validated theory, practical guidelines based on rigorous empirical insights to guide the creation of useful, intuitive and accurate process models for decision-making.

Project Governance

The research project is led by Professor Jan Recker, PhD. Jan is Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow and Woolworths Chair of Retail Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His main areas of research include process design in organizational practice, organizational innovation and business transformation management. His research is published in the MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, the European Journal of Information Systems, Information & Management, the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems, and other key journals.

More information is available from www.janrecker.com/.

The Research Environment

QUT’s Information Systems School is currently the highest ranked IS research department in Australia based on research quality and the only IS research group that was ranked with a perfect '5-out-of-5' score in the 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) assessment. The school is also among the highest ranked IS departments in terms of publications in the top IS journals worldwide.

QUT’s Information Systems School has a global reputation for its work on Business Process Management and Process Innovation. The School has an unconditional focus on rigorous research with demonstrated practical relevance. Research from the school has appeared in premier journals such as the MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the AIS, the European Journal of IS, Decision Support Systems, Information Systems, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, and others.

To find out more, please visit http://www.qut.edu.au/science-engineering/about/about-the-faculty/school-of-information-systems.

Application Criteria

The successful applicant

-       has a Master's degree in management, information systems, finance, marketing, business administration or a comparable field. He or she completed the Master’s degree with a GPA of 6 or higher (or equivalent).

-       has the ambition and capabilities to complete a high-quality PhD project within 3 years.

-       has a strong research mindset, and evidence of skills in theoretical and empirical research.

-       possesses strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

-       speaks and writes fluently in English.

-       likes to work in an international setting.

Application Procedure

Applicants are required to submit a letter of application for the scholarship to Associate Professor Jan Recker (j.recker@qut.edu.au) by 15 June 2012, briefly describing qualifications, relevant skills and areas of research interest.

Applicants will be screened and, if suitable, invited for further assessment and interviews.

The following supporting documents are required:

-       CV including a comprehensive list and details of all publications if any.

-       Certified copies of academic transcripts.

-       Copies of most important research papers or theses

-       A letter stating how the above criteria are met by the applicant

-       2 letters of reference from academics who have taught/supervised the applicant at university.

PhD scholarship available at QUT’s Information Systems School

PhD scholarships available with my colleague/co-author Prof. Jan Recker.  Contact details are below.

=====================

PhD scholarship available at QUT’s Information Systems School

Applications are invited from suitable qualified graduates for a PhD scholarship at the Information Systems School at Queensland University of Technology as part of the “Woolworths Chair of Retail Innovation” initiative.

The term of the scholarship is three years. The scholarship provides financial support towards study and living costs.

Project Background

The PhD student will work in the Woolworths Chair for Retail Innovation initiative at the Information Systems School at Queensland University of Technology. The initiative’s objective is to conduct applied research on innovations in business, processes and technology-based systems, and the management of innovation processes in organisations. The domain of the initiative is the retail sector, especially Supermarket operations. Topics will address a variety of business, management, process, service and IT-components, and thus require holistic and multi-disciplinary approaches to research.

The project is driven by a demand to deliver innovative transformations to retail operations, processes and business models, with a focus on customer-centric value provision. At the core of this demand are the two foci of (a) exploring and exploiting innovation potential in the retail sector, and (b) creating a culture of innovation within retail organisations.

The Research Environment

QUT’s Information Systems School is currently the highest ranked IS research department in Australia based on research quality and the only IS research group that was ranked with a perfect '5-out-of-5' score in the 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) assessment. The school is also among the highest ranked IS departments in terms of publications in the top IS journals worldwide.

QUT’s Information Systems School has a global reputation for its work on Business Process Management and Process Innovation. The School has an unconditional focus on rigorous research with demonstrated practical relevance. Research from the school has appeared in premier journals such as the MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the AIS, the European Journal of IS, Decision Support Systems, Information Systems, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, and others.

To find out more, please visit http://www.qut.edu.au/science-engineering/about/about-the-faculty/school-of-information-systems.

Application Criteria

The successful applicant

-  has a Master's degree in management, information systems, finance, marketing, business administration or a comparable field. He or she completed the Master’s degree with a GPA of 6 or higher (or equivalent).

-      has the ambition and capabilities to complete a high-quality empirical PhD project within 3 years.

-       has a strong research mindset, and evidence of skills in theoretical and empirical research.

-       possesses strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

-       ideally has a background and interest in the retail sector.

-       speaks and writes fluently in English.

-      likes to work in an international setting and in an applied research setting in close interaction with a key industry partner.

Application Procedure

Applicants are required to submit a letter of application for the scholarship to Jan Recker (j.recker@qut.edu.au) by 15 June 2012, briefly describing qualifications, relevant skills and areas of research interest.

Applicants will be screened and, if suitable, invited for further assessment and interviews.

The following supporting documents are required:

-       CV including a comprehensive list and details of all publications if any.

-       Certified copies of academic transcripts.

-       Copies of most important research papers or theses

-       A letter stating comprehensively how the above criteria are met by the applicant

-       2 letters of reference from academics who have taught/supervised the applicant at university.

CFP: International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI), Sept 27-28, Hangzhou China

CFP: International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI), Sept 27-28, Hangzhou China

VINCI12 will be held in Hangzhou, one of the most beautiful cities in China. And it is calling for papers.

  

VINCI conference brings together people with an interest in the confluence of technology and art/design, providing a forum for discussing topics of mutual interest and discovering new avenues for collaboration.

  

Please consider submitting and help to circulate.

If you have questions regarding the conference or the relevance of your work, please don't hesitate to contact the program chairs.

http://www.cad.zju.edu.cn/home/chenwei/VINCI2012/

Best wishes

Tony Huang

2nd CFP 1st Intl. Workshop on Theory and Applications of Process Visualization (TAProViz)

2nd CFP 1st Intl. Workshop on Theory and Applications of Process

Visualization (TAProViz),

Tallinn, Estonia – 3 September 2012

http://www.wst.univie.ac.at/topics/taproviz12/

In conjunction with the 10th International Conference on Business

Process Management BPM2012 - http://bpm2012.ut.ee/

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Call for Papers

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Visualizations can make the structure and dependencies between elements in processes accessible in order to support users who need to analyze process models and their instances.  

However, effectively visualizing processes in a user-friendly way is often a big challenge, especially for complex process models which can consist of hundreds of process components (e.g., process activities,

data flows, and resources) and thousands of running process instances in different execution states.

Many challenges remain to be addressed within the broad area of process visualization such as: scalability, human-computer interaction, cognitive aspects, applicability of different approaches, collaboration,

process evolution, run-time requirements of process instances and applications, etc.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

* Visual Metaphors in Processes

* Visual Design and Aesthetics for Processes

* Visualization of Dynamic Data in Processes

* Change Visualization for Processes

* Interface and Interaction Techniques for Process Visualization

* Visualization Techniques for Collaboration and Distributed Processes

* Visualization of Large-scale Processes

* Cognition and Perception in Process Visualization

* Evaluation and User Studies of Process Visualization

* Visual Modeling Languages

* Analysis Techniques and Visualization for Processes

* Process Visualization of Large Screens

* Mobile Process Visualization

* Visualization Tools and Systems for Processes

* Visualization Techniques for Processes

* Process Visualization and Sonification

* Virtual World Process Visualization

* Immersive Process Modeling Approaches

* 3D Process Visualization Approaches

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Format of the Workshop

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The 1/2 day workshop will comprise accepted papers and tool presentations. Papers should be submitted in advance and will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. All accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) series. There will be a single LNBIP volume dedicated to the proceedings of all BPM workshops. As this volume will appear after the conference, there will be informal proceedings during the workshop. At least one author for each accepted paper should register for the workshop and present the paper.

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Important Dates

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* Deadline for workshop paper submissions: 1 June 2012

* Notification of acceptance: 2 July 2012

* Camera-ready version: 30 July 2012

* Workshop: 3 September 2012

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Paper Submission

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Prospective authors are invited to submit papers for presentation in any

of the areas listed above.

Three types of submissions are possible:

1. full papers (12 pages long) reporting mature research results

2. position papers reporting research that may be in preliminary stage

that has not yet been evaluated

3. tool reports

Position papers and tool reports should be no longer than 6 pages.

Only papers in English will be accepted and must present original

research contributions not concurrently submitted elsewhere. Papers

should be submitted in the LNBIP format. The title page must contain a

short abstract, a classification of the topics covered, preferably using

the list of topics above, and an indication of the submission category

(regular paper/position paper/tool report).

All accepted workshop papers will be published by Springer as a

post-workshop proceedings volume in the series Lecture Notes in Business

Information Processing (LNBIP). Hard copies of these proceedings will be

shipped to all registered participants approximately four months after

the workshops, while preliminary proceedings will be distributed during

the workshop.

Submitted papers will be evaluated, in a double blind manner, on the

basis of significance, originality, technical quality, and exposition.

Papers should clearly establish their research contribution and the

relation to the theory and application of process visualization.

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Registration

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Accepted papers imply that at least one of the authors will register for

BPM2012 and present the paper at the TAProViz workshop.

Further workshop information is available from the website:

http://www.wst.univie.ac.at/topics/taproviz12/

Hope to see you at TAProViz'12!

Thanks and best regards,

Ross Brown

Simone Kriglstein

Stefanie Rinderle-Ma

TAProViz Organising Committee

Paper: Virtual worlds as a model-view approach to the communication of business processes models

A paper by my PhD student Hanwen Guo has just been accepted for the CAiSE 2012 Forum (old ERA A). The paper can be found here.

Well done Hanwen!

Title: Virtual worlds as a model-view approach to the communication of business processes models.

Abstract: The improvement and optimization of business processes is one of the top priorities in an organization. Although process analysis methods are mature today, business analysts and stakeholders are still hampered by communication issues. That is, analysts cannot effectively obtain accurate business requirements from stakeholders, and stakeholders are often confused about analytic results offered by analysts. We argue that using a virtual world to model a business process can benefit communication activities. We believe that virtual worlds can be used as an efficient model-view approach, increasing the cognition of business requirements and analytic results, as well as the possibility of business plan validation. A healthcare case study is provided as an approach instance, illustrating how intuitive such an approach can be. As an exploration paper, we believe that this promising research can encourage people to investigate more research topics in the interdisciplinary area of information system, visualization and multi-user virtual worlds.