Journal of Systems and Information Technology

Baek, Hyeongi ; Kang, Mun Koo

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-11-2013-0059

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to construct a mind counseling ontology to efficiently facilitate the diagnosis of the diseases of mind. To determine the structure of mind counseling ontology, this study conducted analysis on structural forms available in counseling books and other related fields and adopted essential ones in the explanation of counseling. The processing of the diseases of mind was divided into three stages: cause, symptoms and counseling. The stages were analyzed one by one in terms of process, functional elements and relevant technique necessary at each stage. Design/methodology/approach – In the mind counseling list, there are 12 different diagnoses of diseases of mind that are classified into four classes. Thus, the causes, symptoms, prescription and medical history for 12 diseases of mind are defined as a higher rank concept of mind counseling ontology. The causes, symptoms, prescription and medical history consist of definition, affective characteristics and related factors, while the potential diagnosis consists of definition and risk factor. This information does specify detailed notions in the diagnosis of diseases of mind, but considering the limitation of not being able to represent all the diseases, this study enables a counseling center to give and use individual definitions of diagnostic terminology of their own. Findings – This study adopted the top-down approach, in which mind counseling ontology defines a higher rank concept, the terminology in diagnosing diseases of mind, based on the list of terms from the counseling record that specifies the abstract concepts of the diagnosis. The bottom-up approach was also incorporated, which defines the diagnostic terms extracted from the counseling record as a subordinate concept of the mind counseling ontology. Thus, the development of the mind counseling ontology involves the combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches to the construction of ontology. Originality/value – This research has significance in that it deals with the fundamental problem of the mind aiming for a true change and healing of it, which is the ultimate purpose of this ontology, especially in the circumstances where research on ontology in diagnosing the diseases of mind is unprecedented.

Gu, Seokmo ; Seo, Aria ; Kim, Yei-chang

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-12-2013-0066

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is a transcoding system based on a virtual machine in a cloud computing environment. There are many studies about transmitting realistic media through a network. As the size of realistic media data is very large, it is difficult to transmit them using current network bandwidth. Thus, a method of encoding by compressing the data using a new encoding technique is necessary. The next-generation encoding technique high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) can encode video at a high compressibility rate compared to the existing encoding techniques, MPEG-2 and H.264. Yet, encoding the information takes at least ten times longer than existing encoding techniques. Design/methodology/approach – This paper attempts to solve the tome problem using a virtual machine in a cloud computing environment. Findings – In addition, by calculating the transcoding time of the proposed technique, it found that the time was reduced compared to existing techniques. Originality/value – To this end, this paper proposed transcoding appropriate for the transmission of realistic media by dynamically allocating the resources of the virtual machine.

Sinisalo, Jaakko ; Karjaluoto, Heikki ; Saraniemi, Saila

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-09-2014-0068

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers associated with the adoption and use of mobile sales force automation (SFA) systems from a salesperson’s perspective. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative investigation of two business-to-business companies was conducted. Data collected from ten semi-structured interviews with directors or sales managers were analyzed to understand the main barriers to SFA system adoption. Findings – The study confirms the existence of three barriers (customer knowledge, quality of information and the characteristics of mobile devices) to a mobile SFA system use and identifies two additional barriers: lack of time and optimization issues. Research limitations/implications – The explorative nature of the study and the qualitative method employed limit the generalizability of the results. The propositions could be further validated and tested with a wider population. Practical implications – Organizations wishing to speed the adoption of a mobile SFA system should evaluate the importance and significance of the five identified barriers to adoption, and plan how to overcome them. It is important for the providers of the mobile SFA systems to focus on developing systems that can exploit the different characteristics of each channel and, in parallel, overcome the inherent limitations of any single channel. The content of an SFA system should be customizable for each type of mobile device. Originality/value – Ever increasing mobility has led to a rise in the use of smartphones and tablet PCs (tablets) in business and the consequent growth in the use of SFA systems. Although SFA systems have been studied for roughly 30 years, little is known of the impact of newly developed mobile devices on sales management and sales personnel.

Touray, Almamy ; Savolainen, Taina ; Salminen, Airi ; Sutinen, Erkki ; Dai, Yue

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-09-2014-0066

Purpose – This paper aims to determine the key trust antecedents that influence Internet users’ trust level toward Internet service providers (ISPs) in a high-risk society. It also investigates trust-building process, major causes of its violation, their potential implications and restoration. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method approach was used in collecting data in Kenya in 2014 by using questionnaire and interview techniques. The former was administered to 250 (with 81 per cent response rate) randomly selected Internet users at Kenyatta University while the latter focused on key decision-makers from four randomly selected ISPs in Nairobi. Findings – The results show that Internet users’ perceptions of ISPs’ ability to be trusted in Kenya depend more on their competence in terms of service delivery (ability) and desire to protect users (benevolence) than upholding acceptable standards (integrity). The results also indicate a lack of trust manifested in poor communication and greed for profit among ISPs as major causes of trust violation. Originality/value – This paper proposes two frameworks that can enhance Internet use by providing a better understanding of trust in a high-risk society.

Ramanathan, Lakshmanan ; Krishnan, Sundaresan

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-10-2014-0070

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of outsourcing on open-source software (OSS) and further investigate the factors that impact the adoption of OSS in global information technology (IT) outsourcing organizations serviced by Indian IT services organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors developed a conceptual model that describes the factors influencing the OSS adoption by using the technology-organization-environment framework. This quantitative explanatory study used self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 482 middle and top management employees of Indian IT services organizations. The authors analyzed the data using partial least squares to test this conceptual model. Findings – The proposed conceptual model identified the factors which play a significant role in OSS adoption such as reliability, legal concern, software costs, management support, OSS support availability and software vendor. In contrast, this study did not find enough evidence that IT outsourcing was a significant determinant of OSS adoption. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of the research is that it is focused on global IT outsourcing organizations (clients) serviced by Indian IT services providers (vendors). Hence, the authors cannot generalize the finding to other regions. Also, the analysis is based on the view point of employees in vendors. Views of clients’ employees must be analyzed and triangulated with current evidence. Practical implications – IT services providers can offer “OSS as a service” for its clients and help them address the gaps in support availability and achieve reduction in total cost of ownership of software. Originality/value – IT services providers can use this research model to increase their understanding of why some IT outsourcing organizations choose to adopt OSS, while seemingly similar ones facing similar market conditions do not.

Shamala, Palaniappan ; Ahmad, Rabiah ; Zolait, Ali Hussein ; bin Sahib, Shahrin

2015 Journal of Systems and Information Technology

doi: 10.1108/JSIT-02-2015-0013

Purpose – Information security has become an essential entity for organizations across the globe to eliminate the possible risks in their organizations by conducting information security risk assessment (ISRA). However, the existence of numerous different types of risk assessment methods, standards, guidelines and specifications readily available causes the organizations to face the daunting tasks in determining the most suitable method that would augur well in meeting their needs. Therefore, to overcome this tedious process, this paper suggests collective information structure model for ISRA. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed ISRA model was developed by deploying a questionnaire using close-ended questions administrated to a group of information security practitioners in Malaysia ( N = 80). The purpose of the survey was to strengthen and add more relevant additional features to the existing framework, as it was developed based on secondary data. Findings – Previous comparative and analyzed studies reveals that all the six types of ISRA methodologies have features of the same kind of information with a slight difference in form. Therefore, questionnaires were designed to insert additional features to the research framework. All the additional features chosen were based on high frequency of more than half percentage agreed responses from respondents. The analyses results inspire in generating a collective information structure model which more practical in the real environment of the workplace. Practical implications – Generally, organizations need to make comparisons between methodologies and decide on the best due to the inexistence of agreed reference benchmark in ISRA methodologies. This tedious process leads to unwarranted time, money and energy consumption. Originality/value – The collective information structure model for ISRA aims to assist organizations in getting a general view of ISRA flow and gathering information on the requirements to be met before risk assessment can be conducted successfully. This model can be conveniently used by organizations to complete all the required planning as well as to select the suitable methods to complete the ISRA.