Cases have become commonplace for learning as they bring a connection to reality though rarely used for assessment. The case-based exam combines learning with assessment in the same instrument. Students familiarize themselves with a pre-exam version of the case while applying their textbook knowledge to the expected questions. The actual exam case adds additional information that invokes higher cognitive levels while also restricting the range of correct responses to allow for systematic grading. The paper describes the structure of the case-based exam for designing a database and analyzing data to show by example various question formats. In addition, a rationale for case construction, question formulation and exam administration provided.

Analyzing the media channel usage of companies via analytics is an essential skill for managing social media. To acquire this skill, students must have repetitive exercises that invoke higher order thinking. The social media usage comparative case exam uses the framework of a case-based exam to provide both learning and assessment. The pre-exam consists of the time-consuming analysis of social media usage while students have access to help in using analytics tools. The actual exam uses progressive cognitive (Bloom) level questions that have a core of correct answers which allow for student responses to be consistently graded in a timely manner. The paper describes the thought process behind this exam format that can be applied to context-driven engineering courses.

Inter-organizational networks play an increasing role in delivering computer-mediated public services such as healthcare. Many networks govern through an infomediary (i.e., electronic broker) that brings together disparate member organizations. These networks can resemble an enterprise where standards and incentives for use are imposed on its partners. This study seeks to extend an enterprise IT governance (ITG) concept to the U.S. e-prescribing network as it transitions from a paper-based network to a computer-mediated one. The operating model, proposed by Ross et al (2006), emphasizes choices in standardization and integration to align strategy with operational processes to improve enterprise performance. Missing in their work is evidence that macro-level choices embedded in the operating model directly impact network workflow. A comparative synthesis traces the changes made to the U.S. e-prescribing operating model to their impact upon the roles and relationships among network members. Some workflow mis-alignments were traceable to the operating philosophy imposed by healthcare policy-makers. The study suggests IT alignment in networks may be better achieved through governing operating models rather than the traditional ITG focus on organizational forms.

Information systems research often treats computer workarounds tangentially and as temporary phenomena. This exploratory research embraces anomalous system use in general and computer workarounds in particular by suggesting why the latter can be institutionalized and how they may be manifested in practice. Anomalous use is defined as sociomaterial actions around an IT artifact not consistent with its design or related official rules that nevertheless constitute system enactment in practice. The persistence of computer workarounds might be explained by the tension between top-down pressures from the external environment and bottom-up constraints from day-to-day operational work. These insights are drawn from an up-close study of workarounds in two cases from the Mediterranean region. The workaround practices involve decoupling and loose coupling, effectively creating ‘equilibrium’ between the aforementioned top-down and bottom-up influences. This may be attributed to parity between the influence exercised by external regulatory/accrediting bodies and the constraints of day-to-day work within the focal organization (i.e., work ethos, material constraints, and discretion to decouple). Our results show why some computer workarounds exhibit institutionalized behavior and their antecedent conditions. We also suggest that constituent workaround practices may exist as twin but distinctive behavioral patterns – non-compliance (or partial compliance) with an official rule and partially (or fully) working around designed systems.

Computer workarounds in health information systems (HIS) threaten the potential for gains in efficiency through computerization aimed at reducing process variability. Eliminating such workarounds is desirable, but information system (IS) researchers tend to treat computer workarounds as black-boxes, whereas HIS researchers are primarily concerned with descriptive or prescriptive remedies. We propose to open the black-box of computer workarounds and study them as situated practices that consist of adjustments to existing computer-based procedures, which are enabled by the negotiated order of a hospital. This negotiative property of a hospital's organizational environment allows for interpretive flexibility, in which physicians stretch certain rules in practice, while inducing others to cooperate. We illustrate this conceptual framework with a non-participant observer case study of a medication dispensing system used in a teaching hospital to support a prior-approval policy for anti-microbial drugs. Within these enacted workaround practices, we found significant variety in roles, timing and interactions, which boil down to a pattern of four practices revolving around one function of an HIS. Our research extends the literature on computer workarounds in IS and HIS by proposing a theoretical understanding of workaround practices based on a contextual healthcare study.

Storage and retrieval technology for large-scale medical image systems has matured significantly during the past ten years but many implementations still lack cost-effective backup and recovery solutions. As an example, a PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication system) in a general medical center requires about 40 Terabytes of storage capacity for seven years. Despite many healthcare centers are relying on PACS for 24/7 clinical operation, current PACS lacks affordable fault-tolerance storage strategies for archive, backup, and disaster recovery. Existing solutions are difficult to administer, and often time consuming for effective recovery after a disaster. For this reason, PACS still encounters unexpected downtime for hours or days, which could cripple daily clinical service and research operations. Grid Computing represents the latest and most exciting technology to evolve from the familiar realm of parallel, peer-to-peer, and client-server models that can address the problem of fault-tolerant storage for backup and recovery of medical images. We have researched and developed a novel Data Grid testbed involving several federated PAC systems based on grid computing architecture. By integrating grid architecture to the PACS DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine) environment, in addition to use its own storage device, a PACS also uses a federated Data Grid composing of several PAC systems for off-site backup archive. In case its own storage fails, the PACS can retrieve its image data from the Data Grid timely and seamlessly. The design reflects the Globus Toolkit 3.0 five-layer architecture of the grid computing: Fabric, Resource, Connectivity, Collective, and Application Layers. The testbed consists of three federated PAC systems, the Fault-Tolerant PACS archive server at the Image Processing and Informatics Laboratory, the clinical PACS at Saint John's Health Center, and the clinical PACS at the Healthcare Consultation Center II, USC Health Science Campus.In the testbed, we also implement computational services in the Data Grid for image analysis and data mining. The federated PAC systems can use this resource by sharing image data and computational services available in the Data Grid for image analysis and data mining application.In the paper, we first review PACS and its clinical operation, followed by the description of the Data Grid architecture in the testbed. Different scenarios of using the DICOM store and query/retrieve functions of the laboratory model to demonstrate the fault-tolerance features of the Data Grid are illustrated. The status of current clinical implementation of the Data Grid is reported. An example of using the digital hand atlas for bone age assessment of children is presented to describe the concept of computational services in the Data Grid.