In general, supervised Machine Learning approaches using labeled training data currently promise the best classification results with respect to classification accuracy. Therefore, data annotation is a key component of most Machine Learning projects implemented. However, creating labels for a training data set is often an elaborate project involving arduous and repetitive work, which is why data scientists often try to minimize the effort for data annotation by automating the data annotation process itself. In this paper, we present a case study of two data annotation projects on the same data set of support tickets and compare these: one using human annotators and the other using algorithmic Learning Functions in a combination of Active Learning and Weak Supervision. Here, we achieved a weighted confidence score of >94% for the human-created labels, while also achieving up to 92% agreement between the labels of our automated project and the labels created by human annotators, with the need for only 10% of human annotation as the starting input of the automated approach. Additionally, we were able to reproduce the value of 85% for initial human classification accuracy in support ticket distribution from previous papers. We close with a reflection about the worth of business understanding in data annotation projects and the problem and proposed solutions to ticket ambiguity.

In the education sector, blockchain is currently at the end of the Peak of Inflated Expectations in Gartner’s Hype Cycle. Thus, it is crucial to understand whether this technology meets higher education institutions’ (HEIs) expectations. We go on an expedition to identify blockchain’s application scenarios and its potential for HEI administration – the universities are digitalized to just 23.3%. Current Information Systems research addresses classifications of blockchain-based projects (application level) rather than their technical realization (protocol level). Thus, when evaluating blockchain application scenarios in HEI administration, we intensively consider the technical side of blockchain-based projects. We perform a three-step approach: (1) systematic literature review, (2) qualitative exploratory semi-structured interviews to supplement information on market-ready solutions, and (3) an evaluation of the potential of the blockchain-based projects identified, based on HEI administration requirements. We find that the leading blockchain application scenarios are credential verification and record-sharing. At protocol level, we obtain equivocal results regarding the technical realization of projects, e.g., their underlying blockchain types and storage models. At application level, when discussing the potential of different projects, we find that most of them address adaptability, complexity decomposition, and cost reduction requirements between HEIs; interest diversity and stakeholder collaboration between HEIs and business actors; privacy, and trust between HEIs and students. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

OBJECTIVES: Healthcare providers employ heuristic and analytical decision-making to navigate the high-stakes environment of the emergency department (ED). Despite the increasing integration of information systems (ISs), research on their efficacy is conflicting. Drawing on related fields, we investigate how timing and mode of delivery influence IS effectiveness. Our objective is to reconcile previous contradictory findings, shedding light on optimal IS design in the ED. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a systematic review following PRISMA across PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. We coded the ISs' timing as heuristic or analytical, their mode of delivery as active for automatic alerts and passive when requiring user-initiated information retrieval, and their effect on process, economic, and clinical outcomes. RESULTS: Our analysis included 83 studies. During early heuristic decision-making, most active interventions were ineffective, while passive interventions generally improved outcomes. In the analytical phase, the effects were reversed. Passive interventions that facilitate information extraction consistently improved outcomes. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that the effectiveness of active interventions negatively correlates with the amount of information received during delivery. During early heuristic decision-making, when information overload is high, physicians are unresponsive to alerts and proactively consult passive resources. In the later analytical phases, physicians show increased receptivity to alerts due to decreased diagnostic uncertainty and information quantity. Interventions that limit information lead to positive outcomes, supporting our interpretation. CONCLUSION: We synthesize our findings into an integrated model that reveals the underlying reasons for conflicting findings from previous reviews and can guide practitioners in designing ISs in the ED.

Process mining enables companies to reduce costs by identifying bottlenecks, improving processes, or automation potentials, for example. Digital business process data, which can be extracted from information systems and afterward arranged in so-called event logs, allows the visualization and analysis of business processes. Several teaching materials for process mining are offered to learners and teacher. However, the existing data for learning and teaching process mining is static and does not change with specific user interactions, such as the release of invoices in other information systems. This work contributes to a more realistic teaching approach by providing a simulation tool to continuously create business process data reacting to user actions. First, the application scope of process mining projects in the industry is determined to collect use cases of action-oriented process mining from practice. Then, a prototypical implementation is presented that allows the continuous simulation of business process data that allows specific user interventions. A didactic framework is described to apply the simulation tool in the teaching of process mining. Finally, the simulation tool is discussed and evaluated by four experts from practice and academia.

The cloud-based enterprise software (ES) market is booming due to ease of access and scalability among other factors. Within ES, all data, resources, and processes of a company are managed. Thus, ES comes with complexity that requires skilled users. Therefore, it is important to train students in cloud-based ES so that they can make informed decisions in their future professional life. So far, research on the intersection of education and cloud-based software has mainly focused on virtual labs and education software in the cloud. In contrast to that, we focus on the integration of cloud-based ES in higher education as a basis for teaching students practical and interdisciplinary ES skills. Also, we depict the role of an educational service provider (ESP) as an intermediary in that setting. In our paper, we conducted a case study within the context of a large ES company's global academic alliance program and an ESP. The requirements and procedures derived for integrating cloud-based ES in higher education teaching are transferred to a process model. This process model gives insights into how the integration is handled so far and can serve as a guide for other cloud-based ES being introduced to higher education teaching. We contribute to both research and practice by emphasizing students' transdisciplinary education in the ES domain and the role of ESPs as a linking connection between higher education and the ES industry.

Innovation platforms enable companies to create broad and dynamic portfolios of applications, which can be developed internally and externally. An increasing number of established companies from traditional industries have begun to explore the potential of innovation platforms. These companies are often organised as multi-business organisations (MBOs). When introducing innovation platforms, they face tensions between the corporate centre that runs such platforms and business units that develop applications on the platform. Established approaches to information technology (IT) governance in MBOs are ineffective in addressing these tensions because they focus on cross-business-unit synergies, rather than on innovation from business units. To explore this issue further, we conducted a longitudinal case study of an automotive manufacturer that introduced an innovation platform in its infotainment system. The company faced four tensions: rigidity, alteration, mistrust, and competition. To address these tensions, the company evolved its IT governance, allowing for more flexibility for business units, supporting their development efforts, and prioritising them over external complementors. The role of the corporate centre evolved from a gatekeeper to an enabler of innovation. Our findings link the literature on IT governance in MBOs with that of platform governance, providing insights into how MBOs benefit from innovation platforms.

IT carve-out projects are complex and cost-intensive components of M&A transactions. Existing research sheds little light on the determinants of IT carve-out project complexity and/or its effects on divestor performance. Instead, research has focused on the post-acquisition IT integration project and acquirer performance. This paper presents the first divestor-centric model of IT transactions from the divestor to the acquirer when a Business Unit in a Multi-Business Organization (MBO) is carved out and integrated into another MBO. The model explains how divestor business and IT alignment pre-conditions contribute to increased IT carve-out project complexity. Such complexity increases IT carve-out project time to physical IT separation and creates IT stranded assets, which decrease post-divestment business, IT alignment and divestor performance. The current recommended strategy of adopting transitional service agreements (TSAs) to handle IT carve-out complexity is compared with two new proactive strategies derived from the model. TSA-based strategies restrict the divestor from both decommissioning IT stranded assets and reconfiguring its IT assets to support its new post-divestment business strategy. The two new strategies address IT carve-out complexity without incurring the negative effects from adopting TSAs.

Simulation business games have recently become a suitable tool that gives students an understanding of how companies and their markets function, as well as the interaction of the components necessary to build a business. Interpreting business processes and business models is a key competency for future graduates in information systems, which is hard to teach without dealing with real-world problems. Simulation games are one of the possible approaches for teaching business processes to information systems students. This paper presents a description of the development of two web modules: for the administration of simulation games and the interface of the business game itself. After collecting data, requirements for the prototypes of Admin-Cockpit, and the simulation game itself, which were conducted in focus groups, the implementation phase began. The main requirements for the applications were successfully implemented in the prototypes and afterward were evaluated. In the output, we have a working prototype of the business game module and the Admin-Cockpit module for configuration. In summary, our contribution is a planned and implemented redesign of the game, positively affecting students’ engagement and interest. Additionally, was developed an improved and expanded version of Admin-Cockpit for game management, giving configuration options and statistics collection. Thus, we can conclude that this work has a positive contribution to the development of simulation game design and development, which was also confirmed by the results of the surveys.

Digital learning assets (DLA), like documents or system accesses, and scientific papers are omnipresent within the academic world. Therefore, academic communities of lecturers centered around Education-as-a-Service (EaaS) providers need a platform to upload or link their assets in one place. In our paper, we design, implement, and evaluate a new learning management system (LMS) specifically for lecturers following a design science research approach to perform a proof of concept and to assess the acceptance within the community. We gather the requirements for this LMS by performing a literature review, and afterward, we build a web application as an artefact prototype and evaluate it in an exploratory focus group. The developed LMS covers basic functionalities, user control, and collaboration tools to support communication between lecturers. Other features include the upload and management of courses and their contents. An innovative aspect of this work is individualized content provision based on the learning asset’s metadata. Currently, the underlying algorithm takes the chosen keywords into account, but additional meta-fields can already be gathered for further development. The prototype evaluation resulted in a system usability score of 63, which can be considered good, and the product received a positive acceptance among the evaluation participants. With our work, we contribute to both theory and practice, by providing a requirement framework for an LMS for lecturers and by implementing a knowledge sharing fostering prototype for an academic community centered around a German Education-as-a-Service provider.

Educators have recently been searching for new teaching methods other than traditional frontal lectures, and the ongoing pandemic has drastically boosted this process. Information systems (IS) education is no exception, since, in addition to the challenges of virtual learning, some IS concepts, like Digital Transformation or Business Process Management, lead to better mastering of the learning objectives when taught with some hands-on experience. One method of providing such an experience is the adoption of simulation business games. However, while the learning effect of the existing games is proven to be positive, their user interfaces (UI) are often criticized, which is also reflected in the research. Thus, taking one such game as an example, we propose a way to improve its UI by analyzing non-educational games with simulation aspects with a focus on requirements definition for the game UI in the educational context. Afterward, we implement the ten gathered requirements into a UI prototype by utilizing the SCRUM method, and finally, we evaluate our UI with an expert interview as well as by showcasing it to our target audience and gathering their opinion using the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. Our research leads to a drastic improvement of the SUS score, compared to the previous version, thus paving the way to implementing further scenarios for teaching business process digitalization.

It has been scientifically proven that physical activity can have a positive impact on cognitive functions and that it can support the learning process. Although there already exist methods in education that aim at combining both areas in the classroom there has not been developed a digital game in this area, yet. For this reason, the goal of this paper is to report on a developed game that combines physical activity and learning. By applying the Design Thinking Method and conducting expert interviews with teachers, athletes, and game researchers an application is developed for school children, called “HealthyPets@TUM” that consists of walking steps and solving calculation exercises. With the help of this method, the most important features are developed and then tested in a school class. The game can be seen as a successful first approach for combining educational content with physical activity. However, further research over a longer period and with a bigger study group is necessary to assess the impact of physical activity on the cognitive development by applying a game-based learning approach.

Digital business model innovation (BMI) is critical to achieving and sustaining competitiveness in technology-driven environments. In those environments, firms must not only sense changes to identify opportunities but also effectively seize them in BMI. Therefore, sensing and seizing cannot be considered as isolated dynamic capabilities, but must be combined for successful BMI. However, research on sensing and seizing does not offer compelling suggestions for firms that struggle with connecting both while pursuing digital BMI. We use qualitative configurational analysis (QCA) to analyze a sample of 49 case studies on digital BMI to identify the antecedents that firms sense before seizing these changes with digital BMI. Based on ten configurations of sensing (represented by six antecedents) and seizing (represented by four BMI types), we explain the relationship between sensed antecedents and seized digital BMI. In addition, we derived four variables that explain “what” and “how” firms connect sensing and seizing. Based on the sensing-seizing connection, we introduce consolidating BMI as a new type of BMI unique to the digital context. This novel type enables firms to exploit and explore new BMs and subsequent digital BMIs through the means of digital infrastructure. This study extends the understanding of how different business models emerge and how firms create digital BMIs.

Abstract Healthy nutrition contributes to preventing non-communicable and diet-related diseases. Recommender systems, as an integral part of mHealth technologies, address this task by supporting users with healthy food recommendations. However, knowledge about the effects of the long-term provision of health-aware recommendations in real-life situations is limited. This study investigates the impact of a mobile, personalized recommender system named Nutrilize. Our system offers automated personalized visual feedback and recommendations based on individual dietary behaviour, phenotype, and preferences. By using quantitative and qualitative measures of 34 participants during a study of 2–3 months, we provide a deeper understanding of how our nutrition application affects the users’ physique, nutrition behaviour, system interactions and system perception. Our results show that Nutrilize positively affects nutritional behaviour (conditional $$R^2=.342$$ R 2 = . 342 ) measured by the optimal intake of each nutrient. The analysis of different application features shows that reflective visual feedback has a more substantial impact on healthy behaviour than the recommender (conditional $$R^2=.354$$ R 2 = . 354 ). We further identify system limitations influencing this result, such as a lack of diversity, mistrust in healthiness and personalization, real-life contexts, and personal user characteristics with a qualitative analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews. Finally, we discuss general knowledge acquired on the design of personalized mobile nutrition recommendations by identifying important factors, such as the users’ acceptance of the recommender’s taste, health, and personalization.

With a growing demand for green products and services, entrepreneurs find themselves with the possibility to capitalize on this demand for environmental business solutions. Hence, skills for shaping ecologically sustainable businesses are needed. By teaching business concepts in an engaging and applicable manner using a serious gaming approach, students can be prepared to become tomorrow's entrepreneurs. Learning objectives were determined by using Bloom's revised taxonomy and implemented in the serious game Bikorama@TUM. In Bikorama@TUM, students manage their own bike rental through the three business phases: survival, growth and expansion. 151 upper vocational students took part in the evaluation focusing on the growth stage. They assessed their knowledge with a pre- and post-test as well as rated the implementation as a whole. The results indicate a substantial improvement in students' knowledge and abilities related to entrepreneurship. Therefore, the serious gaming approach is confirmed as a viable teaching tool.

Business models and business processes are key terms for information systems education. While business models describe in an abstract way how a company functions, business processes represent concrete activities. Besides, both concepts are affecting each other directly. The goal of this research is to analyze the state of the art on the relationship between both topics from an educational perspective. Towards this end, we conduct a systematic literature review analyzing teaching concepts, including the didactic and content-based perspectives. Additionally, we introduce a set of twelve learning objectives for teaching the relationship between business models and business processes. We derive the learning objectives from the synthesized literature and use the revised Bloom's taxonomy for their formulation. Our results could provide a starting point for further research. Especially the use of a business game seems to be a promising solution to convey our learning objectives. This study contributes to research on the relationship between business models and business processes by analyzing the current state of the art from an educational perspective.

Businesses in every industry are affected by progressing globalization and intensifying competition. Firms' leaders need skills to find new ways to create revenue and to evolve their business models continuously. Students should therefore be prepared to become tomorrow's firm leaders with education on business concepts in business transformation. This paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of introducing high school students to the concept of servitization with the serious game SwipeBike@TUM. SwipeBike@TUM was developed to apply business transformations in a game atmosphere while still be appealing at the same time. Within the game, the player takes up the role of C-Level Management to transform a bicycle manufacturer into a service provider through several business stages. The overall learning process is described by learning objectives and covers theoretical and practical parts. The evaluation with 29 students showed that SwipeBike@TUM improved their knowledge and self-evaluation of business models and transformation. For research, we contribute by demonstrating that serious gaming is a suitable teaching approach.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the educational sector has been forced to rapidly adapt digital forms of teaching, thus changed the status quo of teaching. Not only for coping with that situation but also with the adaption of digital technologies in general, educational service providers (ESP) become paramount. ESPs need to offer contemporary and innovative services which should serve the aim of gaining and even improving the learning outcomes. Furthermore, ESPs can take the heat off teachers who suffer under an increased workload. To address this issue, we conducted a literature review focusing on papers which covered educational service concepts that effect learning outcomes. The results are clustered by the groups of digital learning formats which in turn are transferred from the 2020 classification framework of digital learning formats by the mmb institute. Besides giving an overview of the current state of research, we demonstrate the research gap and recommendations for further research when referring to the role and service portfolio of ESPs.

The impact of digital transformation (DT) on the business processes within the context of education is an issue that should be addressed when preparing the future workforce. It is necessary to emphasize the effects of digital technologies on business processes so that students can come prepared for their future working places. Simulation games are proven to be a valid method of teaching these concepts. On the other hand, topics like sustainability or environmental friendliness are also gaining more attention during last years. These factors are even considered among the DT drivers. However, the existing games, aimed at teaching DT, often bypass these concepts with their attention. Our paper aims at closing this gap by extending a game that simulates the manufacturing process of a bike producer, undergoing servitization, by integrating, sustainability, regionality, and ecological factor into its simulation model. By taking the role of the process manager, players guide their company through various process steps in several rounds and compete against other teams. At the end of each round teams are compared based on their financial success, with balancing out the ecological factor being an essential part of the strategy. Evaluation of our game shows that this approach contributes to a better understanding of both effective process management under DT as well as sustainability, regionality, and environmental friendliness concepts by the target audience.

In the last years, performance modeling approaches have been proposed to tackle new concepts for modern In-Memory Database Systems (IMDB). While these approaches model specific performance-relevant aspects, workload representation during performance modeling is considered only marginally. Furthermore, the manual integration of workload into modeling approaches comes along with high effort and requires deep domain-specific knowledge.

COVID-19 has created many constraint-related challenges for humans in general and organisations in particular. Specifically, businesses that require physical contact, such as mobility providers, have been severely impacted by the crisis. This paper reveals how mobility platforms and their ecosystem of actors have adapted faster than their non-platform competitors to become resilient. Whereas current research on resilience explicitly deals with the concept of organisational resilience, community resilience, or IT resilience, socio-technical characteristics of digital platforms have not been investigated. We build on a case survey approach, including heterogeneous qualitative evidence of 266 actions of 171 analysed mobility platforms. The results show five archetypes of how mobility platforms leverage their platform-based nature and the ecosystem to build resilience. Based on this, we develop the concept of platform ecosystem resilience as leveraging socio-technical factors of digital platforms and ecosystems frugally to design, deploy and use situation-specific responses to prepare for, endure and adapt by capturing new opportunities and engaging in transformative activities to cope with exogenous shocks and become resilient for future disruptions. Our results emphasise the importance of platform ecosystems for practitioners and policy planners to develop the “new normal” rather than resuming existing practices.

Global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, change the context for research and bring with them many professional challenges for IS researchers – not the least of which is disrupting carefully thought-out data collection efforts. In this confessional tale, we describe how moving from an “open research ecosystem” to a “socially distanced research ecosystem” has affected a long-planned data collection effort. While government orders to socially distance and physically isolate may have made the world “stand still” for some, we found that these orders had dynamic and consequential effects for our in-process research. Against the backdrop of significant threats posed by the contextual change to our data collection, we explain how the crisis also opened up opportunities to invigorate our understanding of how the environment affects how we conduct research. We conclude our tale with guidelines for how to successfully respond when your research is interrupted by a change of context.

Information security metrics are used to measure the effectiveness of information security countermeasures. A large number of metrics and their technical nature creates difficulties when generating reports for the information security management level of an organization. Managers struggle with the usefulness and clarity of the metrics because they are not linked to the security management goals. Also, responsible managers with no technical information security background struggle to understand the metrics. Therefore, this study uses a state-of-the-art literature analysis together with the Goal-Question-Metric approach to investigate linking technical security metrics to management success factors. This study enables the management to design appropriate security reports for their organization and to direct the metrics toward making goal-oriented decisions. Furthermore, the study invites future research by revealing areas in which security metrics do not exist and create new solutions and studies to suggest a standardized information security dashboard.

Digital tools have become more essential in education and business areas these days and it is important to start in the early stages of education, e.g. already in the preschool stage. This paper describes the development and pilot testing of an Android based serious gaming App for mobile devices called Pic2Program. The App aims to teach children the basics of Computational Thinking (CT) in a playful way. The gameplay expects the young children to steer successfully their in-game character with the help of an intuitive symbol language through a set of increasingly complex mazes. The children may even draw sets of symbols by hand thus develop a basic program. Pic2Programs image recognition module will then process these symbols by first photographing them with an Android device and then using a neural network to map the photos to program instructions. The effectivity of Pic2Program on learning CT has been evaluated by a designed course for 9th, graders. The results show that students find the App well-structured and help them to understand the basics of programming.

Decision-making in the context of organizational information security is highly dependent on various information. For information security managers, not only relevant information has to be clarified but also their interdependencies have to be taken into account. Thus, the purpose of this research is to develop a comprehensive model of relevant management success factors (MSF) for organizational information security. First, a literature survey with an open-axial-selective analysis of 136 articles was performed to identify factors influencing information security. These factors were categorized into 12 areas: physical security, vulnerability, infrastructure, awareness, access control, risk, resources, organizational factors, CIA, continuity, security management, compliance & policy. Second, an interview series with 19 experts from the industry was used to evaluate the relevance of these factors in practice and explore interdependencies between them. Third, a comprehensive model was developed. The model shows that there are key-security-indicators, which directly impact the security-status of an organization while other indicators are only indirectly connected. Based on these results, information security managers should be aware of direct and indirect MSFs to make appropriate decisions.

A top priority of organisations around the globe is to achieve IT-business alignment at all levels of the organisation. This paper addresses operational alignment within IT functions. Traditionally, IT functions are divided into highly independent subunits. In the face of pressure to adapt to rapidly changing customer demands and to manage increasingly complex IT architectures, many organisations have begun implementing joint, cross-functional DevOps teams, which integrate tasks, knowledge and skills pertaining to planning, building, and running software product activities. In this study, we examine eight cases of DevOps implementation. We apply grounded theory to identify three mechanisms comprising a tripartite model of intra-IT alignment: individual componentization, integrated responsibility, and multidisciplinary knowledge. Our model provides insights into how alignment between development and operations can be achieved in DevOps teams within the IT function.

The digital transformation claims enterprises to rethink their business models. The bridge between digital transformation and business models can be strengthened by training the future decision makers early during their university life. Thus, the goal of this research is to illustrate the state of the art in the field of teaching business model transformation and identify curricular issues and opportunities. To achieve this goal, a literature review was conducted by considering two curricular perspectives: content-related course design and didactic-related course design. Relevant publications in the fields of engineering and management were reviewed for each curricular perspective. As a result, this paper presents the development of teaching methods in the field of business model transformation as well as learning objectives and course design specifications. Drawn upon these findings, requirements for a business model transformation course in higher education are formulated, and an Information Technology (IT) application to support students during their learning progress is discussed.

With the increased responsibilities in preparing students for the competitive job market and affecting success of their universities in the rankings of world-class universities, lecturers in higher education play an essential role. As one of the academic professional development methods, Train-the-Trainer (TTT) programs presented by SAP University Competence Center (UCC) at the Technical University of Munich offer an extensive knowledge and skills gain for the lecturers. Adopting the guided-learning methodology in its curriculum, TTT programs focus on teaching business processes through case studies. Considering lecturers' background and different learning styles, TTT programs might show a gap in improving any of these three knowledge domains: technology, pedagogy and content. Aiming to design an ideal modularized curriculum, the authors identify the state-of-the-art teaching methods that can improve technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) level of educators based on insights from literature review. Then they evaluate the TPACK level of thirty-two lecturers working in higher education both quantitatively and qualitatively. Finally, aiming to create a blended learning environment together with face-to-face trainings, the authors present the design of a modularized curriculum. This research study sheds light on the measurement of TPACK level of trainees in higher education, extends the knowledge base and facilitates the ground to improve SAP UCC trainings and the curriculum.

Business Process Change (BPC), aiming at improving the core competencies of a company, is a highly relevant topic in a rapidly changing business environment. Trends such as the digital transformation require companies to transform their business processes and may even lead to complete changes in how they operate. To prepare students for their future working environment, teaching BPC is an important topic for education in Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering. For this, simulation games provide a useful approach to provide students with more practical experience. To increase the learning outcomes of such games, different teaching methods can be used as part of them. However, previous research is lacking concrete insights which effects the different methods have when using them with simulation games. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to analyze different teaching methods for simulation games and to evaluate their effectiveness on the example of a game for learning BPC. First, we conduct a literature review on teaching methods and investigate whether they are suitable for teaching BPC. Afterwards, we develop a teaching concept for the simulation game using different methods such as experiential or case-based learning. Finally, we evaluate our teaching concept with 36 students from an upper vocational school and show the effectiveness of different methods when used as part of simulation games. Thereby, we contribute to the theory of teaching methods for simulation games and to practice by providing guidelines for teaching the topic of BPC using a simulation game.

With automated driving advancing, first production models started to incorporate the technology. However, until full autonomy is achieved, drivers always need to stay available to take over control from the car. This requirement has proven challenging: increased levels of automation reduce drivers' situational awareness and driving performance can suffer, especially in the critical moments after take-over. While manual-driving research introduced strategies to direct drivers' attention back to the road, notably interruptions of the non-driving task, the efficacy of these interventions on automated driving remain unclear. To investigate this, 53 participants drove in an automated simulator while performing tasks on an IVIS. With task interruptions, they reported increased situational awareness and showed improved reaction times during take-over, particularly for low-effort tasks (watching movies). Different to manual driving, halting tasks did not suffice; instead, we displayed the driving scene. Results question effects of situational awareness on take-over and offer solutions for manufacturers.

The goal of this paper is to discuss and evaluate the approach of applying simulation games as a tool for teaching and learning business processes in the context of the digital transformation. For this purpose, we defined learning objectives and based on them, developed two separate simulation games with a different scenario for the digital transformation of business processes. While one game is based on automation in the automotive sector, the other one focuses on the digital transformation in the online retail sector. Both games were applied in class and evaluated afterwards. Thereby, this paper offers concrete examples of simulation games for teaching business processes in the context of the digital transformation and discusses characteristics and scenarios that are important in this context. Furthermore, the paper serves as basis for future research in the area of simulation games and therefore provides a novel contribution to this topic of education.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a best practice procedure model for conducting a capstone course consisting of eight phases and to share first experiences with it. The model is geared to teaching new and innovative industry-related topics by using a project-based learning approach including elements of experiential learning and role-play teaching. It also focuses on providing hands-on experience with newly released technology or software. Based on insights from literature, we planned and conducted a practical course for teaching topics of SAP Leonardo and SAP HANA by adapting our suggested procedure model. We further collected feedback from students. During designing the practical course, we found that the model is easy and fast to apply, flexible and adaptable to different circumstances due to its modularity. It can be used beyond teaching emerging technologies and topics as a template for practical courses as well. This paper shows lecturers how to involve industrial partners in teaching and instructs them in conducting a project-based course by means of a concrete example.

Performance evaluation with regard to response time of software applications is a crucial task. In particular, this is essential for Enterprise Applications with high demand for time-sensitive transactional operations. Although the effects of neglecting performance considerations within the software development life cycle are known, the development process has not significantly changed over the last years. However, companies' interest in software performance is increasing. This paper identifies the barriers regarding performance improvement of software applications during early stages of the development process by focusing on SAP Enterprise Applications. In order to capture recent situations within the industry, we conducted expert interviews with both experienced SAP software developers and product managers working in different industry sectors in Germany. Our key findings show a range of different reasons for poor or missing performance improvement considerations.

The specification of workloads is required in order to evaluate performance characteristics of application systems using load testing and model-based performance prediction. Defining workload specifications that represent the real workload as accurately as possible is one of the biggest challenges in both areas. To overcome this challenge, this paper presents an approach that aims to automate the extraction and transformation of workload specifications for load testing and model-based performance prediction of session-based application systems. The approach (WESSBAS) comprises three main components. First, a system- and tool-agnostic domain-specific language (DSL) allows the layered modeling of workload specifications of session-based systems. Second, instances of this DSL are automatically extracted from recorded session logs of production systems. Third, these instances are transformed into executable workload specifications of load generation tools and model-based performance evaluation tools. We present transformations to the common load testing tool Apache JMeter and to the Palladio Component Model. Our approach is evaluated using the industry-standard benchmark SPECjEnterprise2010 and the World Cup 1998 access logs. Workload-specific characteristics (e.g., session lengths and arrival rates) and performance characteristics (e.g., response times and CPU utilizations) show that the extracted workloads match the measured workloads with high accuracy.

Modern applications are typically implemented as distributed systems comprising several components. Deciding where to deploy which component is a difficult task that today is usually assisted by logical topology recommendations. Choosing inefficient topologies allocates the wrong amount of resources, leads to unnecessary operation costs, or results in poor performance. Testing different topologies to find good solutions takes a lot of time and might delay productive operations. Therefore, this work introduces a software-based deployment topology optimization approach for distributed applications. We use an enhanced performance model generator that extracts models from operational monitoring data of running applications. The extracted model is used to simulate performance metrics (e.g., resource utilization, response times, throughput) and runtime costs of distributed applications. Subsequently, we introduce a deployment topology optimizer, which selects an optimized topology for a specified workload and considers on-premise, cloud, and hybrid topologies. The following three optimization goals are presented in this work: (i) minimum response time for an optimized user experience, (ii) approximate resource utilization around certain peaks, and (iii) minimum cost for running the application. To evaluate the approach, we use the SPECjEnterpriseNEXT industry benchmark as distributed application in an on-premise and in a cloud/on-premise hybrid environment. The evaluation demonstrates the accuracy of the simulation compared to the actual deployment by deploying an optimized topology and comparing measurements with simulation results.

Programming has become a vital skill in today's society and economy. Therefore, it is important to teach programming in early stages of the education. Since learning how to program differs from other, more traditional courses in schools, an application oriented approach to teaching and learning is required. The playful approach, as a part of self-regulated personalized learning strategies, offers the possibility to engage students, and teach students how to program hands-on. In this paper, we investigate the success factors that need to be satisfied for an efficient course of teaching how to program with a playful approach. We conducted a literature review, evaluating and analyzing the academic contributions to this relatively new topic of edutainment in the last 10 years. Based on the literature review we were able to identify the success factors for teaching how to program with a playful approach: the motivation, the integration and involvement in class, the audience-centered focus, giving feedback and enhancing interaction, and the fluent integration of the educational content into the gameplay. The identification of these success factors allow educators in the future to structure and carry out a lecture, based on the playful learning technique.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are used in all kinds of organizations today. They represent the structure of a company, the integration of business processes and enable company-wide and cross-company collaboration. End-user training on ERP systems is expensive but required to prevent refusals of system use and project failures. While ERP systems have been part of university teaching in Information Systems (IS), Economics, and Computer Sciences for more than a decade, they are scarcely used in schools. There exists hardly any scientific literature about teaching pupils ERP systems. We want to share our experiences with playing an ERP system-based serious game with pupils and discuss why we think this is a reasonable approach for improving and extending school teaching to prepare future IS and Engineering students. Furthermore, we want to propose an approach for integrating a learning unit for introducing ERP systems using a serious game from eleventh grade on.

Study skills summarize activities of self-regulated personalized learning and working that are important for successfully completing a study degree e.g. time management or teamwork. Since one of the main reasons for dropping out of university is the lack of proper study skills in students, German universities offer various support programs to help building up study skills at the beginning of the studies or even before entering university. The tools and methods, used in these programs differ according to the students' age, gender, and proficiency level. In this paper, we investigate ten different university programs for improving students' study skills. For this purpose, we conduct interviews with representatives of the universities and analyze the offerings in detail. Based on the success rate and promoted skills, we suggest a best practice program for promoting study skills. The results of this work give a first overview of different programs by analyzing how they can be used for building up study skills. Further, they can be used as a recommendation from various universities while developing their own programs.

Batch and stream processing represent the two main approaches implemented by big data systems such as Apache Spark and Apache Flink. Although only stream applications are intended to satisfy real-time requirements, both approaches are required to meet certain response time constraints. In addition, cluster architectures continuously expand and computing resources constitute high investments and expenses for organizations. Therefore, planning required capacities and predicting response times is crucial. In this work, we present a performance modeling and simulation approach by using and extending the Palladio component model. We predict performance metrics of batch and stream applications and its underlying processing systems by the example of Apache Spark on Apache Hadoop. Whereas most related work concentrates on one specific processing technique and focuses on the metric response time, we propose a general approach and consider the utilization of resources as well. In different experiments we evaluated our approach using applications and data workloads of the HiBench benchmark suite. The results indicate accurate predictions for upscaling cluster sizes as well as workloads with errors less than 18%.

Companies are currently calling for more and more graduates with good management and planning skills. But, studies show that rising student numbers lead to a high dropout rate. Thus, strengthening the study skills of the students plays a key role in reducing this dropout rate and should be a key objective of every education system. In particular, universities have the power to improve the study skills of pupils at an early stage through the designed programs and measures. With the Pupils' Academy Serious Gaming, the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has introduced an instrument to promote the study skills. This initiative aimed primarily at pupils of upper vocational schools (UVS). In addition to the study skills, thus the ability of more application-oriented knowledge transfer objectives and playful introduction to an important enterprise software can be achieved. This paper presents the Pupils' Academy based on the online SAP ERP Simulation Game ERPsim as an example of how the enterprise software SAP ERP is successfully applied to strengthen study skills. In addition, the pupils learn how to deal with the SAP platform and train skills like decision making, analysis, strategy development, data processing and presentation. The positive impact on study skills is evidenced with the help of a self-assessment by means of an IT-based survey carried out by the participating students. These examinations include the activities related to the two study skills time management and teamwork.

Industrial production systems meet strict requirements regarding availability, process control and condition monitoring. As a key enabler of Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems form the core of a modular, web-based framework, which delivers more efficient condition monitoring mechanisms for maintenance staff in production facilities. The present approach illustrates the potential of a decentralized and centralized, distributed system by using standardized communication protocols and semantic information models. The use of web-based platforms like node.js and protocols such as OPC UA offers the ability to automate transferring information about anomalies, root causes and nominal data directly between cloud-based services and condition monitoring systems on the shop floor. To conclude, a validation is accomplished within a case study on a flexible handling unit.

Gaining a better understanding of human–computer interaction in multiple-goal environments, such as driving, is critical as people increasingly use information technology to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously. Extensive research shows that decision biases can be utilized as effective cues to guide user interaction in single-goal environments. This article is a first step toward understanding the effect of decision biases in multiple-goal environments. This study analyzed data from a field experiment during which a comparison was made between drivers’ decisions on parking lots in a single-goal environment and drivers’ decisions in a multiple-goal environment when being exposed to the default option bias. The article shows that the default option bias is effective in multiple-goal environments. The results have important implications for the design of human–computer interaction in multiple-goal environments.

This work introduces a Performance Model Management Repository (PMMR) for component-based enterprise applications. A PMMR is a central server that allows managing performance model components in corporate environments. A key challenge when using performance models in such environments is to distribute, update and maintain them. Especially, when software components represented in performance models are under the control of different teams in an organization. Additional problems arise as soon as release cycles for their components are not synchronized. A PMMR helps to address these challenges by introducing a central repository in which different performance model component versions can be managed and maintained. Such capabilities support the collaboration of distributed teams as they can manage their performance model components independently from each other. Performance models of specific component versions can be combined into one performance model as required for the current performance evaluation. We propose to build such a PMMR using the capabilities provided by the Palladio Component Model (PCM) as meta-model and the EMFStore as underlying versioning repository.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review of papers published in the proceedings of the International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE) and its predecessors. It provides an overview of prevailing topics within the community over time. We look at research and contribution facets that have been used to address these topics. Trends are outlined in terms of evaluation methods to validate contributions. The results are complemented with a geographical and organizational dimension. The paper concludes with a look at the top ten contributing countries and organizations for this purpose.

Performance models assist capacity management and planning for large-scale enterprise applications by predicting their performance for different workloads and hardware environments. Manually creating these models often outweighs their benefits. Automatic performance model generators have been introduced to facilitate the model creation. These generators often use custom monitoring solutions to generate the required input data for the model creation. In contrast, standardized application performance management (APM) solutions are used in industry to control performance metrics for productive systems. This work presents the integration of industry standard APM solutions with a performance model generation framework. We apply the integration concepts using the APM solution Dynatrace and a performance model generation framework for Palladio Component Models (PCM).

Product service systems (PSS) are bundles of physical technological elements and service elements that are integrated to solve customer problems. In practice, most components of PSS are developed independently from each other, which leads to problems with coordination of development activities and integration of PSS components. Therefore, an integrated requirements engineering for PSS is needed that deals with the involvement of developers from product engineering, software engineering, and service engineering, as well as the inherent complexity of the PSS and the development process. In a case study with the development department of a PSS provider, we analyzed requirements documents and conducted expert interviews. We identified problems in the development, for example, that requirements on different levels of abstraction are intermingled, rationales for requirements are missing, and the concretization of requirements is unclear. To solve these problems, we propose a requirements data model (RDMod) for requirements to PSS. An RDMod describes different types of requirements and the relations between them. Thus, it is a scheme for the concretization of the requirements, which especially addresses the problems of structuring the requirements, enabling traceability, and finding conflicts. We then used an analytical evaluation, a feature-based evaluation and a retrospective application with requirements analysts of the industry partner. In a joint workshop, we specified requirements for a PSS with the RDMod. In structured interviews, we analyzed the perceived advantages of the RDMod. The experts confirmed that the RDMod is applicable in their development and it provides a clear structure for the requirements and therefore helps overcoming the identified problems.

Designing computer-human interfaces for multiple-goal environments is challenging because people pursue multiple goals with conflicting priorities. Safety-critical environments, such as driving, aggravate the need for a more nuanced understanding of interfaces that may reconcile conflicting tasks. Speech interfaces are prime examples of such interfaces. In this article, we investigate how design variations of an in-vehicle speech interface influence performance of a primary task (driving safely) and a secondary task (e-mailing). In a controlled experiment, we test the performance implications of using single computer-generated Text-To-Speech (TTS) voice and multiple matching TTS voices while users respond to e-mails with varying levels of complexity during driving. Our results indicate that the number of voices used has a significant effect on both driving performance and handling e-mail--related activities. We discuss potentially unintended consequences of making the interface too naturalistic and too engaging for the driver and conclude with theoretical and practical implications.

Social connectedness is an indicator of the extent to which people can realize various network benefits and is therefore a source of social capital. Using the case of Twitter, a theoretical model of social connectedness based on the functional and structural characteristics of people's communication behavior within an online social network is developed and tested. The study investigates how social presence, social awareness, and social connectedness influence each other, and when and for whom the effects of social presence and social awareness are most strongly related to positive outcomes in social connectedness. Specifically, the study looks at the concurrent direct and moderating effect of two structural constructs characterizing people's online social network: network size and frequency of usage. The research model is tested using data (n = 121) collected from two sources: (a) an online survey of Twitter users and (b) their usage data collected directly from Twitter. Results indicate that social awareness, social presence, and usage frequency have a direct effect on social connectedness, whereas network size has a moderating effect. Social presence is found to partially mediate the relationship between social awareness and social connectedness. The findings of the analysis are used to outline design implications for online social networks from a human–computer interaction perspective.

Advancements in information and communication technology make new IT-based services in the tertiary scope of a car driver (short: automotive services) possible like e-mail and social networking and are highly demanded by customers. However, if not well designed, these services have a potential to dangerously distract drivers from their main driving task and therefore increase the risk of road accidents. Hence, we studied the effects of an in-car e-mail client on drivers' distraction. A low fidelity driving simulator was used to test 32 participants on their degree of distraction while driving. In this paper we present the findings of this evaluation. Our results show that when designing complex automotive services like an e-mail client one of the crucial factors besides the user interface is to keep the provided content simple and well structured thus reducing the amount of driver's distraction considerably.

Information Systems Research (“Wirtschaftsinformatik”) basically follows two research approaches: the behavioristic approach and the design-oriented approach. In this memorandum, 10 authors propose principles of design-oriented information systems research. Moreover, the memorandum is supported by 111 full professors from the German-speaking scientific community, who with their signature advocate the principles specified therein.

Agile software development methods and free/libre open source development have been two embracing movements in the software industry for more than a decade. However, little is known about the composition of both while today a variety of studies provide us with key characteristics of each one. The study extracts the similarities and differences of both topics by means of an extensive literature review focusing on teams as research unit. Furthermore this study investigates two agile software development teams in an open source organization based on an explorative research design. The focus is on the empirical identification of success and failure in the application of agile methods in teams with open source background, structure and characteristics and in comparison with the literature findings. This study is still in progress, however first results as well as the methodology will be presented hereafter.

Exchanging and analyzing ideas across different software tools and repositories is needed to implement the concepts of open innovation and holistic innovation management. However, a precise and formal definition for the concept of an idea is hard to obtain. In this paper, the authors introduce an ontology to represent ideas. This ontology provides a common language to foster interoperability between tools and to support the idea life cycle. Through the use of an ontology, additional benefits like semantic reasoning and automatic analysis become available. Our proposed ontology captures both a core idea concept that covers the ‘heart of the idea’ and further concepts to support collaborative idea development, including rating, discussing, tagging, and grouping ideas. This modular approach allows the idea ontology to be complemented by additional concepts like customized evaluation methods. The authors present a case study that demonstrates how the ontology can be used to achieve interoperability between innovation tools and to answer questions relevant for innovation managers that demonstrate the advantages of semantic reasoning.

Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME) is a research area with significant relevance to research and practice. Networked systems of web services are a field of service science that enjoys growing interest from researchers. The complex and dynamic environment of these service ecosystems poses new requirements on quality management that are insufficiently addressed by current approaches that focus mainly on the technical aspects of quality. This focus is a severe limitation for the development of service networks because it neglects perceived service quality from the viewpoint of service consumers. In this paper we propose a reference model for quality management in service ecosystems. This reference model is linked in particular to innovation and new service development. Towards the end we propose premises for the implementation and outline a future research agenda.

In this paper, we describe a prototype that allows users to receive news on his NFC enabled mobile phone by touching a poster on the go.