Dr. Douglas Dean | Brigham Young University (original) (raw)
Papers by Dr. Douglas Dean
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Usability flaws found in the later stages of the software development process can be extremely co... more Usability flaws found in the later stages of the software development process can be extremely costly to resolve. Accordingly, usability evaluation (UE) is an important, albeit usually expensive, part of development. We report on how the inexpensive UE method of heuristic evaluation (HE) can benefit from collaborative software (CSW), implicit coordination, and principles from collaboration engineering. In our study, 439 novice participants were trained in HE methods and then performed HE. Our results show that traditional nominal HE groups can experience implicit coordination through the collaborative software features of group memory and group awareness. One of the key results is that CSW groups had less duplication of effort than traditional nominal groups; these differences were magnified as group size increased from three to six members. Furthermore, because they coordinated less, traditional nominal groups performed more work in the overall process of HE. We attribute the reduction in duplication for CSW-supported groups to the implicit coordination available to them; CSW-supported groups could see violations input by other group members, but could not directly discuss the violations. These findings not only show the power of implicit coordination in groups, but should dramatically change how HE is conducted. These results may also extend to other evaluation tasks, such as software inspection and usability assessment tasks.
Communications of the Association for Information Systems
In this dynamic age of corporate acquisitions, mergers, and enterprise integration, decisions con... more In this dynamic age of corporate acquisitions, mergers, and enterprise integration, decisions concerning the evaluation and selection of information systems require comparing the functionality of each candidate system to the intended business activities that it will support. However, consensus on the definition of business activities used to support this evaluation is rare. What is needed is a referent business activity model that defines the business in a manner to serve as the basis for determining how well each candidate system supports the business. This paper 1) defines the referent business activity model concept; 2) provides an example from a case study of business activity modeling; and 3) demonstrates the utility of this model in defining functional requirements for selecting the optimal system from a set of 30 legacy systems to be used throughout the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Twenty-nine DoD business experts were able to construct a referent business activity model consisting of 65 business activities organized in a hierarchical manner. These activities served as the foundation for a questionnaire of 165 questions used to select three information systems out of the over 300 known systems that supported one or more of the 65 business activities. This experience demonstrated the feasibility of achieving consensus among business experts on one referent business model. It also demonstrated the utility of that model in evaluating legacy systems. This case provides a detailed example that business experts can bridge the gulf of ambiguous systems requirements that exists between real-world business activities and the information systems that support them.
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support ... more Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support idea generation. In studies that go beyond merely enumerating ideas, researchers typically select one or more of the following three constructs, which are often operationalized as the dependent variable(s): 1) idea quality, 2) idea novelty, which is sometimes referred to as rarity or unusualness, and 3) idea creativity. It has been chronically problematic to compare findings across studies because these evaluation constructs have been variously defined and the constructs have been sampled in different ways. For example, some researchers term an idea 'creative' if it is novel, while others consider an idea to be creative only if it is also applicable, effective, and implementable. This paper examines 90 studies on creativity and idea generation. Within the creativity studies considered here, the novelty of ideas was always measured, but in
Journal of Management Information Systems
and a Ph.D. and MBA from Henley Management College. She has worked in the computer industry as an... more and a Ph.D. and MBA from Henley Management College. She has worked in the computer industry as an analyst/programmer and consultant. Her research interests include creativity, innovation management, teams, group support systems, and information technology for collaborative work.
Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support ... more Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support idea generation. In studies that go beyond merely enumerating ideas, researchers typically select one or more of the following three constructs, which are often operationalized as the dependent variable(s): 1) idea quality, 2) idea novelty, which is sometimes referred to as rarity or unusualness, and 3) idea creativity. It has been chronically problematic to compare findings across studies because these evaluation constructs have been variously defined and the constructs have been sampled in different ways. For example, some researchers term an idea 'creative' if it is novel, while others consider an idea to be creative only if it is also applicable, effective, and implementable. This paper examines 90 studies on creativity and idea generation. Within the creativity studies considered here, the novelty of ideas was always measured, but in
The purpose of this research was to explore how technology can be used to teach technological ski... more The purpose of this research was to explore how technology can be used to teach technological skills and to determine what benefit flipping the classroom might have for students taking an introductory-level college course on spreadsheets in terms of student achievement and satisfaction with the class. A pretest posttest quasi-experimental mixed methods design was utilized to determine any differences in student achievement that might be associated with the instructional approach being used. In addition, the scalability of each approach was evaluated along with students' perceptions of these approaches to determine the affect each intervention might have on a student's motivation to learn. The simulation-based instruction tested in this study was found to be an extremely scalable solution but less effective than the regular classroom and flipped classroom approaches in terms of student learning. While students did demonstrate learning gains, the process focus of the simulation's instruction and assessments frustrated students and decreased their motivation to learn. Students' attitudes towards the topic, their willingness to refer the course to others, and the likelihood that they would take another course like this were considerably lower than those of students in the flipped or regular classroom situations. The results of this study support the conclusion that a technology enhanced flipped classroom was both effective and scalable; it better facilitated learning than the simulation-based training and students found this approach to be more motivating in that it allowed for greater differentiation of instruction.
ABSTRACT This paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement du... more ABSTRACT This paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during systems development projects. The Collaborative Software Engineering Methodology is presented as a framework that contains mechanisms to support three-layers of user involvement: selected user representatives, user groups, and the broader user community. Productivity and user participation of traditional group meetings have been limited by chauffeured facilitation and by support of single-user tools designed for analysts rather than users. The paper introduces Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) modeling tools designed to allow users to work in parallel to contribute directly during meetings. These tools are easy to use while containing support features traditionally associated with CASE tools. The methodology includes a sequence of requirements abstractions that users engage directly including activity models, data models, scenarios, system use cases, and prototypes. This methodology is designed to help organizations respond to today’s rapidly changing information processing needs.
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1994
is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He receiv... more is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in accounting from the University of Utah in 1987 and a Master of Accountancy with an emphasis in Information System Consulting from Brigham Young University in 1989. He facilitates group modeling and business process re-engineering sessions. His research interests include electronic meeting support of business modeling, re-engineering, systems analysis and design, group elicitation of information systems requirements, activity-based costing, and software estimation. JAMES D. LEE is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in accounting from Brigham Young University in 1985 and a Master of Accountancy with an emphasis in Information System Consulting from Brigham Young University in 1989. His research interests include systems analysis and design, database management, electronic meeting support for data modeling in support of business process reengineering activities, software engineering, and activity-based costing. He has developed software to support process modeling and data modeling in a group environment. RICHARD E. ORWIG is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana in 1975. He received an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona in 1990. His research interests include artificial intelligence approaches to indexing information for organizational memory and the collaborative approaches to building and using project memory. His facilitation experience includes hundreds of hours in electronic meeting support of modeling, strategic planning, and other group problem solving.
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1997
The paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during syste... more The paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during systems development projects. The Collaborative Software Engineering Methodology is presented as a framework that contains mechanisms to support three layers of user involvement: ...
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006
Use of effective and efficient collaboration is important for organizations to survive and thrive... more Use of effective and efficient collaboration is important for organizations to survive and thrive in today's competitive world. This paper presents quality constructs that can be used to evaluate the success of a collaboration process. Two types of collaboration processes are identified: 1) processes that are designed and executed by the same facilitator who designed them, and 2) processes that are designed by a collaboration engineer and executed many times by practitioners. Accordingly, the quality constructs have been divided in two categories. Constructs within the first category apply to both types of collaboration processes. This category includes constructs such as process effectiveness and efficiency, results quantity, results quality, satisfaction, and usability. The second category contains constructs that are useful from the perspective of the collaboration engineering approach: repeatable collaboration processes executed by practitioners. The three constructs important for this perspective are reusability, predictability, and transferability.
ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, 1997
37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the, 2004
Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1998
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006
Abstract A well designed collaborative intervention (CI) can significantly improve group efficien... more Abstract A well designed collaborative intervention (CI) can significantly improve group efficiency and effectiveness for many group processes. Appropriate guidelines are needed to help determine whether to invest in the design and implementation of a CI. This paper examines project and task criteria that are conducive to the successful development and implementation of CIs. Conducive project characteristics include the following: 1) clearly defined outcomes, 2) important but inefficient processes that are repeated multiple times, ...
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Usability flaws found in the later stages of the software development process can be extremely co... more Usability flaws found in the later stages of the software development process can be extremely costly to resolve. Accordingly, usability evaluation (UE) is an important, albeit usually expensive, part of development. We report on how the inexpensive UE method of heuristic evaluation (HE) can benefit from collaborative software (CSW), implicit coordination, and principles from collaboration engineering. In our study, 439 novice participants were trained in HE methods and then performed HE. Our results show that traditional nominal HE groups can experience implicit coordination through the collaborative software features of group memory and group awareness. One of the key results is that CSW groups had less duplication of effort than traditional nominal groups; these differences were magnified as group size increased from three to six members. Furthermore, because they coordinated less, traditional nominal groups performed more work in the overall process of HE. We attribute the reduction in duplication for CSW-supported groups to the implicit coordination available to them; CSW-supported groups could see violations input by other group members, but could not directly discuss the violations. These findings not only show the power of implicit coordination in groups, but should dramatically change how HE is conducted. These results may also extend to other evaluation tasks, such as software inspection and usability assessment tasks.
Communications of the Association for Information Systems
In this dynamic age of corporate acquisitions, mergers, and enterprise integration, decisions con... more In this dynamic age of corporate acquisitions, mergers, and enterprise integration, decisions concerning the evaluation and selection of information systems require comparing the functionality of each candidate system to the intended business activities that it will support. However, consensus on the definition of business activities used to support this evaluation is rare. What is needed is a referent business activity model that defines the business in a manner to serve as the basis for determining how well each candidate system supports the business. This paper 1) defines the referent business activity model concept; 2) provides an example from a case study of business activity modeling; and 3) demonstrates the utility of this model in defining functional requirements for selecting the optimal system from a set of 30 legacy systems to be used throughout the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Twenty-nine DoD business experts were able to construct a referent business activity model consisting of 65 business activities organized in a hierarchical manner. These activities served as the foundation for a questionnaire of 165 questions used to select three information systems out of the over 300 known systems that supported one or more of the 65 business activities. This experience demonstrated the feasibility of achieving consensus among business experts on one referent business model. It also demonstrated the utility of that model in evaluating legacy systems. This case provides a detailed example that business experts can bridge the gulf of ambiguous systems requirements that exists between real-world business activities and the information systems that support them.
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support ... more Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support idea generation. In studies that go beyond merely enumerating ideas, researchers typically select one or more of the following three constructs, which are often operationalized as the dependent variable(s): 1) idea quality, 2) idea novelty, which is sometimes referred to as rarity or unusualness, and 3) idea creativity. It has been chronically problematic to compare findings across studies because these evaluation constructs have been variously defined and the constructs have been sampled in different ways. For example, some researchers term an idea 'creative' if it is novel, while others consider an idea to be creative only if it is also applicable, effective, and implementable. This paper examines 90 studies on creativity and idea generation. Within the creativity studies considered here, the novelty of ideas was always measured, but in
Journal of Management Information Systems
and a Ph.D. and MBA from Henley Management College. She has worked in the computer industry as an... more and a Ph.D. and MBA from Henley Management College. She has worked in the computer industry as an analyst/programmer and consultant. Her research interests include creativity, innovation management, teams, group support systems, and information technology for collaborative work.
Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support ... more Researchers and practitioners have an abiding interest in improving tools and methods to support idea generation. In studies that go beyond merely enumerating ideas, researchers typically select one or more of the following three constructs, which are often operationalized as the dependent variable(s): 1) idea quality, 2) idea novelty, which is sometimes referred to as rarity or unusualness, and 3) idea creativity. It has been chronically problematic to compare findings across studies because these evaluation constructs have been variously defined and the constructs have been sampled in different ways. For example, some researchers term an idea 'creative' if it is novel, while others consider an idea to be creative only if it is also applicable, effective, and implementable. This paper examines 90 studies on creativity and idea generation. Within the creativity studies considered here, the novelty of ideas was always measured, but in
The purpose of this research was to explore how technology can be used to teach technological ski... more The purpose of this research was to explore how technology can be used to teach technological skills and to determine what benefit flipping the classroom might have for students taking an introductory-level college course on spreadsheets in terms of student achievement and satisfaction with the class. A pretest posttest quasi-experimental mixed methods design was utilized to determine any differences in student achievement that might be associated with the instructional approach being used. In addition, the scalability of each approach was evaluated along with students' perceptions of these approaches to determine the affect each intervention might have on a student's motivation to learn. The simulation-based instruction tested in this study was found to be an extremely scalable solution but less effective than the regular classroom and flipped classroom approaches in terms of student learning. While students did demonstrate learning gains, the process focus of the simulation's instruction and assessments frustrated students and decreased their motivation to learn. Students' attitudes towards the topic, their willingness to refer the course to others, and the likelihood that they would take another course like this were considerably lower than those of students in the flipped or regular classroom situations. The results of this study support the conclusion that a technology enhanced flipped classroom was both effective and scalable; it better facilitated learning than the simulation-based training and students found this approach to be more motivating in that it allowed for greater differentiation of instruction.
ABSTRACT This paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement du... more ABSTRACT This paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during systems development projects. The Collaborative Software Engineering Methodology is presented as a framework that contains mechanisms to support three-layers of user involvement: selected user representatives, user groups, and the broader user community. Productivity and user participation of traditional group meetings have been limited by chauffeured facilitation and by support of single-user tools designed for analysts rather than users. The paper introduces Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) modeling tools designed to allow users to work in parallel to contribute directly during meetings. These tools are easy to use while containing support features traditionally associated with CASE tools. The methodology includes a sequence of requirements abstractions that users engage directly including activity models, data models, scenarios, system use cases, and prototypes. This methodology is designed to help organizations respond to today’s rapidly changing information processing needs.
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1994
is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He receiv... more is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in accounting from the University of Utah in 1987 and a Master of Accountancy with an emphasis in Information System Consulting from Brigham Young University in 1989. He facilitates group modeling and business process re-engineering sessions. His research interests include electronic meeting support of business modeling, re-engineering, systems analysis and design, group elicitation of information systems requirements, activity-based costing, and software estimation. JAMES D. LEE is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in accounting from Brigham Young University in 1985 and a Master of Accountancy with an emphasis in Information System Consulting from Brigham Young University in 1989. His research interests include systems analysis and design, database management, electronic meeting support for data modeling in support of business process reengineering activities, software engineering, and activity-based costing. He has developed software to support process modeling and data modeling in a group environment. RICHARD E. ORWIG is a doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana in 1975. He received an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona in 1990. His research interests include artificial intelligence approaches to indexing information for organizational memory and the collaborative approaches to building and using project memory. His facilitation experience includes hundreds of hours in electronic meeting support of modeling, strategic planning, and other group problem solving.
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1997
The paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during syste... more The paper presents results of ongoing research to support effective user involvement during systems development projects. The Collaborative Software Engineering Methodology is presented as a framework that contains mechanisms to support three layers of user involvement: ...
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006
Use of effective and efficient collaboration is important for organizations to survive and thrive... more Use of effective and efficient collaboration is important for organizations to survive and thrive in today's competitive world. This paper presents quality constructs that can be used to evaluate the success of a collaboration process. Two types of collaboration processes are identified: 1) processes that are designed and executed by the same facilitator who designed them, and 2) processes that are designed by a collaboration engineer and executed many times by practitioners. Accordingly, the quality constructs have been divided in two categories. Constructs within the first category apply to both types of collaboration processes. This category includes constructs such as process effectiveness and efficiency, results quantity, results quality, satisfaction, and usability. The second category contains constructs that are useful from the perspective of the collaboration engineering approach: repeatable collaboration processes executed by practitioners. The three constructs important for this perspective are reusability, predictability, and transferability.
ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, 1997
37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the, 2004
Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1998
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006
Abstract A well designed collaborative intervention (CI) can significantly improve group efficien... more Abstract A well designed collaborative intervention (CI) can significantly improve group efficiency and effectiveness for many group processes. Appropriate guidelines are needed to help determine whether to invest in the design and implementation of a CI. This paper examines project and task criteria that are conducive to the successful development and implementation of CIs. Conducive project characteristics include the following: 1) clearly defined outcomes, 2) important but inefficient processes that are repeated multiple times, ...