written: 2005 - work placement report
St Andrew´s Hospital: Systems, Services, and Software
Abstract:Founded nearly one hundred and seventy years ago St Andrew´s Group of Hospitals has been at the forefront of technology in both its clinical and non-clinical services. Providing over ten specialist mental health services, St Andrew´s Hospital is spread across six key clinical campuses and a number of non-clinical buildings. Readers will be introduced to the history of St Andrew´s Hospital covering key events building up to its present status as one of the UK´s leading providers of specialist health care. Established on the top floor of the facilities building the Information Systems department provides technical support for all departments and clinical divisions throughout the site. The team is divided into two groups, Systems and Information (or Developers); this report intends to explore the people and projects involved with this key department and aims to highlight the systems and software used for strategic and operational business processes. Particular emphasis will be on the resource sharing internal network (Intranet) deployed throughout St Andrew´s Hospital, this will be investigated through looking at the software framework used to support and manage this vital system.
Further notes: Good resource for prospective employers. Upon special request a hard-copy complete with a three month work placement log can be provided detailing activities and achievements together with software design / development screenshots and sample code.
written: 2005
Optimising Organisational Knowledge Management using Intelligent Software Agents: Is Intelligent Agency an effective means of optimising knowledge management?
Abstract:Businesses today can share information very easily, strategic management information systems to support this have existed for decades, but what about knowledge, how do we share knowledge using the techniques and methodologies of today? Knowledge management systems aim to answer this question, their purpose is to provide a framework to enable both explicit and tacit knowledge to be stored, disseminated, and expanded to encourage personal knowledge growth. However despite present hype and development in this field, businesses are still failing to deliver systems that support the delicate social dynamics present among teams of workers and groups collaborations. Knowledge management systems struggle to achieve true autonomy, complex systems still require a level of human supervision. These business oriented problems evident in knowledge management systems are now being addressed by efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. Intelligent software agents are self reliant decision making units capable of operating autonomously and posses social abilities that enable them to collaborate with other agents. Due to their encapsulated net-centric nature, intelligent agents are suitable mediators for knowledge sharing and management. Agents can be easily incorporated into existing knowledge management frameworks and operate efficiently in distributed environments.
written: 2006 - BSc Final Project.
Project Management Guidelines: Approach to Content Management System Selection
Abstract:Identify your needs, formalise your requirements, decide upon your business case, shortlist your vendors, evaluate your vendors, select your solution, and deploy your solution. These activities essentially outline the proposed project management lifecycle approach, however one major ongoing activity was not mentioned – project management. The project management activity will be the first phase performed when starting the lifecycle, its aim is to regulate and monitor all the variables associated with the mentioned project activities. Change management, project team and personnel management, and communication and coordination are the main considerations during the project management process.
Building a competent project team is the second phase of the recommended guidelines and is essential if the prospective solution is to effectively fit the existing needs of the business. The project team controls the momentum of the project and will support its development from initial planning to solution rollout, training and support.
Before submitting a project tender and selecting between competing vendors, the guidelines proposed here recommend performing a comprehensive analysis of the business, its needs and potential weaknesses concerning existing information systems and physical systems in use. The business analysis phase forms the largest phase of the proposed lifecycle and will involve a firm commitment to all members of the project team. The predominant theme for this phase is communication and involvement, businesses needs can be best represented from those immediately effected by change – the workers (referred to as service users). While existing documentation, systems and policy are all important components of a detailed analysis these guidelines focus on meeting the service users to elicit business needs and later form accurate requirement statements.
Phase four of the proposed guidelines involves requirements definition. The requirement types explored in this section are grouped into two broad categories, business requirements and technical requirements. Business requirements represent those key statements derived from the collected business needs and relate to the logic and processes required to perform successful workflow for example. In contrast technical requirements refer to concise technical capabilities or features required in the proposed solution. These statements will relate to software and hardware attributes and will generally be more abstract in nature and as discussed, less useful to larger organisations where the need to convey business processes is more important.
written: 2006 - based on ficticious scenario
Committing to Business Continuity Planning: Exploring the risks, needs, and benefits of an effective contingency plan for St Peter´s Group of Hospitals.
Extract:Business continuity planning begins through conducting a business impact analysis of the entire hospital, this provides St Peter´s Hospital with a means to identify and formally document and communicate critical business processes, services and interdependencies at risk from potential threats.
It is the responsibility of senior management to nurture good security practice throughout the hospital culture, encouraging the development of a security conscience amongst hospital staff. Committing to a business continuity standard provides management with an effective vehicle for the delivery of training that can be diffused at all levels of the workforce.