Artificial neural networks (ANNs) denote a popular class of models used within machine learning. An ANN typically consists of multiple layers of simple processing units, so-called artificial neurons. Most current ANNs involve multiple layers of these processing units, hence the term deep learning is sometimes applied to describe them. Historically, they emerged from a neurophysiological inspiration to express the processing of mammal neurons in mathematical terms (cf. McCulloch and Pitts 1943). There exists a plethora of different approaches to the design of ANNs, some variations include the number of artificial neurons in a layer, the activation function applied, or the connection of artificial neurons between layers. From these variations have emerged several classes of ANN architectures, such as Multi-Layered Perceptrons (MLPs), Generative Adversial Networks (GANs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), or Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). It is conspicuous many papers, which discuss a particular ANN architecture,represent them in some diagrammatic form. This diagrammatic representation, however, does not follow any unified structure. This results in two challenges: First, ANNs are not visually comparable through an analysis of their diagrammatic representations. Second, the depicted diagrams of ANNs might lack relevant information, overseen by the original researchers. In short: It appears that the depiction of ANNs lack a conceptual modeling language.

The present thesis should adress this gap. Therefore, it is relevant to expound on the foundations and variations of ANNs as well as to explore the fundamentals of conceptual modeling languages. Based on an analysis of the design, evaluation, and application of ANNs, requirements for a corresponding modeling method should be derived. Thereupon, these insights should be used to specify a conceptual modeling method for ANNs.

Introductory Literature:

• Aggarwal CC (2018) Neural Networks and Deep Learning: A Textbook. Springer International Publishing: Cham
• Du K-L, Swamy MNS (2014) Neural Networks and Statistical Learning. Springer-Verlag: London
• Frank U (2013) Domain-Specific Modeling Languages – Requirements Analysis and Design Guidelines. In: Reinhartz-Berger I, Sturm A, Clark T, Wand Y, Cohen S, Bettin J (eds.) Domain Engineering: Product Lines, Conceptual Models, and Languages. Springer: Cham, pp. 133-157
• Kelleher JD (2019) Deep Learning. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, London
• McCulloch WS, Pitts W (1943) A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5:115-133

Vacant master thesis seeks to investigate and assess how municipal enterprises’ innovation culture influences the effectiveness of digital innovation activity

Against the backdrop of climate change and digitalization, cities all over the world are facing the need for a radical transformation towards “smartness” (Gimpel et al., 2021). To meet the increasing amount of customer expectations that cities are facing, municipal enterprises – such as electricity suppliers or waste management services – are continuously working on modernizing their digital service offerings and business models (Hosseini et al., 2018; Mora et al., 2019). Sometimes those offerings represent the replacement of analog tasks with digital tasks, for example, online appointment scheduling or the application of IoT sensors to enhance processes or estimate waiting times[1]. Such novel digital services are often the result of digital innovation activities (Hjalmarsson & Rudmark, 2012). Those innovation activities may be internally and externally driven, and in light of the smart city context, the complexity of the innovation process is increasing (Hjalmarsson & Rudmark, 2012).

This is among the reasons why digital innovations are increasingly critical to the success of municipal enterprises. Yet, the municipal sector could be characterized as rather non-innovative and reluctant to change (Hawlitschek, 2021). While the need for digital innovation is widely acknowledged, implementing the right measures (e.g., competence building, structural adjustments, new processes, and new forms of collaboration) is still a challenge to municipal enterprises. Further, measuring innovativeness is a challenging task (Hinings et al., 2018; Van Looy, 2021).

All those challenges as well as the rapid environmental developments are creating a very demanding situation for municipal companies, which are often characterized by highly bureaucratic processes, a strict matrix organization, and using static workflow processes that remain unchanged possibly even for decades. To this end, research finds that the innovation culture significantly impacts the degree of organizations’ innovativeness (Dobni, 2008; Dodge et al., 2017). However, less attention has been devoted to grasp the influence of municipal enterprises’ innovation culture on (digital) innovativeness. To address those challenges, municipal enterprises may benefit from a systematic approach to evaluate their innovation culture’s maturity level as well as degree of digital innovativeness and compare their maturity level to similar organizations.

To address this issue, we are looking for an engaged student who will address this topic within the scope of a master thesis. First, the student is expected to conduct a profound literature review and gather relevant findings from academia and practice. Further, those findings are to be extended by conducting interviews with representatives from German municipal enterprises to define and uncover the nature and relationships of municipal enterprises’ innovation culture and digital innovativeness. Subsequently, the student is expected to develop a measurement instrument (i.e., survey) that later allows measuring municipal enterprises’ innovation culture, its maturity level as well as its impact on the effectiveness of digital innovation activity.

References

Dobni, C. B. (2008). Measuring innovation culture in organizations: The development of a generalized innovation culture construct using exploratory factor analysis. European journal of innovation management.

Dodge, R., Dwyer, J., Witzeman, S., Neylon, S., & Taylor, S. (2017). The Role of Leadership in Innovation: A quantitative analysis of a large data set examines the relationship between organizational culture, leadership behaviors, and innovativeness. Research-Technology Management, 60(3), 22-29.

Gimpel, H., Graf-Drasch, V., Hawlitschek, F., & Neumeier, K. (2021). Designing smart and sustainable irrigation: A case study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 315, 128048.

Hawlitschek, F. (2021). Interview with Benjamin Scheffler on “The future of waste management”. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 63(2), 207-211.

Hinings, B., Gegenhuber, T., & Greenwood, R. (2018). Digital innovation and transformation: An institutional perspective. Information and Organization, 28(1), 52-61.

Hjalmarsson, A., & Rudmark, D. (2012). Designing digital innovation contests. In International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems (pp. 9-27). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Hosseini, S., Frank, L., Fridgen, G., & Heger, S. (2018). Do not forget about smart towns. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 60(3), 243-257.

Mora, L., Deakin, M., & Reid, A. (2019). Strategic principles for smart city development: A multiple case study analysis of European best practices. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 142, 70-97.

Van Looy, A. (2021). A quantitative and qualitative study of the link between business process management and digital innovation. Information & Management, 58(2), 103413.

[1] Example: www.wbd-innovativ.de/projekte/intelligenter-recyclinghof

The topic of data protection is receiving an increasing importance. In this sense, European organisations need to comply to a new legal framework: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Hereby, practisioners and researchers are confronted with the challenge of implementing GDPR compliance under the consideration of technical and organisational responsabilites. However, there are no standards existing for becoming GDPR compliant. Therefore, the approach of enterprise modelling (EM) may to serve for support since it allows for the integration of different perspectives, such as law and data protection. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to prepare a modelling method in support of GDPR compliance. Hereby, it is remarkable that the GDPR offers concepts that can be reconstructed in semiformal concepts of EM approaches. Furtherly, it is possible to define process models that serve to guide for the application of these conepts. This contribution is dedicated to pracitioners and
researchers that are interested in the implementation of GDPR compliance in organisations. Future research might focus on elaborating the scope of the method. 

Das Thema des Datenschutzes erfährt eine immer größer werdende Bedeutung. Eurpäische Unternehmen müssen sich der Datenschutzgrundverordnung (DSGVO) halten. Dabei stehen Praktiker und Forscher vor der Herausforderung, der Einhaltung der DSGVO Vorgaben unter Berücksichtigung von technischen und organisatorischen Verantwortlichkeiten umzusetzen. Es existieren jedoch keine Standards, um DSGVO-konform zu werden. Hierfür kann der Ansatz der Unternehmensmodellierung ein Unterstützungsangebot bieten, da er die Integration verschiedener Perspektiven, wie Recht und Datenschutz, ermöglicht. In diesem Zusammenhang ist es das Ziel der Arbeit, eine Modellierungsmethode zur Unterstützung der DSGVO-Konformität zu erarbeiten. Dabei ist bemerkenswert, dass die DSGVO Konzepte bietet, die in semi-formalen Konzepten von Unternehmensmodellierungs-Ansätzen rekonstruiert werden können. Darüber hinaus ist es möglich, Prozessmodelle zu definieren, die als Leitfaden für die Anwendung dieser Konzepte dienen. Dieser Beitrag richtet sich an Praktiker und Forscher, die an der Umsetzung der DSGVO-Konformität in Unternehmen interessiert sind. Zukünftige Forschung könnte sich auf die Ausarbeitung des Umfangs konzentrieren. 

Motivation

Mit der zunehmenden gesellschaftlichen Verbreitung algorithmischer Bewertungsverfahren (bspw. bei Produktvergleichen oder -empfehlungen) werden sowohl in der Wissenschaft als auch in der Öffentlichkeit Forderungen nach mehr Transparenz solcher Verfahren vertreten. Neben einzelnen Absichtserklärungen und Initiativen (u.a. IEEE P7001), hat nun auch die EU-Kommission Leitlinien vorgelegt, welche Online-Plattformen zu mehr Transparenz der Bewertungsverfahren für betroffene Organisationen und Nutzer fordert (Europäische Kommission 2019 und 2020). Während diese Forderungen intuitiv durchaus nachvollziehbar erscheinen, ergibt ein Blick auf die Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten ein ambivalentes Bild: Neben der Diskussionen zum Gegenstand des Algorithmus und dem Wesen der Transparenz (Seaver 2019), weisen tiefergehende Reflektionen auf die Berücksichtigung organisatorischer Aspekte (wie den an der Entwicklung beteiligten Gruppen und deren Interessen) hin, die im Sinne eines erweiterten Transparenzverständnisses notwendig scheint (Seaver 2019, Hagendorff 2019). Gerade dieser Hinweis auf eine gemeinsame Betrachtung organisatorischer und informationstechnischer Aspekte lässt die Unternehmensmodellierung als attraktives Werkzeug erscheinen, wird sie doch schon seit langem zur Betrachtung und Analyse des Einsatzes von IT in Organisationen in der Literatur diskutiert und auch genutzt.

Mit dieser Abschlussarbeit werden Sie gebeten ein Transparenzverständnis zu entwickeln und zu konzeptualisieren, welches über technische und einseitige Perspektiven (bspw. Offenlegung von Quellcode, Darstellung mathematischer Algorithmen) hinausgeht und organisatorische Aspekte umfasst. Im Anschluss leiten Sie aus diesem Transparenzverständnis Anforderungen an konzeptuelle und / oder Unternehmensmodelle ab. Darauf aufbauend untersuchen Sie bestehende Ansätze der konzeptuellen und Unternehmensmodellierung um zu einer differenzierten Aussage hinsichtlich der Eignung der Unternehmensmodellierung zur Förderung von Transparenz zu gelangen. Es steht Ihnen dabei frei die Arbeit auf bestimmte Arten von Algorithmen (bspw. induktive Verfahren, Graphen) zu fokussieren oder das Transparenzverständnis an bestimmte organisatorische Aspekte zu binden (bspw. Einsatz der Algorithmen in Unternehmen mit Personal- oder Materialbeschaffung vs. Einsatz in der öffentlichen Verwaltung für die Bearbeitung öffentlicher Aufgaben oder Rollen wie Benutzer oder Betroffene).

Einstiegsliteratur

Ananny, M., & Crawford, K. (2018). Seeing without knowing: Limitations of the transparency ideal and its application to algorithmic accountability. new media & society, 20(3), 973-989.

Cardon, D. (2017). Den Algorithmus dekonstruieren. Vier Typen digitaler Informationsberechnung.

Cormen, T. H., Leiserson, C. E., Rivest, R., & Stein, C. (2017). Algorithmen-Eine Einführung. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Europäische Kommission (2019): REGULATION (EU) 2019/1150 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services

Europäische Kommission (2020): Guidelines on ranking transparency pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 - Shaping Europe’s digital future - European Commission. Available online at ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/guidelines-ranking-transparency-pursuant-regulation-eu-20191150, checked on 12/18/2020.

Seaver, N. (2019). Knowing algorithms. Digital STS, 412-422.

Hagendorff, T. (2019). Maschinelles Lernen und Diskriminierung: Probleme und Lösungsansätze. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 44(1), 53-66.

Hosseini, M., Shahri, A., Phalp, K., & Ali, R. (2018). Engineering transparency requirements: A modelling and analysis framework. Information Systems, 74, 3-22.

Kolleck, A., & Orwat, C. (2020). Mögliche Diskriminierung durch algorithmische Entscheidungssysteme und maschinelles Lernen–ein Überblick.

Motivation

Software engineering is based on the idea to develop a specification of a software system that satisfies certain requirements. To analyse requirements and to support the specification of software systems, conceptual models are of pivotal relevance. They do not only allow abstracting peculiarities of specific implementation issues away, they also bridge the gap between formal representations and domain languages. This traditional conception of software development is fundamentally challenged by machine learning approaches to automation. Instead of defining a problem specification, an inductive approach is taken to generate a system that is tested against a given set of problem instances. Such an approach seems especially appealing, because it allows the development of software without the need to develop costly conceptual models. However, while machine learning has produced impressive results in some areas such as image recognition, it is the question whether it can be applied to areas such as business information system where conceptual modeling is the approach of choice. This thesis targets an ambitious topic. Its aim is threefold, that is, to analyse whether there are problems that require either one or the other approach and how conceptual modelling and machine learning could support each other.

Literature

Brodie, M. L., Mylopoulos, J., & Schmidt, J. (Eds.) (1984). On Conceptual Modelling: Perspectives from Artificial Intelligence, Databases, and Programming Languages. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.

Domingos, P. (2017). The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Embley, D. W., & Thalheim, B. (Eds.) (2011). Handbook of Conceptual Modeling. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Murphy, K. P. (2012). Machine learning: A probabilistic perspective. Adaptive computation and machine learning series: MIT Press.

Frank, U. (2011). Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modelling: Background and Terminological Foundation (ICB Research Report No. 46). Retrieved from ICB University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen website: www.icb.uni-due.de/fileadmin/ICB/research/research_reports/ICB-Report-No46.pdf

Motivation

Universities need to respond to the challenges created by digitization and corresponding changes on the global markets for higher education. These challenges are not restricted to the creation of new teaching material, but comprise services and processes, and may even affect the nature of university degrees. For a university to successfully manage the required change, it is essential to apply a methodical approach that is based on an elaborate analysis of possibilities and thread – and that accounts chiefly for the potentials of information technology. This master thesis aims at adapting an existing method for enterprise modelling to the topic of university modelling. To this end, it is at first required to analyse peculiarities of universities that are not covered by enterprise modelling. Subsequently, an existing method for enterprise modelling is to be adapted to fit those specific needs. That will comprise generic frameworks, and the outline of additional language concepts. Finally, the method is to be validated through its exemplary application.

Literature

Brink, C. (2018). The Soul of a University: Why Excellence Is Not Enough. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (op. 2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in the time of brilliant technologies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Frank, U. (2011). Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modelling: Background and Terminological Foundation (ICB Research Report No. 46). Retrieved from ICB University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen website: www.icb.uni-due.de/fileadmin/ICB/research/research_reports/ICB-Report-No46.pdf

Frank, U. (2014). Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modeling: Foundational Concepts, Prospects and Future Research Challenges. Software & Systems Modeling, 13(3), 941–962.

Frank, U. (2013). Domain-Specific Modeling Languages - Requirements Analysis and Design Guidelines. In Iris Reinhartz-Berger, Aron Sturm, Tony Clark, Yair Wand, Sholom Cohen, & Jorn Bettin (Eds.), Domain Engineering: Product Lines, Conceptual Models, and Languages (pp. 133–157). Springer.

Motivation

Reference models are conceptual models which focus commonalities of organizations, within or across industries and/or application domains (Thomas, 2005) . Reference models hold several promises, like capitalizing on already encoded domain expertise instead of developing a domain model from scratch. As a result, reference models remain a topic of active interest for both practice and academia, as reflected in relatively recent industry reference models like the NISTIR 7628 for smart grid cybersecurity (NIST Smart Grid Cybersecurity Panel, 2010).

However, the creation of reference models comes with several challenges.

As pointed out in de Kinderen & Kaczmarek-Heß (2019) these challenges partly can be traced to the language architecture underlying reference models. In particular these language architectures often do not treat abstraction as a first class citizen. As a result, to model reference models with multiple levels of abstraction, which is typical for industry reference models like the NISTIR 7628, requires (i) workarounds, and (ii) in general comes with a set of inherent limitations which inhibit capitalizing on the full potential of reference modeling.

Objective

The purpose of this master thesis is to make a systematic comparison between conventional meta modeling approaches and multi-level modeling approaches for the purposes of reference modeling. To this end, based upon a motivated selection of a conventional and multi-leveling approach of choice for a well-documented reference model you draw a systematic comparison – specifically as this pertains the specificities of reference models.

As a point of departure, initially the focus will be on NISTIR 7628, which is a well-established reference model for smart grid cybersecurity. However, in discussion with the supervisor, another reference model can also be selected.

Einstiegsliteratur:

U. Frank, “Multilevel modeling – toward a new paradigm of conceptual modeling and information systems design,” BISE, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 319–337, 2014.

de Kinderen, S., & Kaczmarek-Heß, M. (2019, July). Multi-level Modeling as a Language Architecture for Reference Models: On the Example of the Smart Grid Domain. In 2019 IEEE 21st Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) (Vol. 1, pp. 174-183). IEEE.

NIST Smart Grid Cybersecurity Panel: NISTIR 7628-guidelines for smart grid cyber security vol. 1-3 (2010)

Fettke, P., Loos, P.: Perspectives on reference modeling. In Fettke, P., Loos, P., eds.: Reference Modeling for Business Systems Analysis. (2007) 1-21

Thomas, O.: Understanding the term reference model in information systems research: history, literature analysis and explanation. In: International Conference on Business Process Management, Springer (2005) 484-496

U. Frank, “Evaluation of reference models,” in Reference modeling for business systems analysis. IGI Global, 2007, pp. 118–140.

Verfahren des Data Provenance (auch Data Lineage) dienen der Nachverfolgung von Daten in DWH und BI Systemen. In der Literatur werden verschiedene Ansätze vorgeschlagen und diskutiert. Mit dieser Arbeit gehen Sie der Frage nach, welche Konzepte und Ideen mit dem Begriff Data Provenance verbunden sind. Sie untersuchen bestehende Ansätze der Unternehmensmodellierung und bewerten, ob und wie weit diese bereits Data Provenance unterstützen. Mit ersten Szenarien und Anforderungen beschreiben Sie wie die Ideen des Data Provenance die Unternehmensmodellierung bereichern können und welche Herausforderungen bestehen bleiben, um die Ideen des Data Provenance in der Unternehmensmodellierung umzusetzen.

Literatur:

• De Kinderen, S., Kaczmarek-Heß, M., Ma, Q., & Razo-Zapata, I. S. (2017, November). Towards Meta Model Provenance: A Goal-Driven Approach to Document the Provenance of Meta Models. In IFIP Working Conference on The Practice of Enterprise Modeling (pp. 49-64). Springer, Cham. (siehe Anlage)
• Simmhan, Y. L., Plale, B., & Gannon, D. (2005). A survey of data provenance in e-science. ACM Sigmod Record, 34(3), 31-36
• Trujillo, J., & Luján-Mora, S. (2003, October). A UML based approach for modeling ETL processes in data warehouses. In International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (pp. 307-320). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

In der Physik wird schon seit geraumer Zeit die Idee, eine neue, auf der Quantenmechanik basierende Rechnerarchitektur zu entwickeln, diskutiert. Die technische Realisierung ist jedoch mit großen Herausforderungen verbunden. Erst in jüngster Zeit sind Anzeichen dafür erkennbar, dass Quantenrechner in absehbarer Zukunft verfügbar sein werden, so dass sich für eine wachsende Zahl von Unternehmen die Frage stellt, ob und in welcher Form diese Technologie für sie einsetzbar ist und welche Wettbewerbsvorteile sich damit realisieren lassen. In dieser Masterarbeit soll die prinzipielle Funktionsweise von Quantenrechnern untersucht werden. Dazu ist eine Auseinandersetzung mit den physikalischen Grundlagen erforderlich. Darauf aufbauend sollen die wesentlichen Verheißungen dieser Technologie begründet dargestellt werden. Anschließend ist zu untersuchen, für welche Einsatzszenarien in Unternehmen Quantenrechner besonders attraktiv erscheinen.

In practice and academia a wide variety of methods for different classes of typical business informatics problems exists, developed by consultancy agencies, standardization bodies, software companies, universities, and public-private partnerships. Such methods include agile software development methods (Qumer, 2008), or methods for enterprise architecture design and management (Winter et al, 2010). The wide variety of methods is not surprising, as in addressing a particular problem (e.g., developing a new piece of software) the adoption of an appropriate method allows one to, roughly speaking, capitalize on codified experiences with similar problems encountered in the past. Thus, one does not have to start from scratch.  Yet, to be effective the method often needs to be adapted to the context of use (Henderson-Sellers et al (2011)). Here, a major challenge is that there is no uniform view of what are the constituents of a method. For one, whereas agile software development methods are characterized by adherence to a set of principles (from the agile manifesto (Fowler et al, 2001)), enterprise architecture methods typically aim at offering a set of different perspectives (sometimes also called layers, or dimensions (cf. Winter et al, 2006)), with concepts that are relevant for describing each perspective. This hints at what actually characterizes a method in practice can be quite diverse, in terms of adhering to a common way of thinking, providing a process,  a process and a modeling language, or all of the above complemented with heuristics and guidelines. In the end, this lack of a uniform method conception inhibits the systematic adaptation of methods to a given enterprise’s context of use.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to construct a method for constructing methods - i.e., a meta-method. This meta-method shall at the very least consist of a meta-model which describes the core elements of a method and a process, and corresponding guidelines, for instantiating the method, so that the meta-method at hand can be used to create or adapt a method to the situation at hand. To showcase the meta-methods fitness for use, you use it for the construction of a method for a domain/context of choice.

Einstiegsliteratur

Strecker, Stefan, David Heise, and Ulrich Frank. "RiskM: A multi-perspective modeling method for IT risk assessment." Information Systems Frontiers 13.4 (2011): 595-611.

Henderson-Sellers, Brian, and Jolita Ralyté. "Situational method engineering: state-of-the-art review." Journal of Universal Computer Science (2010).

Qumer, Asif, and Brian Henderson-Sellers. "An evaluation of the degree of agility in six agile methods and its applicability for method engineering." Information and software technology 50.4 (2008): 280-295.

Winter, Katharina, et al. "Investigating the State-of-the-Art in Enterprise Architecture Management Methods in literature and Practice." MCIS (2010).

Winter, Robert, and Ronny Fischer. "Essential layers, artifacts, and dependencies of enterprise architecture." Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops, 2006. EDOCW'06. 10th IEEE International. IEEE, 2006.

Fowler, Martin, and Jim Highsmith. "The agile manifesto." Software Development 9.8 (2001): 28-35.

A method aims at solving a class of problems, and typically consists of a linguistic artifact and a process for using it (Strecker et al, 2010). An example following this definition is RiskM (Strecker et al, 2010), a method for IT risk assessment which consists of a conceptual modeling language called RiskM, and a process model plus various heuristics.

In practice a wide variety of methods for different classes of typical business informatics problems exists, developed by consultancy agencies, standardization bodies, and software companies. Such methods include agile software development methods (Qumer, 2008), or methods for enterprise architecture design and management (Winter et al, 2010). The wide variety of methods is not surprising, as in addressing a particular problem (e.g., developing a new piece of software) the adoption of an appropriate method allows one to, roughly speaking, capitalize on codified experiences with similar problems encountered in the past. Thus, one does not have to start from scratch. However, the effectiveness of a method to a large extent depends on how well it fits with the context of use. For one, while there is currently a hype to develop all software in an agile manner, anecdotal remarks from software developers in the banking industry hint that agile methods do not lend themselves well to the nature of the banking domain, as often concerns such as security and stability of a system take prevalence over its quick “agile” development.

Furthermore, even if there is a fit of a method with the domain of use, to be effective the method often needs to be adapted to the context of use (Henderson-Sellers et al (2011)). Here, a major challenge is that there is no uniform view of what are the constituents of a method. For one, whereas agile software development methods are characterized by adherence to a set of principles (from the agile manifesto (Fowler et al, 2001)), enterprise architecture methods typically aim at offering a set of different perspectives (sometimes also called layers, or dimensions (cf. Winter et al, 2006)), with concepts that are relevant for describing each perspective. This hints at what actually characterizes a method in practice can be quite diverse, in terms of adhering to a common way of thinking, providing a process,  a process and a modeling language, or all of the above complemented with heuristics and guidelines. In the end, this lack of a uniform method conception inhibits the systematic adaptation of methods to a given enterprise's context of use.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe and compare methods. In particular, your aim is to observe similarities and differences between the methods being employed, so as to provide a first step towards a common description of what are the core constituencies of a method. As a point of departure for this comparison, one can use ideas from method engineering (e.g., Henderson-Sellers et al (2011)) and the understanding of a method as put forward in Strecker et al. (2010). Note that while you have a choice as to what methods are selected, the criteria for method selection must be grounded in a solid argumentation.

Einstiegsliteratur

Strecker, Stefan, David Heise, and Ulrich Frank. "RiskM: A multi-perspective modeling method for IT risk assessment." Information Systems Frontiers 13.4 (2011): 595-611.

Henderson-Sellers, Brian, and Jolita Ralyté. "Situational method engineering: state-of-the-art review." Journal of Universal Computer Science (2010).

Qumer, Asif, and Brian Henderson-Sellers. "An evaluation of the degree of agility in six agile methods and its applicability for method engineering." Information and software technology 50.4 (2008): 280-295.

Winter, Katharina, et al. "Investigating the State-of-the-Art in Enterprise Architecture Management Methods in literature and Practice." MCIS (2010).

Winter, Robert, and Ronny Fischer. "Essential layers, artifacts, and dependencies of enterprise architecture." Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops, 2006. EDOCW'06. 10th IEEE International. IEEE, 2006.

Fowler, Martin, and Jim Highsmith. "The agile manifesto." Software Development 9.8 (2001): 28-35.

Motivation:

The preparation of course material is a laborious task. Often, it is aimed at the creation of a sequence of slides. Such an approach, however, is unsatisfactory for various reasons. It does not account for the fact that different students may need different course materials. It is restricted to a sequence of pages including text or graphics (videos are possible, too, but are still rarely used). Furthermore, reuse is mainly restricted to copy&paste. As a consequence, this approach is not suited to create material for supporting more efficient ways of teaching and learning. In addition to that, the effort for maintaining course material is extensive.

This thesis aims at the development of a modelling method that fosters the design and management of material for university courses. For this purpose, new, individualized and interactive forms for course material need to be analyzed in order to identify relevant requirements the targeted method should satisfy. The method itself consists of a domain-specific modelling language (DSML) and a corresponding process model. In an ideal case, the DSML will be implemented with a meta-modelling tool.

Motivation:

Online shopping platforms like Amazon offer a huge number of different product types with many new types added every day. There are different approaches for the registration of new product types. In most cases, they remain flat in the sense that specific product properties cannot be specified. This lack of semantics has a serious impact on the integrity of product descriptions. In particular, it is usually not possible to define elaborate constraints that apply to the specification of configurations. Furthermore, searching for products is often restricted to full-text search, which does not allow for expressing sophisticated search criteria.

Description:

Based on a thorough analysis of product specifications on selected online platforms, this thesis aims at the development of a domain-specific modelling language that supports vendors with the safe and convenient specification of new product types and configurations and empowers buyers with more powerful retrieval capabilities. The DSML should cover a wide range of products. To cope with the complexity, the thesis is supposed to focus on selected product types, such as bicycles, consumer electronics, etc. and to make use of multi-level approaches as suggested in current literature.

Recommended Literature:

• Atkinson, C; Gerbig, R & Kühne, T (2014). Comparing multi-level modeling approaches. In: MULTI@ MoDELS,pp. 53-61
• Becker,J; Schütte, R (2011) Handelsinformationssysteme, Redline Wirtschaft, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 243-257
• Frank, U (2011) Some Guidelines for the Conception of Domain-Specific Modelling Languages, in: EMISA Proceedings, pp. 93-106
• Frank, U (2011) Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modelling: Background and Terminological Foundation. ICB Research Report No. 46, Essen
• Frank, U (2014). Multilevel modeling. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 6(6), 319-337.
• Rowley, J (2000) "Product search in e-shopping: a review and research propositions", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 17 Issue: 1, pp.20-35

Motivation:

Microservice architectures, in conjunction with DevOps management practices, have recently gained traction as a novel concept in services computing. However, in part triggered by the overlap in ideas with Service Oriented Architectures (and, going further back: module-based software development) the discussion on microservices is mixed (Pautusso et al, 2017), with proponents touting it as a “must have”, while critics label it as “nothing new”, and “won’t work” (cf. Pautusso et al, 2017).

Beschreibung:

The aim of this Bachelor thesis is to conceptualize a microservice and its consitiuent concepts, in so doing critically comparing this notion to ideas that one finds in well-established literature on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Further, depending on the interest of the student, an analogy between the more recent SOA and the older component based software development may be drawn. Thus, transitively micro-service architectures can be compared to (age-old) computing principles.

Literatur:

• Zimmermann, Olaf. "Microservices tenets." Computer Science-Research and Development 32.3-4 (2017): 301-310.
• Pautasso, Cesare, et al. "Microservices in Practice, Part 1: Reality Check and Service Design." IEEE Software 34.1 (2017): 91-98.
• Rosen, Michael, et al. Applied SOA: service-oriented architecture and design strategies. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
• Papazoglou, Michael P., et al. "Service-oriented computing: State of the art and research challenges." Computer 40.11 (2007).
• Erl, Thomas. Service-oriented architecture: a field guide to integrating XML and web services. Prentice hall, 2004. Papazoglou, Michael. Web services: principles and technology. Pearson Education, 2008.
• Alonso, Gustavo, et al. "Web services." Web Services. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2004. 123-149.

Motivation:

Unternehmensmodelle müssen persistent gemacht werden. Im einfachsten Fall werden sie dazu in Dateien abgelegt. Eine solche Repräsentation ist allerdings mit erheblichen Nachteilen verbunden. Spezielle Repositories bieten eine bessere Unterstützung der Modellintegrität und erlauben zudem u.U. einen parallelen Zugriff auf Modelldaten. In der Arbeit sind zunächst Anforderungen an Repositories zur Repräsentation von Modellen zu analysieren. Anschließend sind auf dieser Grundlage ausgewählte Modellrepositories vergleichend zu bewerten.

Motivation:

Die Integration von Anwendungssystemen mit korrespondierenden Unternehmensmodellen verspricht eine überaus attraktive Perspektive für die Gestaltung zukünftiger Unternehmenssoftware. Eine entsprechende Vision wurde in einem Forschungsbericht (Frank, Strecker: Beyond ERP Systems: An Outline of Self-Referential Enterprise Systems. ICB-Research Report No. 31, 2009) skizziert. Die Realisierung selbstreferentieller Unternehmenssoftware sieht sich einer Reihe von Herausforderungen gegenüber. Eine besondere Schwierigkeit ist darin zu sehen, dass die Implementierung von Modellierungswerkzeugen und Anwendungssystemen auf unterschiedlichen Abstraktionsebenen stattfindet. Um vom Modell zum Code zu gelangen, ist deshalb die Generierung von Code erforderlich. Dies führt zu dem bekannten Problem Code und Modell konsistent zu halten. Die wesentliche Ursache für das Problem ist darin zu sehen, dass gängige Programmiersprachen nur zwei Abstraktionsebenen - Typ und Instanz - aufweisen. Seit einiger Zeit gewinnen (Meta-) Programmiersprachen an Bedeutung, die mehrere Abstraktionsebenen aufweisen. Eine dieser Sprachen ist XMF. Die Arbeit ist darauf gerichtet, die Eignung der Sprache XMF für die Synchronisation von Code und Modell zu untersuchen.

Motivation:

Die Pflege und Weiterentwicklung von Modellen führt im Zeitverlauf zu verschiedenen Modellvarianten und -versionen. Um eine konsistente Evolution und Variation von Modellen zu unterstützen, sind differenzierte Konzepte von Modellversion und Modellvariante erforderlich. Sie erlauben es, nur das Delta zwischen verschiedenen Versionen bzw. zwischen einem Modell und seinen Varianten zu erfassen und zu speichern. Die Definition entsprechender Konzepte ist mit erheblichen Herausforderungen verbunden. In der Arbeit sind zunächst Vorschläge aus der Literatur zu erfassen udn vergleichend zu evaluieren. Anschließend sind für ausgewählte Modellarten aus dem Kontext der Unternehmensnmodellierung geeignete Konzepte für Modellversionen und -varianten zu spezifizieren.

Motivation:

Multiperspektivische Unternehmensmodelle sind darauf gerichtet, verschiedenen Zielgruppen im Unternehmen eine aufgabengerechte Abbildung ihrer Sicht auf das Unternehmen zu bieten und gleichzeitig einen Beitrag zur Integration dieser Sichten zu leisten. Domänenspezifische Modellierungssprachen, die u.a. eine weitgehend selbstsprechende Notation bieten sollten, sollen dabei die Verständlichkeit von Modellen fördern, den Benutzern im besten Fall einen intuitiven Zugang ermöglichen. Dieses Ziel kann allerdings nicht immer in befriedigender Weise erreicht werden. Zum einen stellen Modelle eine Abstraktion dar, die bewusst auch solche Aspekte des Kontextes ausblenden, die für ein differenziertes Verständnis von Bedeutung sind. Zum anderen mag die Repräsentation semi-formaler Modelle auf manche Akteure nicht ansprechend wirken. Deshalb ist es sinnvoll, Modelle mit natürlichsprachlichen Dokumenten zu annotieren. Allerdings sind die Erstellung und vor allem die Pflege mit einem erheblichen Aufwand verbunden. In dieser Master-Arbeit soll untersucht werden, wie die Erstellung und Pflege von natürlichsprachlichen Annotationen durch geeignete Software unterstützt werden kann. Dazu soll aufgezeigt werden, wie eine existierende Modellierungsumgebung um eine entsprechende Komponente ergänzt werden kann. Es ist zudem möglich, eine prototypische Implementierung zu erstellen.

Einstiegsliteratur:

• Clark, T., Sammut, P., Willans, J.: Applied metamodelling: a foundation for language driven development. 2nd edn., Ceteva 2008, (Online verfügbar)
  Frank, U.: Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modeling: Foundational Concepts, Prospects and Future Research Challenges. In: Software and Systems Modeling, 2013
  Leopold, H.; Mendling, J.; Polyvyanyy, A.: Generating Natural Language Texts from Business Process Models: Advanced Information Systems Engineering Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 7328, 2012, pp 64-79

Motivation:

Unternehmensmodelle waren zunächst vor allem darauf gerichtet, eine an den Unternehmenszielen ausgerichtete Gestaltung von Informationssystem und organisatorischem Handlungssystem zu unterstützen. Seit einigen Jahren wird zudem gefordert, Unternehmensmodelle auch zur aktiven Unterstützung des Managements einzusetzen – „Enterprise Models at Runtime“. Dazu wurden Architekturen entwickelt, die eine Integration von Modellierungsumgebungen mit Unternehmenssoftware ermöglichen. Geschäftsmodelle zielen demgegenüber darauf, wesentliche Erfolgsfaktoren eines Unternehmens in eher groben Zusammenhängen so darzustellen, dass sich daraus Schlussfolgerungen auf die Profitabilität ableiten lassen. Sie werden typischerweise vor der Gründung eines Unternehmens erstellt und richten sich nicht zuletzt an Investoren. In dieser Master-Arbeit sollen Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten von Geschäftsmodellen und Unternehmensmodellen herausgearbeitet werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll dann am Beispiel zweier ausgewählter Ansätze aufgezeigt werden, wie eine Integration durchgeführt werden könnten und welche Synergieeffekte dabei zu erwarten sind. Dabei soll auch die Nutzung entsprechender Modelle und Werkzeuge in späteren Phasen eines Unternehmenslebenszyklus betrachtet werden.

Einstiegsliteratur:

• Frank, U.: Enterprise Modelling: The Next Steps. In: Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures. Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014, pp. 22–37
• Frank, U.; Strecker, S.: Beyond ERP Systems: An Outline of Self-Referential Enterprise Systems. ICB-Research Report, Institut für Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik (ICB), Universität Duisburg-Essen, No. 31, Universität Duisburg-Essen 2009OMG: Business Motivation Model. Version 1.2 (Online verfügbar)
• Osterwalder, A.; Pigneur, Y.: Business model generation. A handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. Willowbrook, IL 2010

Bei "Semantisches Dokumentenmanagement auf Basis von E-Business-Standards" handelt sich es nicht im ein konkretes Thema für eine Abschlußarbeit, sondern um ein Themengebiet, in dessen Rahmen verschiedene Themen für Abschlußarbeiten entwickelt werden können. Näheres finden Sie in der Beschreibung des Themengebiets. Bei Interesse oder Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Herrn Jahns.