IFIP TC8 Special Interest Group on

Mobile information system (MOBIS)

 

Aims

 

To promote and encourage interactions among professionals from practice and research and advancement of investigation of concepts, methods, techniques, tools and issues related to mobile information systems in organizations.

Scope

The planning, analysis, design, construction, modification, implementation, utilization, evaluation, and management of mobile information systems that use information technology to support and coordinate organizational activities including

·         effective utilization of mobile information technologies in organizational context;

·         interdependencies of mobile information technologies and organizational structure, relationships and interaction;

·         evaluation and management of mobile information systems;

·         analysis, design, construction, modification and implementation of computer-based mobile information systems for organizations; 

·         usage of mobile information systems applications in organizations 

·         relevant research and practice from associated fields

 

Past, current, and planned activities

 

A task group on the subject within WG 8.1 was established in 2000, with an internal web-site to disseminate material. Extended to cover whole of IFIP TC8 in 2001. Current member represent both WG1, WG2, WG3, WG4 and WG6.  Promoted to a IFIP TC8 SIG in 2005.

 

Upcoming events

·        MOBIS track at International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB), Copenhagen 24-27 June 2006

 

Previous Conferences and workshops:

 

§         2. IFIP TC8 Working conference on Mobile Information Systems (MOBIS’2005) Leeds, December 5-6 2005.    The proceedings is available at Springer.

§         MOBIS - IFIP TC8 Working Conference on Mobile Information Systems (2004). The proceedings is available at Springer

§         Multi-channel and mobile information systems (2003) Workshop connected to WISE'2003. Workshop proceedings at IEEE CS Press

§         Conceptual modelling approaches to mobile information system development -  MobiMod (2002) Workshop connected to ER'2002. Workshop proceedings as part of Springer LNCS 2784

 

Some common publications by members of the group

 

§         Research Areas and Challenges for Mobile Information Systems (2004)

§         Special issue on Modeling Mobile Information Systems: Conceptual and Methodological Issues in International Journal of Mobile Communication (2004)   

§         Mobile Information Systems - Research Challenges on the Conceptual and Logical Level (2002)
 

 

Long term plans:

  • Handbook on planning, analysis, development and evolution of mobile and ubiquitous information systems in an organizational setting.  (Include a clarification of the terminology in the field.).
  • Possible establishment of a IFIP TC8 Working Group (to be decided)

 

 

Current Members

 

Andreas L. Opdahl

Norway

Antony Wasserman

USA

Barbara Pernici

Italy

Carl Adams

UK

David Allen

UK

David Simplot

France

Elaine Lawrence

Australia

Garrick Jones

UK

Guttorm Sindre

Norway

Hannu Kangassalo

Finland

Jan Damsgaard

Denmark

Jan Pries Heje

Denmark

Jennifer Blechar

Norway

John Krogstie

Norway

Kalle Lyytinen

USA

Kari Smolander

Finland

Karl-Heinz Kautz

Denmark

Keng Siau

USA

Marie Thilliez

France

Michel Leonard

Switzerland

Mikael B. Skov

Denmark

Pamela  Coutts

Australia

Peter Keenan

Ireland

Robert Steele

Australia

 

Background

 

Mobility is primarily about people moving around, having seamless wireless access to information and services. Mobility is perhaps the most important market and technological trend within information and communication technology, although the development is not going as fast as projected some years ago.

 

People in general are getting increasingly mobile in relation to both their professional and private tasks. The user of mobile information systems is characterized by frequent changes in context:

·         The spatio-temporal context describes aspects related to the time and space. It contains attributes like time, location, direction, speed, track, and place. 

·         The environment context captures the entities that surround the user, e.g., physical objects, services, temperature, brightness, humidity, and noise

·         The personal context describes the user state. It consists of the physiological context and the mental contexts. The physiological context may contain information like pulse, blood pressure, and weight. The mental context may describe things like mood, expertise, anger, and stress.

·         The task context describes what the user is meant to be doing. The task context may be described with explicit goals or the tasks themselves.

·         The social context describes the social aspects of the user context. It may, for instance, contain information about friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives. The role that the user plays is an important aspect of the social context. A role may describe the user’s status in this role and the tasks that the user may perform in this role.  The term social mobility refers to the ways in which individuals can move across different social contexts and social roles, and still be supported by technology and services.

·         The information context describes that part of the global and personal information space that is available at the time.

 

 

The last four aspects are specifically important in the context of mobile information systems for organizations. Another aspect of mobility relevant to organizations, is the tracking of the position of different physical products. 

 

Mobile information systems differs from more traditional information systems along several axis:

·         So far only a limited convergence towards a common user interface standard for mobile information appliances

·         Weak clients compared to traditional end-user equipment (vs. memory, bandwidth etc)

·         New dependability issues e.g. security issues when easily misplaced and stolen mobile information appliances can store and access corporate data

·         Small input and output devices (e.g. small screens and keyboards)

·         Converging functionality from many existing platforms

 

 

 

Last updated

07/12-2005

John Krogstie

(leader of the MOBIS SIG)