Information system development and the use of electronic meeting systems.

Abstract

Information system requirements determination is a key area in management information systems research that includes the problems of requirements specification, requirements elicitation, and user involvement. The combination of these three problems is a research area which we call the group approach to information system requirements determination. The main contribution of this research is a model to be used for the problem of fitting existing computer aids to this research area and a set of methods for solving the usability and configuration problems when using such computer aids. The usability problem is that of determining whether a set of computer aids can be used effectively in accomplishing the task of requirements determination. The configuration problem is that of selecting a minimum collection of funtionalities necessary for economically supporting all aspects of requirements determination. Electronic meeting systems are the general category of computer aids that we are interested in applying to the task. In particular, the GroupSystems electronic meeting system developed at The University of Arizona is used as a case in this research. Characteristics of the requirements determination task and profiles of GroupSystems tools are combined into our model for fitting computer aids to a given task. We then derive the answers regarding the usability and configuration of GroupSystems in the group approach to information system requirements determination. We also compare the derived configurations to the GroupSystems tools used in an authentic case. The main points of this research include: (1) proposal of the concept of fitting computer aids to, instead of developing new computer aids for, a task area; (2) proposal of a model for fitting computer aids via a classification of information types; (3) analysis of the natures of the fitting model and the usability and configuration problems; (4) proposal of approximation methods for solving the configuration problem; (5) analysis of the task area--the group approach to information system requirements determination; (6) analysis of the use of GroupSystems in the task area by applying the proposed fitting model and approximation methods; and (7) demonstration of the usefulness of the fitting model and approximation methods by analyzing an authentic case of using GroupSystems tools.