Search

Background: Business innovations are continuous strategic initiatives of doing work better and faster, creating thereby greater value for consumers of products and/or users of services. Digital transformation, digital technologies, and digital innovation, frame the change of an operating business model. In addition to the influence of everything “digital”, the occurrence of disruptions affects businesses suddenly and thrives for an urgent response, especially when disruptions have a global impact, like the Covid- 19 pandemic did. Objectives: This research aims to present a conceptual framework, that should help organizations of any size, when influenced by a disruption, to steer change or innovation endeavours to the most feasible option aiming at digital transformation. Methods/Approach: The proposed conceptual framework can be used as a basis for operationalization through already known models, concepts, and frameworks by focusing on success when dealing with disruptions and in striving for digital transformation, as a presented case study illustrates. Results: New framework allow organizations to assess their readiness and willingness to change, by guiding the organization’s management through the change options most feasible to their current state and desired future. The application is based on internal and external factors affecting the digital transformation process, aiming for maturity and process success. Conclusions: The framework application process is designed for assessing the readiness and willingness when initiating future digital transformation. The framework is supported by a demonstrative application on a case study and could be used to help management and CEO in the decision-making process that could lead an organization towards digital transformation.

In our previous research, we identified a list of factors that influence the digital platform selection by producers of agricultural products and a list of factors that influence customers’ digital platform selection. The next question that becomes a focus of our interest is related to the prioritization of those factors. The first results suggest that some factors have a higher impact on producers (or customers) than others when deciding on digital platform selection in agriculture. In this paper, we will present several approaches that can be used to prioritize factors. Those methods are: direct assessment method, reciprocal ranks, SWING, pairwise comparison, analytical hierarchy process, analytical network process, and SNAP method. Some of those methods are simpler, and some are complex. In general, simpler methods are less, and the complex methods are more precise in terms of prioritization. On the other side, simpler methods are more understandable to the average customers (or producers) in terms of application than the complex methods. We analyzed all prioritizations methods and suggested the most appropriate method having a mind on the complexity of the method (understanding by users) and their precisions.

Context: Application of component based software engineering methods to heterogeneous computing (HC) enables different software configurations to realize the same function with different non–functional properties (NFP). Finding the best software configuration with respect to multiple NFPs is a non–trivial task. Objective: We propose a Software Component Allocation Framework (SCAF) with the goal to acquire a (sub–) optimal software configuration with respect to multiple NFPs, thus providing performance prediction of a software configuration in its early design phase. We focus on the software configuration optimization for the average energy consumption and average execution time. Method: We validated SCAF through its instantiation on a real–world demonstrator and a simulation. Firstly, we verified the correctness of our model through comparing the performance prediction of six software configurations to the actual performance, obtained through extensive measurements with a confidence interval of 95%. Secondly, to demonstrate how SCAF scales up, we performed software configuration optimization on 55 generated use–cases (with solution spaces ranging from 1030 to 3070) and benchmark the results against best performing random configurations. Results: The performance of a configuration as predicted by our framework matched the configuration implemented and measured on a real–world platform. Furthermore, by applying the genetic algorithm and simulated annealing to the weight function given in SCAF, we obtain sub–optimal software configurations differing in performance at most 7% and 13% from the optimal configuration (respectfully). Conclusion: SCAF is capable of correctly describing a HC platform and reliably predict the performance of software configuration in the early design phase. Automated in the form of an Eclipse plugin, SCAF allows software architects to model architectural constraints and preferences, acting as a multi–criterion software architecture decision support system. In addition to said, we also point out several interesting research directions, to further investigate and improve our approach.

Digital transformation (DT) of agencies for students`part time jobs in the Republic of Croatia (RC) began to be mentioned through the adoption of the Act of student activities (Act). The work of students in the Republic of Croatia is regulated by the Act [1], which provides the legal basis for the DT system of mediation in employment. The Act and the Ordinance oblige the mediator to keep all records in electronic form and define the possibility of issuing student contracts in electronic form, but up to now this form of contract has not been experienced in practice [1], [2]. The distinction between digitization and DT in part led to the fact that the electronic student contract currently implies the issuance of an online student contract, which was not signed by an advanced electronic signature. Changes in business caused by COVID-19 contributed to greater utilization of existing online contracts and pointed to inconsistencies in the work of intermediaries. The aim of this paper is to present, based on a literature review and analysis of the existing situation through the case study, the conceptual model of the DT system for mediation in employment and to test the digital maturity of the current system. The scientific contribution of the paper is in presenting a model that can be implemented in the daily practice of all students employment agencies, while the social contribution is reflected in the attempts of DT public institutions that should be used as an example to the private sector.

There are many ways to sell and buy products in all fields, using digital technologies. That is the case for the agriculture field as well. Among many possibilities and different ICT solutions in agriculture, selection of the appropriate solution that will result in the satisfaction of both - customers and producers - becomes an important issue, and it is the main research topic of this paper. In this paper, we present the factors that influence the digital platform selection and propose two models for decision making on digital platforms. Decision models can help customers and producers to decide if a specific platform can be useful for their business. The decision model is based on a multi-criteria decision-making method called Dex. Dex is selected because it is very intuitive and less complicated than other multi-criteria methods. On the other hand, Dex can aggregate all crucial factors and include the specifics and subjectivity (perception) of each user (customer or producer). The paper also contains a demonstration of the implementations of two models on the hypothetical cases. In future research, we plan to evaluate the model in practice (and possibly update it if needed) and present it to the scientific and professional community. That can help producers/customers to optimize their business processes but also give directions for the development of new platform functionalities for platform developers.

Nowadays governmental and non-governmental organizations and private businesses offer a range of electronic services that, if used, directly or indirectly affect quality of life. The supply of electronic services is growing fast, and this growth is expected to continue in the near but also in the distant future. Current generation of digital natives will not know how to live without ICTs and services provided by these technologies. User attitudes towards electronic services and the relationship between their supply and demand are the focus of this paper. Data on demand for and user attitudes towards electronic services were collected on a representative sample of adult population from Northwest Croatia. Participants were interviewed using a measurement instrument created for this purpose. Survey covered usage of electronic services offered by various governmental and non-governmental organizations and private businesses, the nature of user attitudes and the extent to which electronic services are used for the purpose of education, communication, entertainment, employment, improvement of health services and culture. The results show that, on the one hand, participants' demand for electronic services is very poor, while on the other hand their motivation and attitudes towards these services are very positive. Consistently significant differences were found in usage and attitudes toward electronic services by age, level of education and English language fluency. On the other hand, gender, standard of living and urban / rural residence were generally not associated with differences in usage of or attitudes to electronic services.

Internet of Thing (IOT) is relatively new field that is on a rise. Teaching students IOT is a challenging task because of increasing dynamics of the field itself. We present a new course that is flexible, dynamic, and mobile. It is a university level course at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics. Because of the ERASMUS programme it is possible to open the course to the foreign students. Further more, thanks to bilateral agreements the same course is physically carried out in Laval, France. Course is adaptive in both terms of duration and location. Regardless of each, it has to be carefully crafted to fit both criteria. Course is roaming, meaning that all of the preparations and equipment can and should be mobile and easy to setup on any location in the world. IOT involves certain embedded software development, meaning that teaching should be carried on an appropriate equipment: hardware development and prototyping boards. Experience in selecting such hardware for the course is presented. Furthermore, IOT includes various connectivity and technologies. Internet connectivity setup for the roaming equipment should be reliable and easy to apply on site. Relying on existing network is not recommended due to many reasons, one of which might be the use of captive portals, IOT micro-controllers do not bode well with captive portals. Teaching communication aspect of IOT can be quite challenging if connection is unreliable. Course is project based and designing project assignments or project guidelines, should consider local environment. Projects guided by the concept of service learning can have significant impact on a local community. Anyhow, goal of the project in this course should be students feeling accomplished. Having dynamic course it would be advisable to remain on certain technology, however evolution of the course has discarded such technologies that became obsolete. Instead of single LMS several different tools are used, this might be an overhead but those tools are already known to the students. Student perception of the course and increasing number of enrolment shows that it has positive impact and perspective future.

Cloud computing is nowadays becoming a popular paradigm for the provision of computing infrastructure that enables organizations to achieve financial savings. On the other hand, there are some known obstacles, among which vendor lock-in stands out. Furthermore, due to missing standards and heterogeneities of cloud storage systems, the migration of data to alternative cloud providers is expensive and time-consuming. We propose an approach based on Semantic Web services and AI planning to tackle cloud vendor data lock-in problem. To complete the mentioned task, data structures and data type mapping rules between different types of cloud storage systems are defined. The migration of data among different providers of platform as a service is presented in order to prove the practical applicability of the proposed approach. Additionally, this concept was also applied to software as a service model of cloud computing to perform one-shot data migration from Zoho CRM to Salesforce CRM.

Business Process Management (BPM) often encompasses process improvements based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Business processes simulation can be used as a tool for estimation of optimization parameters. Commercially available BPM tools in accordance with BPMN 2.0 support have built-in simulation features, which vary in the extent of support to advanced process simulation options. In this paper, we address dynamic batch processing activities as a challenge for BPM tools with simulation features and their dynamic impact on the executing activities. Further on, basic process scenarios examples were used to test and evaluate the capabilities of selected BPM tools, especially in relation to the Time Driven Activity Based Costing model (TD ABC model). The closing part of the paper deals with significant limitations of BPM tools in terms of supporting the batch processing activities, and the comparison with the TD ABC model simulation as a temporary solution to these problems. The main findings of this paper imply that contemporary BPM tools with BPMN 2.0 support still need to implement better options for handling simulation of dynamic batch processing activities.

Internet of things (IoT) is nowadays one of the fastest growing technologies for both private and business purposes. Due to a big number of IoT devices and their rapid introduction to the market, security of things and their services is often not at the expected level. Recently, machine learning algorithms, techniques, and methods are used in research papers to enhance IoT security. In this paper, we systematically review the state-of-the art to classify the research on machine learning for the IoT security. We analysed the primary studies, identify types of studies and publication fora. Next, we have extracted all machine learning algorithms and techniques described in primary studies, and identified the most used ones to tackle IoT security issues. We classify the research into three main categories (intrusion detection, authentication and other) and describe the primary studies in detail to analyse existing relevant works and propose topics for future research.

Internet of things (IoT) is global network of interconnected entities aimed at automating our lives. However, a number of IoT devices and systems have been created in parallel and there is no universal coding language and communication protocol. For this reason, IoT interoperability is a complex research and practical problem. In this work, we review existing work about IoT interoperability and IoT ontologies. Next, we propose a framework for things as a service interoperability that includes composition of different sensors and actuators at service level, and their integration with existing cloud services. The proposed framework consists of four main layers: virtual sensor, service, semantic, and interoperability layer. We plan to use the proposed framework to achieve service-level interoperability of smart things that will be semantically annotated in order to describe their functional and non-functional properties (with special emphasis on security and privacy).

Ontologies can be used to describe common cloud functionalities and enable common terminology to assist in cloud interoperability. In this work, we have developed the ontology for resources and operations and the ontology of interoperability problems. The aim is to clearly describe and categorize the existing functionalities, features and specificities of commercial platform asaservice offers. The first ontology also provides data type mappings among different Paa Sstorages and cross-Paa Sdata types used in inputs and outputs of the remote APIoperations to provideacommon layer for information exchange and data migration among different Paa Sproviders. The ontologies were evaluated by tools and by human experts. Furthermore, the ontologies were used in cloud interoperability prototype to show their practical applicability.

Nature of visible light communication (VLC) in vehicle‐to‐vehicle (V2V) communication is such that it does involve certain aspects of asymmetry. This concept is known issue in wireless networking systems, and it is one of the reasons for the famous node deafness issue. It degrades network performance and it is addressed in various network layers and protocols, especially media access control protocol. This paper investigates effects of asymmetry on communication performance in V2V networks using VLC. Scientific community has recognized asymmetry as an issue that causes communication performance degradation, even in VLC communication. Furthermore, this paper defines different types of asymmetry in V2V communication networks using VLC technology. Finally, simulation experiment is conducted in a controlled environment, which tests the specific types of asymmetry (design) as a cause of network performance degradation. Data and results are analyzed and interpreted ; they show that asymmetry (design) is not a significant issue in vehicular communication using VLC. However, results are strictly referring to specific domain, ie, vehicular communication using VLC technology in dense urban environments.

This paper illustrates the results of an analysis of business sectors covered by ERP solutions. The authors answer questions in regards to business sectors supported by ERP solutions, while presenting a list of supported business sectors. Using a statistical analysis, an answer is given to the question of whether there are any business sectors that are supported by a large number of ERP solutions, and whether it is possible to classify business sectors based on the occurrence of the support. Finally, three classifications are described that stem from different statistical views of covering business sectors by ERP solutions, and a suggestion for a unique classification of business sectors is given.

The numerous heterogeneities among different providers make platform as a service interoperability an interesting and complex research and practical problem. For example, each provider offers its own remote application programming interfaces (APIs). The main aim of this paper is to identify and address service- level interoperability issues when using APIs from different commercial providers of platform as a service. First, we define use case to add current user information from one platform as a service offer to the application hosted on another offer. To address interoperability problems, the ontology driven data mediation will be used and tested in this use case. Remote vendors’ APIs are implemented as web services. Resulting web operations and their inputs/outputs are semantically annotated using cross-PaaS concepts from the developed platform as a service OWL ontology. Next, SAWSDL and XSLT are used to define service type mappings. Actual composition of platform as a service APIs is implemented by means of AI planner and developed Java web application. Testing and validation was performed on a case where current Salesforce’s user is added to data container in Vosao content management system deployed on Google App Engine. Novelty of the paper is a specific application domain (composition of operations defined in PaaS APIs) and new algorithm for identification of interoperability problems.

The main purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the problem of e-government project risks and to introduce a methodology for risk assessment and calculation of costs associated with risk occurrence in e-government projects based on Bayesian networks. The proposed methodology presents a new approach to the assessment of risks and costs related to e-government project risks. As such, it facilitates the holistic decision making procedure for project managers. The application of Bayesian networks in the context of risks and risk related costs reduces the level of uncertainty in e-government projects and provides a graphical structure of risks and corresponding costs. Finally, the sensitivity analysis has also been integrated into the methodology and its results can have a significant impact on the overall project management quality.

Cloud computing is getting increasingly important part of IT strategies in modern organizations [5] and nowadays it is generally positioned in broad context of strategic planning of information systems [2] [3]. Since cloud services can appear in various flavors (software as a service, platform as service, etc.) there is no one common approach to their incorporation into certain business and organizational context. In many cases they are basically extending existing architectures making them integral part of broader information system based on service oriented architecture. These architectures are quite structurally complex [6] [8] [10] and should be carefully planned and implemented to achieve business benefits and competitive advantage.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,it is my pleasure to present you the 1st number of the 38th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.Please allow me one personal note. This is my last issue as an editor. I started in 2008. and it is time to make some changes. I’ll continue to act as a member of editorial board but I am handling over my editorial duty to new editor Alen Lovrenčić. It was pleasure to work with all authors, reviewers and collaborators and please continue partnership with JIOS because we have high aims which cannot be achieved without dedicated scientific community. I would also like to thank the publishing team of JIOS who helped with many operational issues especially: Bernarda Kos, Goran Hajdin and Darko Grabar. In this issue a selection of 3 original scientific papers, 1 survey paper and 1 preliminary communications has been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process in some cases in several rounds.The constant mission of JIOS is to cover scientific publications from broad area of information sciences and related disciplines and we continuously receive many articles in which authors strive to achieve scientific merit. Our review procedure is very strict but even when we decline papers we try to encourage authors in their future work and motivate them to give better results. That is why we maintain very good relations with our authors and we invite all of you to extend cooperation with JIOS.We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in different fields of information sciences and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community. These themes motivate us to continue our work of delivering research results to interested audience. The ICT field is changing rapidly and we are constantly searching for cutting edge articles that open perspective and motivate further research. We have to notice that future of ICT related research is in interdisciplinary approach and relations with other research domains which is highly emphasized in Horizon 2020 directions and all related project lines. That is why we encourage and promote scientific collaboration across scientific areas that will bring us new interesting articles. We hope that many of you who will read the Journal will join us as authors, readers and reviewers and help us to fulfill our mission. The number of submitted papers increases every year giving us opportunity to increase the quality and visibility of JIOS.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at http://jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute significantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in ten well known databases. We are continuously investing a lot of effort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.So please be with us in the future, support new editorial team and help us build JIOS together.Neven VrčekEditor

Each organization should be aiming at higher efficiency. Government institutions should not make an exception.Business processes of today’s government institutions are extremely influenced by modern ICT and user acceptance plays a pivotal role in success of all ICT projects. As government tends to design and launch online services without actually measuring citizens’ needs, understanding citizens’ (taxpayers’) needs is becoming crucial for government institutions.In this paper, a range of earlier studies have been critically analyzed and comparedto provide anintegrated model that can identify factors which could influence adoption of e-government services. The goal of this article is to study citizens’ demand for different levels of electronic government service and to find factors which influence the adoption ofthese same services.This study integrates variables from technology acceptance model (TAM) and trustworthiness model.Analysis of the results indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between Trust in Internet, Perceived usefulness, Perceived ease of use andtheIntentionto use. Implications for further research are discussed.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,it is my pleasure to present you the 2nd number of the 37th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 3 original scientic papers and 2 preliminary communications has been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process in some cases in several rounds.The mission of JIOS is to cover scientic publications from broad area of information sciences and related disciplines and we continuously receive many articles in which authors strive to achieve scientic merit. Our review procedure is very strict but even when we decline papers we try to encourage authors in their future work and motivate them to give better results. That is why we maintain very good relations with our authors and we invite all of you to extend cooperation with JIOS.We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in dierent elds of information sciences and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community. These themes motivate us to continue our work of delivering research results to interested audience. The ICT eld is changing rapidly and we are constantly searching for cutting edge articles that open perspective and motivate further research. We have to notice that future of ICT related research is in interdisciplinary approach and relations with other research domains which is highly emphasized in Horizon 2020 directions. That is why we encourage and promote scientic collaboration across scientic areas that will bring us new interesting articles. We hope that many of you who will read the Journal will join us as authors, readers and reviewers and help us to fulll our mission. The number of submitted papers increases every year giving us opportunity to increase the quality and visibility of JIOS.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at http://jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute signicantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in nine well known databases and we are proud to announce that from this issue we are indexed in two more databases Index Copernicus and Directory of Research Journals Indexing. We are continuously investing a lot of eort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,it is my pleasure to present you the 1st number of the 37th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 3 original scientific papers, 1 preliminary communication and 1 survey paper has been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process in some cases in several rounds.As in prior issues of the Journal, this one also comprises papers that cover broad themes from various ICT fields and related areas: software engineering, strategic planning of information systems, knowledge management and quantum computing. We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in different fields of information sciences and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community. These themes motivate us to continue our work of delivering research results to interested audience. The ICT field is changing rapidly and we are constantly searching for cutting edge articles that open perspective and motivate further research. We have to notice that future of ICT related research is in interdisciplinary approach and relations with other research domains which is highly emphasized in Horizon 2020 directions. That is why we encourage and promote scientific collaboration across scientific areas that will bring us new interesting articles. We hope that many of you who will read the Journal will join us as authors, readers and reviewers and help us to fulfill our mission. The number of submitted papers increases every year giving us opportunity to increase the quality and visibility of JIOS.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at http://jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute significantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in nine well known databases. We are continuously investing a lot of effort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

Daniel Rodriguez University of Alcala, SpainIvan Magdalenic University of Zagreb, CroatiaJoaquim Filipe Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, PortugalSergei Silvestrov Mälardalen University, SwedenAlen Lovrenčić University of Zagreb, CroatiaMatilda Drozdova University of Žilina, SlovakiaMaria Jose Escalona University of Seville, SpainWolf Rauch University of Graz, AustriaSandro Gerić University of Zagreb, CroatiaNeven Vrcek University of Zagreb, CroatiaMarina Klačmer Čalopa University of Zagreb, CroatiaMohit Verma Institute of Management Technolopgy, Dubai

Many benefits from implementation of e-business solutions are related to network effects which means that there are many interconnected parties utilizing the same or compatible technologies. The large-scale adoption of e-business practices in public sectors and in small and medium enterprises (SMEs)-prevailing economic environments will be successful if appropriate support in the form of education, adequate legislative, directions, and open source applications is provided. This case study describes the adoption of e-business in public sectors and SMEs by using an integrated open source approach called e-modules. E-module is a model which has process properties, data properties, and requirements on technology. Therefore e-module presents a holistic framework for deployment of e-business solutions and such e-module structure mandates an approach which requires reengineering of business processes and adoption of strong standardization that solves interoperability issues. E-module is based on principles of service-oriented architectures with guidelines for introduction into business processes and integration with ERP systems. Such an open source approach enables the spreading of compatible software solutions across any given country, thus, increasing e-business adoption. This paper presents a methodology for defining and building e-modules.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,It is my pleasure to present you the 2nd number of the 36th volume of the Journal of Information andOrganizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 3 original scientic papers, 3 preliminary communications and 1 surveypaper has been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process insome cases in several rounds.As in prior issues of the Journal, this one also comprises papers that cover themes from various ICTelds and related areas: computer algorithms, ERP systems, business process analysis, and otherrelated themes. We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in dierentelds of information sciences and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scopeby other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community. These themes motivatesus to continue our work of delivering research results to interested audience. We hope that many ofyou who will read the Journal will join us as authors, readers and reviewers and help us to fulll ourmission. The number of submitted papers increases every year giving us opportunity to increase thequality and visibility of JIOS.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, tosubmit papers at http://jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or criticalremarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate yourwillingness to become a reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute signicantly to the risingquality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in nine well known databases. We are continuously investing a lot ofeort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the publishedpapers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

József Tar Institute of Intelligent Engineering Systems, BudapestGašper Mušič University of Ljubljana, SloveniaWilliam Steingartner Technical University of Košice, SlovakiaIvana Jugović Institute for Social Research, CroatiaGilda Pecaric University of Zagreb, CroatiaElisabeth Pergler Evolaris next level GmbH, AustriaAlen Lovrenčić University of Zagreb, CroatiaPeter Andreae Victoria University, New ZealandJan Paralic Technical University Kosice, SlovakiaDiana Šimić University of Zagreb, CroatiaNadica Hrgarek MED-EL Medical Electronics, AustriaJadranka Stojanovski Rudjer Boskovic Institute, CroatiaMilan Ambroz Human Resources Professional, SloveniaKatarina Žager University of Zagreb, CroatiaKresimir Fertalj University of Zagreb, Croatia

Jasminka Dobša University of Zagreb, CroatiaKornelije Rabuzin University of Zagreb, CroatiaAli Koyuncugil Capital Markets Board of Turkey, TurkeyIvan Magdalenic University of Zagreb, CroatiaKresimir Fertalj University of Zagreb, CroatiaMarkus Schatten University of Zagreb, CroatiaDmitri Viattchenin United Institute of Informatics Problems of the NAS of Belarus, BelarusC. Hurt University of Wisconsin, USAVesna Čančer University of Maribor, SloveniaZeljka Mihajlovic University of Zagreb, CroatiaRenata Mekovec University of Zagreb, Croatia Alen Lovrenčić University of Zagreb, Croatia

Dear authors, readers and future authors,It is my pleasure to present you the 1st number of the 36th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 5 original scienti! c papers and 1 survey paper has been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process in some cases in several rounds.As in prior issues of the Journal, this one also comprises papers that cover themes from various ICT fields: computer programming, mobile technologies, symbolic logic in the field of informationsciences, business processes, formal concept analysis, data analysis, management and other related themes. We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in di" erent ICT fields and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at http://jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute signi! cantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in nine well known databases. We are continuously investing a lot of effort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

This paper presents the procedure for comparing costs of leasing IT resources in a commercial computing cloud against those incurred in using on-premise resources. The procedure starts with calculating the number of computers as depending on parameters that describe application's features and execution conditions. By measuring required execution time for different parameter values, we determined that this dependence is a second-order polynomial. Polynomial coefficients were calculated by processing the results of fractional factorial design. On that basis we calculated costs of computing and storage resources required for the application to run. The same calculation model can be applied to both a personal user and a cloud provider. The results will differ because of different hardware exploitation levels and the economy of scale effects. Such calculation enables cloud providers to determine marginal costs in their services' price, and allows users to calculate costs they would incur by executing the same application using their own resources. Leasing in cloud establishes a business relationship: buyer wants to reduce costs, and cloud provider wants to generate profit. This relationship will be realized if the buyer and the provider agree on a mutually acceptable fair price that can be determined by the symmetric mediation plan. All the steps in this procedure are integrated into CCCE method and represented as a process model.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,It is my pleasure to present you the 1st number of the 35th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 6 original scientific papers, 2 preliminary communications and 2 survey papers have been included, all of which have undergone a rigorous double-blind review process.Some of the papers published here were already presented at the CECIIS 2010 Conference held in Varaždin between 22nd and 24th September 2010. These papers were nominated for publishing in JIOS by the chairs of the conference tracks they were presented at on the account of their research quality.As in prior issues of the Journal, this one also comprises papers that cover themes from various ICT fields: databases, programming, IT supported learning, and other topics in the field of applied information sciences. We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in different ICT fields and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a peer-reviewed for submitted papers and thus contribute significantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in seven well known databases and now this number has risen to nine, adding “SCOPUS” and “Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts” to the database list. We are continuously investing a lot of effort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

The assessment of the acceptability and the value of IT projects in the public sector, especially when the projects feature the qualitative value along with the monetary one, is a complex problem. There are certain methodologies in the world though that help various organizations in decision-making process when projects are being chosen. The paper surveys the three IT projects public value assessing methodologies: the American Value Measuring Methodology, the French MAREVA, and the German WiBe. A comparison of the approaches to solving the problem of assessing public value of IT projects was thus made. The Analytic Hierarchy Process – a method of a multicriteria analysis of alternatives-was briefly presented. By the use of the Hierarchy Criteria Model in the way that respects all the basic characteristics that a methodology of the kind should feature in accordance with Gartner, a proposition of an IT project public value measurement methodology pattern was presented. The selection of projects with little value contribution if compared to the existing situation, the assessment of the acceptability of risk through the hierarchy structure of the value of a project and the aggregation of the value of separate PVIT dimensions is a contribution related to the methodology patterns that were surveyed.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,I proudly introduce to you a new issue of JIOS, the Journal of Information and OrganizationalSciences, volume 34, Issue 2. The Journal’s primary goal is to present current research in the field ofinformation and organizational sciences, as well as on theoretical developments in the fields thatimpact information, computer and organizational sciences.The importance of JIOS is rising and it is being increasingly seen as a relevant journal in the eld ofinformation sciences and applied information and communication technology. Speaking in favourof this statement is the fact that JIOS has been included into two new databases: Scopus and EBSCO.We are particularly satised with the Journal’s inclusion in Scopus since it is the largest abstract andcitation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources.In this issue of JIOS a selection of four original scientic papers and one preliminary communicationpaper have been included that cover the following topics: approach to optical network design using ageneral heuristic optimization framework (Lackovic, M.), improving e-learning eciency, intelligenceand adapted teaching materials (Kalpic, D. & Zuc, J.), online privacy (Mekovec, R.) and social networkanalysis of Eureka project partnership in Central and South-Eastern European regions (Divjak, B.,Peharda P., Begicevic N.). We hope you will nd these papers interesting and challenging for your ownresearch.I would hereby invite all the interested colleagues to submit a paper and hence contribute to theimprovement and development of JIOS. You can submit your papers at jios.foi.hr, where you canalso express your comments, recommendations or critical remarks regarding the papers published inprevious issues.

Dear authors, readers and future authors,It is my pleasure to present you the 1st number of the 34th volume of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS.In this issue a selection of 11 original scientific papers and 2 preliminary communications has been included, all of which have undergone a rigourous double-blind review process. Some of the papers published here were already presented at the CECIIS 2009 Conference held in Varaždin between 23rd and 25th September 2009. These papers were nominated for publishing in JIOS by the chairs of the conference tracks they were presented at on the account of their research quality.As in prior issues of the Journal, this one also comprises papers that cover themes from various ICT fields: semantic web, social networks analysis, LMS interoperability, effective learning environment, game theory, model driven architecture, and other topics in the field of applied information sciences. We hope that the variety of themes will draw the attention of researchers in different ICT fields and motivate potential authors to expand the Journal’s thematic scope by other themes that may be of interest to the wider ICT research community.I would like to use this opportunity to encourage prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Further, we would appreciate your willingness to become a peer-reviewer for submitted papers and thus contribute significantly to the rising quality of JIOS.So far JIOS has been indexed in seven well known databases. We are continuously investing a lot of effort to extend the list of databases where JIOS would be cited, in order to make the published papers available to a larger readers’ audience, and give your research a greater impact factor.

Dear readers,I proudly welcome you to Issue 2 of Volume 33 of the Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences.Let me remind you that JIOS is published on the two-issues-per-volume basis, with one volume published annually. One issue of the volume is usually dedicated to CECIIS, the international scientific conference organized and hosted by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics. These special issues of JIOS normally contain a selection of best scientific papers presented at the Conference. The second issue is reserved for scientific papers in the fields of information sciences as well as a range of scientific fields related with information sciences, particularly applied ICT in economics and business.Owing to the efforts of the Editorial Board aimed at including JIOS in a number of relevant databases, JIOS has been steadily increasing its visibility with every new volume. As a result, JIOS is currently being cited in seven databases that cover a variety of scientific topics connected to information sciences, computing and applied ICT.In this issue you will find a selection of several original scientific papers, two preliminary communications and one review paper. We hope that the variety of themes reflects some of your own research interests, thus making the papers inspirational for your future work.As in all my letters addressed to the respected readership of JIOS, I would like to use this opportunity to motivate prospective authors among you, dear readers, to submit papers at www.jios.foi.hr. You are also invited to share with us your comments or critical remarks regarding the papers previously published in the Journal. Your willingness to become a peer-reviewer for submitted papers would be much appreciated as by choosing to do so you would contribute significantly to the rising quality of JIOS.

Business process reengineering (BPR) projects bear high risk and present tremendous effort for organizations. That is why is important to evaluate possible scenarios before BPR project actually starts. Simulation modeling might be used to evaluate effects of large scale BPR projects. The article presents use of simulation modeling in public sector with special emphasis on relationship between simulation results of To-Be and As-Is models with conclusions which might be derived by interpreting simulation results. Obtained results present that organization can significantly benefit from BPR projects while simulation modeling might be used to monitor and verify project trajectory.

Sažetak: Web sustavi mogu imati vrlo različite intervale opterećenja zbog broja korisnika. S jedne strane potrebno je analizirati koji broj korisnika Web sustav može obrađivati a da i dalje osigurava očekivano vrijeme odgovora za pojedini zahjev korisnika. Korištenje stvarnih korisnika za takvu analizu nije praktično i ima vrlo ograničenu namjenu budući da nije jednostavno osigurati i koordinirati veći broj korisnika koji će ponavljati korištenje sustava prema određenom planu. Za tu namjenu mogu se koristiti razni programski alati kojima se može simulirati očekivani broj korisnika sustava, slijed poziva pojedinih dijelova sustava, ritam njihovog rada i razne druge mogućnosti. S druge strane potrebno je povezati analizu opterećenja i optimizaciju Web sustava kako bi se osigurala njegova veća propustnost. Potrebno je istražiti kritična mjesta u Web sustavu koja zahtjevaju najveći dio rada (procesor, web poslužitelj, baze podataka i sl.) te na njima provesti postupke optimizacije. Rad opisuje razne postupke mjerenja opterećenja sustava i mjesta na kojima se osobito isplati uložiti trud prilikom optimizacije Web sustava.

The Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS – is an interdisciplinary scientific journal with a focus on the application of information sciences and advances in organizational sciences, as well as on theoretical contemplations in the fields that impact information sciences, computer sciences and organizational sciences. JIOS is published twice a year, and is managed by a team of professionals, all of whom are employed at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb.The Journal’s name and layout have already undergone several changes. As you can see, we have transformed our visual identity, and the format of the published papers has been changed as well. However, it is not only the visual identity of the Journal that we have been working on, as we have also aimed to enhance its visibility, accessibility and referencing. As a result, we are proud to say that the number of databases the Journal is cited in has grown from one to seven, and we are putting a lot of our e. orts into broadening this number in future.As you already know, the Journal’s web address has been changed to www.jios.foi.hr and it is currently being managed by the Open Journal System, in which the entire communication from submitting the paper to its reviewing and publishing is conducted on-line. In this issue of JIOS a selection of five original scientific papers and one review paper has been included covering the following topics: modern production management, fuzzy data, software and information systems development, online privacy and security, and fraud management. We hope you will find the papers interesting and challenging for your own research.Finally, we encourage you to submit your papers and also share with us your recommendations, comments or observations about papers already published. In that respect, we would very much appreciate your willingness to become a peer-reviewer for submitted papers, and thus contribute to the rising quality of JIOS.

Different modern information and communication technologies are emerging in all segments of our lives. The simplicity of using these high-tech and high-performance components enables us to build a wide range of enhanced and fast-in-reaction telemedical systems with the purpose of improving the quality of living. While building these systems it is easy to overlook or underestimate the need for data security and privacy protection. Telemedicine and e-health laws, regulations and standards, along with other telemedicine infrastructure components in the USA, Europe and Croatia are compared and discussed in this paper. After the common model for integrated mobile telemedical system is proposed with the example of heart-work monitoring system, all possible vulnerable and weak points in its architecture are identified and recommendations on design and implementation of similar systems are also discussed and given.

The Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences – JIOS – is an interdisciplinary scientific journal with focus on application of information sciences and advances in organizational sciences, as well as on theoretical contemplations in the fields that impact information sciences, computer sciences and organizational sciences. JIOS is published twice a year. This issue comprises submitted papers along with those chosen among papers presented at the IIS 2007 Conference (recently renamed CECIIS) organized by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics.JIOS has already undergone several changes of its name and layout. With this issue we introduce a new visual identity of the Journal as well as modified instructions to authors, to make it more aligned with contemporary standards in scientific journal publication. Further, the Journal has changed its web address and is managed by Open Journal System, where all communication from submitting the paper to reviewing and publishing is conducted on-line.In this issue of JIOS a selection of six original scientific papers has been included covering the following topics: organizational design, digital divide in enterprises, management software and web portals evaluation, m-marketing and m-advertising, as well as the introduction of a shot boundary detection algorithm for soccer video. We hope you will find the papers interesting and challenging for your own research.We are looking forward to new papers to be submitted in the future and comments of papers already published.