Manuel Mora

Autonomous University of Aguascalientes | UAA · Departamento de Sistemas de Información

Context: A Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a model of phases-activities, roles, and products systematically used to develop software with functional expected quality. Although SDLC is widely applied to various software types, it remains unusual in Big Data Analytics Systems (BDAS). Objective: To address this issue, several SDLCs for BDAS h...

Software development using agile System Development Life Cycles (SDLC), such as Scrum and XP, has gained important acceptance for small businesses. Agile approaches eliminate barriers to required organizational, technical, and economic resources usually necessary when rigorous software development approaches, through heavyweight methodologies (e.g....

Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) are specialized Information Systems for the definition, execution, and management of business organizational processes including the participation of users, software, and data. To develop BMPS, several rigorous software development life cycles (SDLCs) have been reported in the literature in the last two de...

Addresses the mathematical, statistical and computational foundations and techniques of Big Data Analytics. Includes specific research problems in the development methodologies from a Systems and Software perspective. Presents successful BDA systems applied in diverse domains such as Healthcare, Logistics, Finance.

Business agility has been recognized as a core competitive capability in a dynamic business environment. In this context, the organizational IT capability is a co-factor for achieving and keeping business agility. IT capability has been managed through the utilization of plan-driven IT service management (ITSM) frameworks and standards such as the...

Big data analytics systems (BDAS) have emerged through the convergence of analytics techniques and the availability of sources of massive data, internal and external to the organization, with descriptive, predictive, or prescriptive purposes. BDAS are relevant software systems pursued in diverse domains of application such as marketing, healthcare,...

Advanced IT is used to develop and deliver big data analytics systems (BDAS) as services. In the last decade, proprietary and open source IT has been available for organizations interested in providing IT services classified as BDAS as a service (BDASaaS), as a platform (BDASaaP), or as an infrastructure (BDASaaI). For small and medium-size organiz...

Big data analytics systems (BDAS) are modern software systems with descriptive, predictive, or prescriptive purposes developed by current organizations. BDAS are viable due to the convergence of analytics techniques and the availability of sources of massive data, internal and external to the organization. BDAS are developed in a variety of domains...

There has been increasing interest in modeling software product lines (SPLs) using architecture description languages (ADLs). However, sometimes it is required to reverse engineer an SPL architecture from a set of product architectures. This procedure needs to be performed manually as currently does not exist tool support to automate this task. In...

The design-building of IT services in data centers has been historically conducted by applying rigorous IT service design-building phases-workflows. Consequently, relevant research has been conducted upon these rigorous phases-workflows to provide theoretical foundations and practical guidance to IT service design-building architects. However, the...

The systematic design, building and implementation of IT services for on-premise, cloud-based or hybrid data centers are a hard engineering and managerial process. Heavyweight IT service design workflows—from ITIL v2011, CMMI-SVC v1.3 and the ISO/IEC 20000 standard—have been used in the last decade. However, the current dynamic business requirement...

The modern business environment and global covid-19 pandemic effects have led to any relevant business organizational activity, like e-commerce, to rely on on-premise and cloud information technology (IT) services. To deliver high-quality IT services, plan-driven IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks and standards have been used in business organ...

This study conducts a review and synthesis of the Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) evolution, applications, frameworks and emerging trends with the aim to provide a summary of core concepts, a succinct but valuable description of main applications and frameworks, and an account of main recommendations for addressing the Big Data challenge...

Software architecture models are considered first-class artifacts in current software engineering best practices. Thus, usable and well-understood modeling methods are required for software architects. For this aim, several specific software architecture modeling methods as well as generic design methods included in software development methodologi...

Knowledge management systems (KMS) are computer‐based systems highly valued in business organizations because they support knowledge management (KM) processes. Most KMS have been developed using non‐intelligent computer technology—that is, DMS, CMS, DBMS, and CIS—, and thus, they cannot provide advanced capabilities. Consequently, enhanced KMS usin...

Cloud services include significant benefits for the provider and the customer. It depends on the resource sharing concept, which is important to increase the resources utilization and to reduce the customer’s costs. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new networking paradigm. It is used to virtualize a network and offer it to several users as se...

Plan-driven Project Management is a highly relevant approach for successful systems and software development projects, and its application is pursued uniformly. Agile Project Management practices, in contrast, are highly flexible and varied, and their learning and correct application has been found a challenging task. In other Engineering Managemen...

This special JDS issue is focused on highlighting the new and updated decisional concepts, frameworks, methods, and technologies needed to assist decision makers and policymakers in the context of a global pandemic. This introductory editorial contains a brief overview of the eleven research articles provided by the international community.

Global pandemics cause strong negative impacts on global health, economies, education, socialisation, and recreation. The COVID-19 global pandemic has challenged government policymakers and business decision-makers to make efficient, effective, and ethical decisions to mitigate its damages. In this research, we evaluate how ‘Analytics Decision Supp...

Software process standards and models are used in large- and medium-sized organizations to reach the Iron Triangle. In contrast, small and very small entities either ignore them or cannot apply them because these standards and models are technically and economically not affordable. Consequently, agile software development practices are usually used...

This article presents a selective literature review of Analytics Intelligent Decision Technologies Systems (Analytics IDTS) developed to support decision-making in business and public organizations, with a particular focus on the global COVID-19 pandemic. We select Analytics IDTS published in 2019–2020 and evaluate them with an Analytics IDTS Desig...

The highly dynamic world of information technology service management stresses the benefits of the quick and correct implementation of IT services. A disciplined approach relies on a separate set of assumptions and principles as an agile approach, both of which have complicated implementation processes as well as copious benefits. Combining these t...

Software development methodologies (SDMs) have had an accepted evolution (i.e., the replacement of SDMs of one era to the next) through the pre-methodology and early-methodology eras to the methodology era. But in the last 20 years, the transition of the methodology era (rigor-oriented) to the post-methodology era (agile-oriented) has led a debate...

The current and most used IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks (ITIL v2011, CMMI-SVC, and ISO/IEC 20000) correspond to a rigor-oriented paradigm. However, the high dynamism in business requirements for IT services has fostered the emergence of agile-assumed ITSM frameworks. In contrast with the Software Engineering field where the rigorous and a...

Software Process Improvement efforts (SPI) are pursued by organizations for improving the overall quality of their software development processes. However, very small entities (VSEs) avoid them by the lack of required financial and other organizational resources. In contrast, VSEs use agile software development methodologies (ASDMs), but these ASDM...

A rigor-oriented paradigm, in the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) domain, has permeated in multiple international organizations. In contrast, in the Software Engineering (SwE) domain, the agile paradigm has complemented or replaced the rigor-oriented one in the last two decades. Recently shortened ITSM methods (i.e. FitSM and IT4IT...

Service-oriented Software Engineering (SOSE) is a software engineering paradigm focused on Service-oriented Computing Applications (SOCAs), for what SOCA development methodologies are required. Recent studies on SOCA development methodologies revealed theoretical and practical deficiencies. Thus, academicians and practitioners must adapt developmen...

In this chapter, we introduce and review the characteristics of a set of specialized computer-based systems called Decision-Making Support Systems (DMSS) (Forgionne et al., 2000) as valuable tools for supporting a risk management process. Our aim is to provide a brief but well-structured introduction to DMSS, the risk management process, linkages b...

The provision of high-quality educational services is a mandatory objective for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) nowadays. Consequently, HEIs implement Quality Management System (QMS) process frameworks. A core managerial activity conducted in these QMS is decision making, which impacts the overall quality of the provided HEI's educational serv...

Agile systems development methodologies (ASDMs) have gained high acceptance in very small entities (VSEs) of software development seeking quality at minimal effort. SCRUM and XP in industrial settings and UPEDU in academic ones are main of them. Similarly, Software Process Improvement (SPI) initiatives promote the utilization of process frameworks...

This edited volume covers essential and recent development in the engineering and management of data centers. Data centers are complex systems requiring ongoing support, and their high value for keeping business continuity operations is crucial. The book presents core topics on the planning, design, implementation, operation and control, and sustai...

The main international Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) process frameworks such as ITIL V3 and the ISO/IEC 20000-4, includes a service design process as part of their mandatory set of processes. Nevertheless, even with such availability of processes, their used nomenclature, their phase-activity structure, and their granularity leve...

The provision of high-quality educational services is a mandatory objective for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) nowadays. Consequently, HEIs implement Quality Management System (QMS) process frameworks. A core managerial activity conducted in these QMS is decision making, which impacts the overall quality of the provided HEI's educational serv...

Software Process Improvement efforts (SPI) are pursued by organizations for improving the overall quality of their software development processes. However, very small entities (VSEs) avoid them by the lack of required financial and other organizational resources. In contrast, VSEs use agile software development methodologies (ASDMs), but these ASDM...

The process of business-information technology strategic alignment (BITSA) has been consistently ranked as a top priority by chief information officers (CIOs) and extensively studied for over three decades. Constructs on the BITSA process, frameworks for understanding its main components, models for predicting its successful occurrence, and methods...

This article reports the conceptual design of QMM-HEI-SP: a quality management model for higher education institutions (HEIs) students' performance. This model has been theoretically founded on recommendations from the ISO 9001 IWA 2:2007 international guidelines for HEIs. Higher education services contribute to the economic and social progress of...

ocial aspects of software development are gaining increasing attention among the research community. Recently, a number of researchers have conducted studies to explore the social structure of software development activities that may potentially affect the health of a software project. Games are special kind of social activities, which can easily h...

This research paper presents a novel complementary approach to the system implementation research stream by comparing implementation success factors for management support systems (MSS), also called decision-making support systems, (DMSS) and management information systems (MIS). Data were collected over a 14-year period from 132 information techno...

The design and utilization of Electronic Process Guides (EPGs) have been studied in Software Engineering (SwE) since the 1990s. However, the empirical findings from surveys, case studies, and experiments on the beneficial effects of their utilization are still lacking. Thus, we suggest that further research on the utilization of EPGs is required. I...

The importance of Software Architecture design has been acknowledged as a very important factor for a high-quality software development. Different efforts in both industry and academia have produced multiple system development methodologies (SDMs) that include SA design activities. In addition, standardization bodies have defined different recommen...

This short paper is a rejoinder to Ivari’s (2016). It describes the Ivari’s arguments, corrective actions, and contributions on the peer-based review system problem in the information systems field. It manifests that, while Ivari’s posited solutions are worthy, they are also insufficient for achieving a behavioral change in the current peer-based r...

Free-Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) tools are free-cost license highly attractive to be implemented by organizations. However, not of all the FLOSS tools are mature, and failed implementations can occur. Thus, FLOSS evaluation-selection frameworks and FLOSS success-failure implementation factors studies have been conducted. In this research, we...

Free-libre Open-source software (FLOSS) tools are free-cost licence highly attractive to be implemented by organisations. However, not of all the FLOSS tools are mature, and failed implementations can occur. Thus, FLOSS evaluation-selection frameworks and FLOSS success-failure implementation factors studies have been conducted. In this research, we...

Software process standards (e.g. ISO/IEC 12207, ISO/IEC 15504) and models (e.g. CMMI) provide a set of best practices and guidelines for improving the quality of the software process and products resulting from that process. However, they do not prescribe a particular software development methodology (i.e. RUP, MSF), and thus software development t...

Model-driven software development proposes model transformations as a key system design principle. However, development of model transformations can be considered as a complex task because of the semantic difference in involved models. In particular, we are interested in the improvement of transformations between organizational and functional requi...

The availability of free-libre open source software (FLOSS) has stimulated their organizational implementation in many countries. The main attractiveness for it is the free-cost license of usage regarding with acquisition of COTS (components of the shelf) commercial software, among other factors such as: maturity status, available technical communi...

The design Software Architecture (SA) is an essential activity in the modern development software systems. This SA design activity defines its core components, the interrelationships among them, and a set of essential attributes expected for the final software. While this design is realized in a high level of abstraction, missing this activity or a...

Business-IT Strategic Alignment (BISA) has been consistently ranked over the past two decades as a one of the top priorities by Chief Information Officers (CIO). This paper reviews the BISA origins, its fundamental concepts, and its frameworks from a pragmatic and integrated perspective. The challenges of BISA are also briefly discussed. The paper...

The main international IT Service Management processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ISO/IEC 20000, COBIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP) include the design of IT services as part of their main best practices. However, despite having a common purpose and conceptual structure, they are organized differently. Hence, ITSM academic researchers and practitione...

IT Service Management (ITSM) is a managerial approach to deliver value through IT services. This service-oriented world-view has required new knowledge on processes and tools to cope with the planning, design, building, operation, and improvement of IT services. While some decisions can be efficiently and effectively made by a manager alone, more c...

The implementation of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) Process Frameworks requires the utilization of software tools for coping with the inherent complexity of their process administration. However, while large and medium sized organizations can afford commercial software tools to support this aim, the involved costs preclude its ut...

An IT service design process is considered to be a fundamental piece of the seven key international IT Service Management (ITSM) processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ITIL v3 (and ITIL v2011), ISO 20000-4, CobIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP). Nevertheless the availability of IT service design processes, few –if any descriptive-comparative studies amon...

Group-based decision-making situations are relevant to engineering management practice. To assist group decision making, specialized computer-based tools called Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) have been promoted since the late 1980s. Nevertheless, a review of the extensive research on GDSS design and evaluation reveals that an integrated fram...

Decision Making Support Systems DMSS are computer-based systems specialized to support some, several, or all phases of a decision-making process. DMSS can be deployed using traditional and intelligent computing mechanisms. In turn, Information Technology Service Management ITSM is a managerial approach to deliver organizational value through the pr...

With the growing impact of IT-Systems for the success of a company, the IT Service Management ITSM gets an important domain. ITSM is a management system for the IT-services of an organization, which will be described by different models. The models offer ...

Intelligent Decision-Making Support Systems (i-DMSS) are specialized IT-based systems that support some or several phases of the individual, team, organizational or inter-organizational decision making process by deploying some or several intelligent mechanisms. This book pursues the following academic aims: (i) generate a compendium of quality the...

This paper describes the design and proof of concept of a web-based e-business decision-making support system (EBDMSS), to deliver a balanced scorecard (BSC)-based modeling and analysis in support of e-business strategic management. EBDMSS is designed, built and validated through a conceptual design research method. Its design is theoretically unde...

Contemporaneous business organizations face process operational effectiveness and efficiency challenges for being successful in the current competitive global markets. For such aim, BPMS technology has provided support for deployment and monitoring BPM environments in the last 15 years. Rarely, the development of business process-oriented software...

A comparative study of inhibitors and facilitators for implementing management information systems (MIS) and integrated decision support systems (integrated DSS) is reported. Knowing implementation inhibitors and facilitators for a specific IT system is useful for IT practitioners to prepare and use implementation checklists and guidelines when the...

Decision-making Support Systems (DMSSs) have been traditionally designed and built by using mainly the Waterfall method, Prototyping-Evolutive, or Adaptive approach in the last three decades. In this paper, the authors argue that while such approaches have guided to DMSS developers, they have been also demanded for adding ad-hoc, non-standardized a...

The design, build and evaluation of an ontology-based knowledge management system prototype tool — entitled CMMIoKMS — for supporting the consultation and understanding of CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) is reported. Ontology-based tools have been proposed for improving such complex cognitive tasks realized by Software Engineering practitioners inv...

All of the main international IT Service Management (ITSM) process models include a Service Design process as part of their mandatory set of processes. Nevertheless such availability, we have identified that because of their varied nomenclature, varied structure, and varied level of granular conceptual description, their utilization is scarcely rep...

There is a rich amount of literature on services from Information Technology (IT) (Management view) and IT System Engineering (ITSE) (Engineering view) domains. However, such a variety has produced disparate views. Furthermore, given that IT and ITSE service-based systems must be linked to business services (the User view), conceptual interrelation...

International IT Service Management models (CMMI-SVC, MOF-4, and ITUP) and de facto or de jure standards (ITIL v3, ISO 20000-4) include a Service Design process as part of their mandatory set of processes. Nevertheless such availability of processes, their used nomenclature, their phase-activity structure, and their granularity level used for their...

Implementing decision-making support systems (DMSS) is considered an organizationally complex and risky task that is influenced by dynamic technical and social-political issues. Consequently, DMSS implementation failures, with associated economic loses, are still reported. While several statistics-based (static) quantitative models of successful fa...

The Software Development under the Business Processes paradigm and Web Services has become a key foundation for business. As a support to the above, several Software Development Life Cycle Methodologies involving Business Processes and Web Services have emerged; however literature still reports unmet needs. The following study aims to present a com...

Service-oriented software engineering (SoSE) is a new paradigm for building software systems, fostered by the availability of a new -but already mature- computing technology based on services. SoSE advances the current object-oriented and the component-based software engineering paradigms. Under that new paradigm, multiple software-system developme...

In this chapter, the authors review the landscape of research methodologies and paradigms available for Information Technology (IT) and Software Engineering (SwE). The aims of the chapter are two-fold: (i) create awareness in current research communities in IT and SwE on the variety of research paradigms and methodologies, and (ii) provide an usefu...

Philosophical paradigms, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies make up the answering and problem solving systems that define current research approaches. While there are multiple research method books, the subject lacks an update and integrated source of reference for graduate courses. Research Methodologies, Innovations and Philosophies in Sof...

In this short article, we present an e-interview to a well-recognized system scientist Barry G. Silverman, who is Professor of Systems Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Ackoff Collaboratory for Advancement of the Systems Approach (ACASA) in the same university. In this e-interview, Professor Silverman, t...

In this chapter, we report the design of an ontology (called onto-ServSys) for the relevant service system construct used in the Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) arena. These conceptual artifacts have been used to establish a non-ambiguous and common set of basic constructs for supporting automated reasoning on a domain of interes...

There is a rich amount of literature on services from Information Technology (IT) (Management view) and IT System Engineering (ITSE) (Engineering view) domains. However, such a variety has produced disparate views. Furthermore, given that IT and ITSE service-based systems must be linked to business services (the User view), conceptual interrelation...