Computing & Business Applications
[MBA]
Topic 1
Network Computing: Discovery,
Communication, and Collaboration
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand the concepts of the Internet and the
Web, their importance, and their capabilities.
Understand the role of intranets, extranets, and
corporate portals for organizations.
Identify the various ways in which communication
is executed over the Internet.
Demonstrate how people collaborate over the
Internet, intranets, and extranets using various
supporting tools, including voice technology and
teleconferencing.
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES (cont.)
Describe groupware capabilities.
Describe and analyze the role of e-learning
and distance learning.
Analyze telecommuting (teleworking) as a
techno-social phenomenon.
Consider ethical and integration issues related
to the use of network computing.
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NETWORK COMPUTINGAN OVERVIEW
Many aspects of the way we work and live in the twenty-
first century is determined by the vast web of electronic
networks, which is referred to generally as the information
superhighway but now is usually called the Internet.
Internet links the computing resources of businesses,
government, and educational institutions using a common
computer communication protocol, TCP/IP.
Because of its capabilities, the Internet is rapidly becoming
one of the most important aspect of information
technologies today.
It is now most widely discussed IT topic of the new century.
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NETWORK COMPUTING The Future
Future versions of the Internet will allow even larger
volume and a more rapid flow of information.
Eventually we may see several information
superhighways.
It is probable that the original concept of a scientific-
educational system will be separated from the
commercial one.
For example, in order to support advanced network
applications and technologies, over 180 U.S.
universities, working in partnership with industry and
government, are working on a project named
Internet2 (internet2.edu).
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NETWORK COMPUTING The Future
On Internet2, advanced next-generation
applications such as remote diagnosis, digital
libraries, distance education, online simulation,
and virtual laboratories will enable people to
collaborate and access information in such ways,
which are not possible using todays Internet
(Choi and Whinston, 2000).
Another vision is that there will be several types
of interrelated Internets, one for e-commerce,
one for education, and so forth.
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THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
ON THE INTERNET
With the commercialization of the Internet in
the early 1990s, we have seen an explosion of
commercial applications.
These applications evolve through four major
phases: presence, e-commerce, collaboration,
and integration.
The major characteristics of each phase are
illustrated in next slide as they evolve over time.
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THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
ON THE INTERNET
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INTERNET APPLICATION CATEGORIES
Discovery:
Discovery involves browsing and information
retrieval.
It provides customers the ability to view information
in databases, download it, and/or process it.
It is facilitated by software agents since the amount
of information on the Internet and intranets is
growing rapidly.
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INTERNET APPLICATION CATEGORIES
(cont)
Communication:
The Internet provides fast and inexpensive
communication channels that range from
messages posted on online bulletin boards to
complex information exchanges among many
organizations.
It also includes information transfer (among
computers and via wireline and wireless) and
information processing.
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INTERNET APPLICATION CATEGORIES
(cont)
Collaboration:
Due to improved communication, electronic collaboration
between individuals and/or groups and collaboration
between organizations are increasing rapidly.
Several tools can be used, ranging from screen sharing and
teleconferencing to group support systems.
Collaboration also includes resource-sharing services, which
provide access to printers and specialized servers.
Several collaboration software products, called groupware
and workflow, can be used on the Internet and on other
networks. 11
Intranets and Extranets
Intranet is a network designed to serve the
internal informational needs of a company, using
Internet concepts and tools. It is a network
confined to an organization for its internal use.
Extranet is an intranets infrastructure is
confined to an organizations boundaries, but
not necessarily geographical ones; intranets can
also be used to connect offices of the same
company in different locations.
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The Role of Internet Software Agents
Search engine (e.g., Altavista,Google) maintains an
index of hundreds of millions of Web pages and
uses that index to find pages that match a set of
user-specified keywords. Such indexes are
created and updated by software robots called
softbots.
Directory (e.g.,Yahoo, About.com), is a
hierarchically organized collection of links to Web
pages. Directories are compiled manually, unlike
indexes, which are generated by computers.
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The Role of Internet Software Agents
(cont.)
NetCaptor (netcaptor.com) is a custom browser
application with a simple-to-navigate Windows
interface that makes browsing (only with Internet
Explorer) more pleasurable and productive.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Agents guide people
to the answers to frequently asked questions. When
searching for information, people tend to ask the
same or similar questions.
Newsgroups support staffs, vendors, and others have
developed files of those FAQs and an appropriate
answer to each.
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The Role of Internet Software Agents
(cont.)
Data Mining refers to sophisticated analysis techniques
for sifting through large amounts of information. It
permits new patterns and relationships to be
discovered through the use of software that can do
much of the mining process.
Toolbars: To get the most out of search engines, you may
use add-on toolbars and special software. Some are
attached to the popular search engines, others are
independent. Most are free.
Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com),
Copernic Agent Basic (copernic.com), KartOO (kartoo.com),
Yahoo Companion(companion.yahoo.com),
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Grokker (groxis.com).
Other Discovery Aids.
Webopedia.com
eBizSearch (gunther.smeal.psu.edu)
What Is? (whatis.com)
Elibrary (ask.library.com)
Howstuffworks.com
Findarticles.com
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Portals
Portal is a Web-based personalized gateway to
information and knowledge in network
computing. It attempts to address information
overload through an intranet-based environment
to search and access relevant information from
disparate IT systems and the Internet, using
advanced search and indexing techniques.
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Portals (cont.)
Information portal: a single point of access through a
Web browser to critical business information located
inside and outside of an organization. It can be
personalized for each user.
Corporate portal: provides single-point access to
specific enterprise information and applications
available on the Internet, intranets, and extranets.
Corporate portals offer employees, business partners,
and customers an organized focal point for their
interactions with the firm any time and from
anywhere.
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Other Types of Portals
1. Commercial (public) portals offer content for diverse communities
and are the most popular portals on the Internet. Although they
offer customization of the user interface, they are still intended for
broad audiences and offer fairly routine content, some in real time
(e.g., a stock ticker and news on a few preselected items).
Examples are yahoo.com, lycos.com, and msn.com.
2. Publishing portals are intended for communities with specific
interests. These portals involve relatively little customization of
content, but they provide extensive online search and some
interactive capabilities. Examples are techweb.com and zdnet.com.
3. Personal portals target specific filtered information for individuals.
They offer relatively narrow content but are typically much more
personalized, effectively having an audience of one.
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Other Types of Portals
4. Affinity portals support communities such as hobby
groups or a political party (Tedeschi, 2000). They offer a
single point of entry to an entire community of affiliated
interests.
5. Mobile portals are portals accessible from mobile
devices. Although most of the other portals mentioned
here are PC-based, increasing numbers of portals are
accessible via mobile devices. One example is i-mode
from DoCoMo in Japan.
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Other Types of Portals
6. Voice portals are Web portals with audio interfaces, which
enables them to be accessed by a standard or cell phone.
AOLbyPhone is an example of a service that allows you to
retrieve e-mail, news, and other content by voice. Voice
portals use both speech recognition and text-to-speech
technologies.
7. Corporate portals coordinate rich content within relatively
narrow corporate and partners communities. Kounadis
(2000) defines a corporate portal as a personalized, single
point of access through a Web browser to critical business
information located inside and outside of an organization.
They are also known as enterprise portals or enterprise
information portals.
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APPLICATIONS OF CORPORATE PORTALS
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Factors determining the Uses of Information
Technologies for communication
Participants: The number of people sending and receiving
information can range from two to many thousands.
Nature of sources and destinations: Sources and
destinations of information can include people, databases,
sensors, and so on.
Media: Communication can involve one or several IT-
supported media, such as text, voice, graphics, radio,
pictures, and animation. Using different media for
communicating can increase the effectiveness of a message,
expedite learning, and enhance problem solving. Working
with multiple media may, however, reduce the efficiency
and effectiveness of the system (its speed, capacity, quality)
and may significantly increase its cost.
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Factors determining the Uses of Information
Technologies for communication
Place (location): The sender(s) and receiver(s) can be
in the same room, in different rooms at the same
location, or at different locations.
Time: Messages can be sent at a certain time and
received almost simultaneously. Such synchronous
(real-time) communication is provided by telephones,
instant messaging online, teleconferencing, and face-
to-face meetings. Asynchronous communication, on
the other hand, refers to communication in which the
receiver gets an answer sometime after a request was
sent. E-mail and bulletin boards are examples.
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TIME/PLACE FRAMEWORK
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TIME/PLACE FRAMEWORK
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MANAGERIAL ISSUES
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MANAGERIAL ISSUES
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