Does Replacing Face-to-face Lectures with Pre-recorded Video Lectures Affect Learning Outcomes?

Videoing lectures have been popular during the past decade. The literature on the effect of video lectures is controversial. Some studies indicate that video lectures have a positive effect on learning outcomes and student satisfaction, while some state that there is no effect at all. In this paper, we share the results of a university undergraduate course, where half of the lectures were replaced by pre-recorded lectures. The results indicate that using pre-recorded lectures had a statistically significant positive effect on grades. Also, the students’ satisfaction levels were higher. peerReviewed

The Quest for Underpinning Theory of Enterprise Architecture - General Systems Theory

Enterprise architecture originates from the 1980’s. It emerged among ICT practitioners to solve complex problems related to information systems. Currently EA is also utilised to solve business problems, although the focus is still in ICT and its alignment with business. EA can be defined as a description of the current and future states of the enterprise, and as a change between these states to meet stakeholder’s goals. Despite its popularity and 30 years of age, the literature review conducted on top information and management science journals revealed that EA is still lacking the sound theoretical foundation. In this conceptual paper, we propose General Systems Theory (GST) for underpinni…

Technology Architecture as a Driver for Business Cooperation: Case Study - Public Sector Cooperation in Finland

The current premise in the enterprise architecture (EA) literature is that business architecture defines all other EA architecture layers; information architecture, information systems architecture, and technology architecture. In this paper, we will study the ICT-cooperation between eight small and mid-sized municipalities and cities in Southern Finland. Our case demonstrates that the ICT-cooperation is possible without business cooperation and that ICT-cooperation can be a driver for future business cooperation. The findings challenge the current premise of the guiding force of the business architecture and encourage organisations’ ICT-functions to seek daringly cooperation with other org…

The Effects of Digitalisation on Accounting Service Companies

Rapidly expanding digitalisation profoundly affects several jobs and businesses in the following years. Some of the jobs are expected to disappear altogether. The expanding digitalisation can be seen as an example of the diffusion of innovations. The world has witnessed similar developments since the early years of industrialisation. Some of the sectors that will face the most disruptive changes are accounting, bookkeeping, and auditing. As much as 94 to 98 per cent of these jobs are at risk. The purpose of this study was to find out how digitalisation, automation of routines, robotics, and artificial intelligence are expected to affect the business structure, organisations, tasks, and empl…

Family Matters : Abusing Family Refresh Tokens to Gain Unauthorised Access to Microsoft Cloud Services Exploratory Study of Azure Active Directory Family of Client IDs

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is an identity and access management service used by Microsoft 365 and Azure services and thousands of third-party service providers. Azure AD uses OIDC and OAuth protocols for authentication and authorisation, respectively. OAuth authorisation involves four parties: client, resource owner, resource server, and authorisation server. The resource owner can access the resource server using the specific client after the authorisation server has authorised the access. The authorisation is presented using a cryptographically signed Access Token, which includes the identity of the resource owner, client, and resource. During the authorisation, Azure AD assigns Ac…

Essence : Reference Architecture for Software Engineering - Representing Essence in Archimate Notation

Essence is a standard for working with methods in software engineering. As such, it can be seen as the reference architecture for software engineering. The Essence consists of the Kernel, and a notation called the Language. This representation is not widely known and likely hinders the adoption of the Essence. This paper represents the work-in-progress of representing the Essence using ArchiMate, the de facto notation for enterprise architecture. Our purpose is to help organisations to adopt Essence by representing it in the language already understood by different stakeholders. peerReviewed

Does the Learning Channel Really Matter? - Insights from Commercial Online ICT-training

Evolving ICT has provided new options to participate to training. Online participation has been found to be cost effective, helping people to deal with the time and cost pressures they are facing on their jobs. Previous studies conducted in higher education sector indicates that student satisfaction or learning outcomes does not differ between online and classroom participants. However, little is known what is the situation in commercial ICT-training. This paper studied course feedbacks from courses having both online and classroom participants of a commercial ICT-training provider. Results revealed that the learning channel has no effect on satisfaction, perceived teacher’s substance and t…

Is My Office 365 GDPR Compliant? : Security Issues in Authentication and Administration

The General Data Protection Regulation, commonly referred as GDPR, will be enforced in all European Union countries in May 2018. GDPR sets requirements for processing EU citizens’ personal data regardless of the physical location of the organisation processing the data. Over 40 percent of European organisations are using Office 365. Microsoft claims that Office 365 service is GDPR compliant, and has provided tools to help Office 365 customers to ensure their GDPR compliancy. In this paper, we present some security issues related to the very foundation of Office 365 service, namely Azure Active Directory and administrative tools, and assess their GDPR compliancy. Our findings reveal that per…

Enterprise Architecture - To Business or Not to Business? That Is The Question!

Exploring Azure Active Directory Attack Surface: Enumerating Authentication Methods with Open-Source Intelligence Tools

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is Microsoft’s identity and access management service used globally by 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies and many other organisations. Recent attacks by nation-state adversaries have targeted these organisations by exploiting known attack vectors. In this paper, open-source intelligence (OSINT) is gathered from organisations using Azure AD to explore the current attack surface. OSINT is collected from Fortune 500 companies and top 2000 universities globally. The collected OSINT includes authentication methods used by the organisation and the full name and phone number of the primary technical contact. The findings reveal that most organisations are using…

Quality Management in Service Desk : How Does Service Desk Managers Define and Measure Quality

Many public and private sector organisations are depending on IT services provided by external service providers. The quality of the service affects the customer satisfaction and consequently the customer behaviour. The concept of quality has many meanings in the literature. In this paper, we study how service desk managers perceive the concept of quality and how to manage it in an organisation which has adopted ITIL. Our findings indicate that the quality is seen only in terms of how the agreed service levels are achieved. This view excludes the quality of the processes used to deliver IT services. Quality measurements are reflecting the perception of the concept of quality. peerReviewed

Toward a Model of Workforce Training and Development

In the modern, ever-changing world, both employers and employees are struggling in keeping their competitive advantage. Previous studies have recognised that both formal instruction and informal learning are needed to gain and maintain competence. The famous 70-20-10 model states that only 10 per cent of learning occurs during the formal instruction. The challenge for the organisations is how the formal instruction can and should be provided to employees. In this paper, we constructed a model of Workforce Training and Development (WOTRA), based on the current learning theories, modes, methods, and models. WOTRA can be used by both employers and employees to choose an adequate mix of learnin…

Teaching on Hybrid Courses : Insights from Commercial Online ICT-Training

Information and communication technology (ICT) has evolved rapidly during the last decades. These technological advancements have enabled new ways of teaching and learning, such as online courses, where students attend training using their own computer equipment. Previous studies have shown that the student satisfaction and learning outcomes do not differ between the classroom and online students. However, our previous study conducted on hybrid courses, where part of the students was present in a classroom and part are participating online, revealed some issues related to teaching methods and technical difficulties. In this study, we researched how teachers of a commercial ICT-training orga…

Method and Practical Guidelines for Overcoming Enterprise Architecture Adoption Challenges

During the last few years, interest towards Enterprise Architecture (EA) has increased, not least due to anticipated benefits resulting from adopting it. For instance, EA has been argued to provide cost reduction, technology standardisation, process improvement, and strategic differentiation. Despite these benefits, the EA adoption rate and maturity are still low. Consequently, EA benefits are not realised. A major reason hindering the adoption is that EA is not understood correctly. This paper aims for minimising the effect of the lack of understanding EA to adopting EA. Based on the research conducted in Finnish public sector, we propose an improved Enterprise Architecture Adoption Method…