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Het vaststellen van de betekenis van relevante informatie: een methode voor het opstellen van definities van belangrijke begrippen voor de bedrijfsvoering

Meinen, Jurgen (2010) Het vaststellen van de betekenis van relevante informatie: een methode voor het opstellen van definities van belangrijke begrippen voor de bedrijfsvoering.

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Abstract:Scholen aan Zee is an educational institute that provides secondary education. Scholen aan Zee is developing towards a so called transparent social enterprise. This means that a public organization is functioning like a business. The organisation is transparent as it shows responsibility to the outer world by providing information. To realise this ambition, a planning and control cycle has been implemented. This cycle does not work very well as the required reporting fails to meet the expectations. One of the most important problems regarding the reports is the meaning of the information it contains. The same indicator can have multiple meanings in different reports. This causes the reports to be incomparable. As a consequence the state of the organisation is not clear. The reports need to be standardised in order to counter this problem. It is necessary to create definition of the important indicators. These definitions need to be respected. The demands for information change. This also goes for terminology. This makes it necessary to change existing indicators and definitions. If definitions are present, they need to be evaluated at a later stage and if they do not suffice adjustment is required. An method to execute these activities would be very useful. To execute the activities of creating and evaluating of definiens a method has been designed. This method has been designed for Scholen aan Zee. It is a generic method however. Therefore it is also usable for other organisations. This method consists of the following activities:  Concept specification  Evaluation of existing definitions  Identification of the context of possible new definitions  Creation of new definitions  Determination of new definitions  Evaluation and adjustment of definitions This method is supported by a criteria survey and a checklist. This criteria survey is a tool to determine the quality of definitions. The checklist guides the execution of the method. It describes all activities and provide points of interest. The execution of this method resulted in a collection of definitions which will form the dictionary of Scholen aan Zee. The application of the definitions will cause the reports to be comparable. Communication problems about these reports and its indicators will cease to exist. Background Findings 8 The first recommendation is to appoint a definition administrator. This person is responsible for maintaining the definitions. The maintenance of the definitions will have a problem owner in this way. The definition administrator should be a person with overview of the whole organisation and who can connect various viewpoints. The second recommendation is to pay more attention to the semantics of their applications and information systems. At the moment there is an applications where the semantics does not match the requirements of Scholen aan Zee. This causes problems in the delivery of information. It is important to pay attention to semantics in the future. Scholen aan Zee is busy replacing some of the applications at the moment. The method is created to be applicable to various kinds of management cycles. One of these cycles is the existing planning of control cycle of Scholen aan Zee. This means that on various moments meetings need to be planned. At these meetings the definitions will be evaluated or possibly adjusted. It also can be needed to create definitions in the future as well. The last recommendation is to pay attention to the consistency of input of data into applications and information systems. If this does not happen, the data will get polluted and lose its meaning. This makes it necessary to pay this attention otherwise the creation of definition will have no use as the definitions do not match with the semantics of the data. The execution of all these recommendation will require an investment of time. Definitions will not appear spontaneously. This also counts for the evaluation and adjustment of definitions. The creation of definitions is a time intensive task. These tasks need to be assigned to people. The largest task is the task of maintaining the definitions. The agenda will have to contain fixed moments when the definitions require attention. The evaluation of definition can be performed annually or semi-annually. Scholen aan Zee will be able to maintain their definitions by executing the method that resulted from this research. It makes it clear when to execute which task in their planning and control cycle. The execution of the method will cause Scholen aan Zee to have quality definitions in the future. The problem of incomparable reports will cease to exist. It is required however that attention will be paid to the input of data.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
Scholen aan zee
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Information Technology MSc (60025)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59916
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