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Service Science (MA) - 040.193
2 hours, 4,0 ECTS
Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung
Teaching Language: English
max. 50 participants
E-Mail chris.bauer@univie.ac.at
Time & Place
Regular attendance is required!
First unit: Tue, 10 October 2017 15:00, Hörsaal 16, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 2nd level
units every second week Tue, 15:00 - 18:15, Hörsaal 16, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 2nd level
- Tuesday 10.10. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 24.10. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 07.11. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 21.11. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 05.12. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 16.01. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
- Tuesday 30.01. 15:00 - 18:15 Hörsaal 16 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 2nd level
Aims, contents and method of the course
The term “information technologies” (IT) is most likely associated with the IT sector, software engineers, and robots. However, there are many markets (for example the service sector) that rely particularly on IT. Indeed, in many instances, the entire process of offering, selling, and consuming a service takes place online. In particular, the remarkable growth of the service sector has come to dominate business activity in most advanced economies over the last decades. Making up a significant part of the world economy, the service sector is a rapidly evolving field that is relied on to dictate the public's satisfaction and success in various areas of everyday life, from banking and communications to education and healthcare. What is more, there is the promising opportunity to innovate in services, to realize the business and societal value from knowledge about service, to research, develop, and deliver new information services and business services.
Services Science is the interdisciplinary application of science, engineering, and management for the purpose of improving services. Services Science also contributes to systematic innovation and improved productivity, and is the guiding force for the improvement of services through improved predictability in the productivity, quality, performance, compliance, development, reusability of knowledge, and operational innovation in services.
As an umbrella term for services over the Internet, e-services include electronic business transactions for handling online orders, application hosting by Application Service Providers (ASPs) and any processing capability that is obtainable on the Web. Using this e-services concept, any application program is a potential e-service, and Internet service providers (ISPs) as well as other companies are logical distributors or access points for such services.
Despite different definitions of the e-service concept, it can be argued that they all agree about the role of technology in facilitating the delivery of services. And, the Internet is the main channel of e-service delivery. And as such online services are ubiquitous in everyday life, these are also important for the entire society.
The objective of this course on Service Science is to provide an insight into the concept of e-services, their delivery channels and platforms, as well as management and engineering issues.
The course will cover topics such as the nature of services, the need for interdisciplinary approaches to services innovation, and the technology and tools needed to provide services innovation.
A major part of this course distinguishes the conceptions “e-services”, “web services”, “IT services”, and “virtual services”. In this context, the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) is introduced. SOA is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. Web services make functional building blocks accessible over standard Internet protocols, which are independent of platforms and programming languages. Thereby, these services can represent either new applications or just wrappers around existing systems to make them network-enabled. From a business perspective, this course discusses SOA’s requirements, benefits and challenges. Simultaneously, the basic SOA protocols are presented, in order to provide students an overview of the technical issues. The second part of the course finally closes with a presentation of the SOA Business Value Assessment procedure.
After attending this course, students are able to:
- understand and critique the ways in which researchers and practitioners are defining services and service science;
- articulate the motivation behind the study of service science and relate their own experiences to the study of it;
- apply theories that are emerging in the area of service science and identify current limitations in applying those theories;
- understand the importance of the different e-service
Assessment and permitted materials
Performance will be evaluated according to following criteria:
- Regular attendance is a prerequisite for passing the course.
- Written case elaboration (35%)
- Case presentation in class (25%)
- Final written exam (closed book) (40%)
Minimum requirements and assessment criteria
The following grading system is used:
87.5% - 100% = “Sehr gut” (1)
75% - 87% = “Gut” (2)
62.5% - 74.5% = “Befriedigend” (3)
50% - 62% = “Genügend” (4)
Below 50% = “Nicht Genügend” (5)
Regular attendance is a prerequisite for passing the course.
The grades for the tasks are weighted as follows:
- Written case elaboration (35%)
- Case presentation in class (25%)
- Final written exam (closed book) (40%)
If the prerequisite of >= 50% (according to above grading system) is fulfilled, distinguished participation and commitment in class and on the learning platform (discussion) is positively rewarded by pushing the respective student to the next grade level.
Examination topics
The lecture slides serve as key learning material as well as articles and background material on current issues concerning corporate IT. Material will be available on the course platform.
The course consists of four parts:
- Part 1: This part focuses on introducing a comprehensive set of definitions of “service” and “service science”. It includes materials that provide early definitions and thoughts on services. This survey of services is meant to provide some context around the burgeoning study of services and impact on modern economies.
- Part 2: This part of the course will engage with topics relevant to the question, “What are e-services?”. First, e‑services will be presented from a theoretical perspective. Then, the requirements for information and communication technologies (ICT) will be discussed.
- Part 3: This part of the course introduces information systems that support the central e-services along a business process. We thereby distinguish between access systems as well as support systems in the front and the back office, including, for instance, agent based systems, workflow management systems, workgroup support systems, etc.
- Part 4: This part of this course first discusses the characteristics of e-services, web services, IT services and virtual services. Then the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) is introduced. SOA is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These interoperable services are often referred to as “e-services”; in most cases, though, we can speak of “web services”. Web services make functional building blocks accessible over standard Internet protocols, which are independent of platforms and programming languages. Thereby, these services can represent either new applications or just wrappers around existing systems to make them network-enabled. From a business perspective, this course discusses SOA’s requirements, benefits and challenges. Simultaneously, the basic SOA protocols are presented, in order to provide students a good overview of the technical issues.
Further readings
- Erl, Thomas (2005). Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology & Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chapters 3-6.
- Fitzsimmons, James A. (2010). Service management: operations, strategy, and information technology. New York, NY: Mc Graw Hill.McGovern, James, Tyagi, Sameer, Stevens, Michael, & Mathew, Sunil (2003). Java Web Services Architecture. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. Chapters 1-7.
- Santos, Jessica (2003). E-service quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions. Managing Service Quality, 13(3). pp 233-246.
- Singh, Mohini (2002). E-services and their role in B2C e-commerce. Managing Service Quality, 12(6). pp 443-446.
Letzte Änderung: 24.10.2017, 14:42 | 1248 Worte