MSIS Theses and Dissertations (2014)

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http://hdl.handle.net/11071/2354

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    A prototype architecture for effective online presence for the Kenyan tourism sector
    (Strathmore University, 2014) Orwa, Caleb Obonyo
    The success of social media channels, such as You'Tube, Flickr.and others, present an excellent opportunity for the Kenyan tourism sector to increase the conversion rates of web traffic into tangible bookings. The users of these channels generate huge volumes of content in the form of micro-blogs, reviews, and ratings. This rich information source, often called User Generated Content (UGC), is becoming increasingly plentiful. The purpose of this thesis was to design and develop an adaptive web-based architecture that gathers and mines various types of User Generated Content (UGC) to inform a websites content and layout for a personalized and improved user experience. A prototype web application was then developed to demonstrate the feasibility of the system architecture Currently, major tourism sector players in Kenya are increasingly taking advantage of faster internet speeds and the dominance of electronic commerce to get more tourism products available online. However, effective utilization of web technologies to increase the conversion rates of web traffic into tangible bookings remains a challenge. Although adaptive web techniques offer opportunities for a persuasive online service delivery, there is little adoption of these techniques in the Kenya tourism sector. The purpose of this thesis was to develop an adaptive web-based architecture that gathers and mines various types of User Generated Content (UGC) to inform a websites content and layout for a personalized and improved user experience. A prototype web application was then developed to demonstrate the feasibility of the system architecture. An applied research design was employed because the objective of the research was to apply science to address and answer a real-world problem. Literature review was used as a data collection methodology in the first part of this research where indicators and technologies related to adaptive web and web personalization techniques were examined. Through benchmarking the proposed prototype features against related websites in Kenya, the research outcome indicated that it can provide a satisfactory online presence strategy and that it can be a model for tourism actors seeking to identify components necessary for creating competitiveness in tourism websites now and in the future.
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    Value addition of mobile telephony
    (Strathmore University, 2014) Muriithi, Charity Wairimu
    Mobile telephony is no longer an incomprehensible technology in this age. Banks have adopted this technology in line with their service offerings providing such services as checking balances from the mobile phone, bill payments, making cash deposits and cash transfers. The services that these banks provide require innovation and to be in line with customer needs. This dissertation sought to provide a framework that can improve the mobile service offerings for banking institutions. This was through the objectives that required to find out the current mobile technology practices, assessing the current mobile technology usage, identifying the gaps and the outcomes would assist in coming up with a framework to enhance mobile phone technology. A questionnaire was dispatched to various banks that have embraced mobile telephony technology in their services and they helped collect information on the value additions adopted by banks, identification of the gaps and collection of suggestions on how the current mobile services can be improved. Also secondary data was obtained to assist complete data collection. 35 banks responded to the questionnaire which guided the development of a framework. This framework was then implemented and validated where most banks revealed that the framework developed was relevant and useful to enhance the value of the current mobile telephony services the bank was offering.
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    E-government interoperability
    (Strathmore University, 2015-01) Mulinge, Victor Muia
    Governments face continued pressure to increase their performance with the aim to improve efficiency and service delivery to their stakeholders, customers and citizens. To improve efficiency and performance, Governments adopt e-Government models and Information and Communication Technology (lCT) solutions as enablers and vehicles for transforming public administration. As part of the transformational process, Public Services need to transform themselves into an integrated entity that responds to the needs of its stakeholders, customers and citizens. The study sought to achieve the following objectives: To identify challenges relating to heterogeneous systems in Kenya ; To identify the forms of technical interoperability that exists within the Public Service of Kenya; To establish the factors influencing the adoption of interoperability within the Public Service of Kenya and lastly to propose a framework that will be required to establish technical interoperability to facilitate the sharing and exchange of data within the Public Service in a standardized manner. The study used a qualitative research approach of descriptive type in which explorative research was combined with case study research. As part of the explorative research process, literature study was carried .out to clarify the different aspects ' (e.g., interoperability maturity, interoperability adoption factors) of interoperability and to identify distributed 'architectural forms available for establishing interoperability. Data was gathered for Information Systems interoperability cases through semi-structured interviews from Public Service Information Technology (IT) Managers and IT Staff. The analysis findings indicated that technical interoperability was limited to a small number of public service organizations .arid that technical interoperability between Information Systems was at a low ‘Ievel of 'sophistication and compliance. The analysis findings further indicated that there was a need to increase the level of technical interoperability sophistication and compliance between Information Systems and to further Model (CAM) was developed and proposed. The model provides technical interoperability guidance through a conceptual, layered and distribution architecture. The study concludes that the Cooperative Architectural Model (CAM) .proposed in this study meets the architectural requirements identified and serves as a conceptual architectural blueprint for achieving the desired state of technical interoperability within the Public Service of Kenya.
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    A model for the adoption of information systems in the career guidance and university placement for high school students in Kenya
    (Strathmore University, 2014-06) Muigai, Gachanja
    Studies show that majority of high school students in Kenya do not receive career guidance to help them select the most appropriate university courses and fitting careers. In addition, the students do not have accurate information about occupational opportunities to help them make appropriate career and degree choices. The purpose of the study was to develop a model to help students to make accurate and valid decisions on their degree choice or career based on their KCSE examination results. The study was guided by the following research objectives: to investigate the extent to which university entrants in Kenya's public universities are pursuing courses of their own choice; to investigate the existence of prior knowledge of course requirements for their university entry; to develop an SMS and web-based model for the selection of university choices; and to implement and test a course selection system. The study was limited to the public universities in Kenya. It was also restricted to secondary students who had pursued the 8-4-4 education system. A total of 382 questionnaires were printed and sent to the sample. Only 280 complete questionnaires were received, coded and quantitatively analyzed using SPSS using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings showed that there are major information gaps in the provision of career/course guidance to high school students. The study showed that respondents were unaware of course/career selection systems and would have made a difference in the choice of university course and subsequent career engagement. The findings showed the need for an effective system for modelling career guidance and university placement. The researcher developed an SMS and web-based course selection prototype to help students to make quality career choices based on their academic results and personalities. The model used a combination of academic reports, previous cut-off points, subject cluster combinations and the weighted system to predict the top four courses qualifying a student for undergraduate degree. The spiral methodology was used to develop the prototype. The researcher implemented the methodology in four phases: planning, risk analysis, engineering and evaluation phase. The prototype was implemented in four modules: registration, exam results, advisory and the data mining modules. Various tests were performed on the prototype including integration, module and system testing. Ten percent of the respondents were asked to participate in the testing and implementation process. The students reviewed and approved the font size, layout and functionality of the web pages including spelling, wrong directions, broken links and loading problems participated in usability testing reported that the interface was easy to use. They said that the background colours, font size and layout of the whitespace were helpful but requested options for increasing the font size and links to the web pages. These requests were added to the final prototype. The feedback showed that the course selection system could be manipulated easily by high school students. These findings supported the development of a course selection system. The study recommends that the current course selection system should be improved to help students to pursue their preferred courses. It recommends that prototype be improved for large-scale adoption. The prototype should updated to ensure it provides relevant, complete and timely information complying with changes to university degree courses, career matches and KUCCPS admission criteria for the current form four students (2014/201"5). In addition, the study recommends that further research should be conducted on the effect of university course selection on career engagement. Further research is needed to show the link between career guidance and the student's choice of university degree.
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    A Model for Adoption of Unified Communication and Collaboration in Organizations
    (Strathmore University, 2014) Ouko, Joseph Onyango
    In its simplest form, Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC&C) is “Communications integrated to optimize business processes”. The new landscape of business communications and collaboration has necessitated the need to unify all the previously stove piped implementations of communication tools. It is this need to have a solution that can provide users with a single, integrated and consistent experience across all communication tools that informs the strategy adopted by organizations to address Communication. Even with this, organizations are yet to have a standard and effective way to guide them in adopting such capabilities into their business processes. The purpose of this research was to identify the factors that influence the decision by organizations to adopt UCC Solutions, and what benefits and challenges they face in doing so. By analysing frameworks used by UCC vendors and System Integrators to guide organizations in adopting UCC solutions, and data collected, a model that organizations can use to effectively adopt Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions into their business processes was developed. The research applied qualitative and quantitative approach. The quantitative approach used an online questionnaire with structured questions to address different variables. This data provided insight into the current state of UCC adoption including the challenges and benefits. The qualitative aspect involved collecting and analysing data form organizations that already have UCC solutions integrated in their business processes mainly in the financial and banking sector. The results of the research showed that organizations are increasingly adopting UCC into their business processes. It also showed that by using a model that integrated People, technology and Processes, they exponentially increased their chances of success and attaining Communication Enabled Business Process (CEBP).By providing this model, this research sets the stage for future research which would incorporate the technological trends in communication such as BYOD and Mobility so as to provide a more comprehensive approach. In addition further research is required in order to be able to align the model to the new UCC adoption strategies of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) the basis of Cloud Computing.