Information Systems

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Excellent

Research in Information Systems at Politecnico di Milano concerns several aspects related to planning and conceptual and architectural design of information systems. Research focuses on initial design phases and corresponding high-level design issues, focusing on the alignment between requirements and design solutions. The focus is on evaluating the organizational impact of design choices, on using components at conceptual level for information systems design, on technological aspects of IS development, ranging from workflow management systems to information quality and security. Applications of this research are very broad, but a special attention is focused on issues related to development of information systems in the public administration and financial industry. Methodological approaches and contribution on the research problems currently studied in the information systems area are briefly discussed in the following: Design of e-services and workflows in cooperative information systems Current e-service technology paradigms require the analysis and conceptual modeling of cooperative inter-organizational information systems. The main issues investigated in this area are on adaptive information systems, designed using a service-oriented approach, with research on service description, service classification and retrieval issues, flexible service composition design, composed service optimization, and self-healing business processes. The security problems in distributed information systems (user authentication, trust in the cooperation, secure document flow, secure applications) are also tackled, using a system description based on formal security policies and a formal system description. Design of multichannel information systems The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of infrastructural choices on the quality of multi-channel services. The variety of virtual distribution channels combined with their relentless pace of change add to the complexity of quality-based strategies, especially when high levels of quality need to be sustained over time. Within the national FIRB MAIS Project (Nov. 2002-July 2006, KEuro 9600 global funding, coordinated by the Information Systems group, with Barbara Pernici as chief scientist, http://www.mais-project.it) on Multichannel adaptive information systems, methods and support environments for the design of adaptive information systems based on web services have been studied. Cost-oriented design of IT infrastructures The information technology (IT) infrastructure comprises the hardware and network components of a computer system. In most cases, multiple combinations of infrastructural components can satisfy requirements and, accordingly, overall performance requirements can be differently translated into processing and communication capabilities of individual components. This research aims at designing the minimum-cost IT infrastructure that satisfies requirements. Information quality Research on this topic focuses on data quality dimensions and on the design of quality certification mechanisms in a quality factory. Quality dimensions being studied are data currency, timeliness and completeness in multi-channel information systems and the accuracy of spatial data in geographical information systems. Data quality is a critical factor for institutions distributing services through multiple channels and exchanging spatial data for the planning and management of the territory and for which information is a primary and critical resource. Lack of channel, data and functional integration raises quality problems in information products. 17 In the Information Systems group, there is also a focus on applying theoretical research results on models and methods and developed tools on specific application domains, to validate and experiment the proposed approaches. Specific domains investigated are within e-government, virtual districts, and financial institutions.

Dipartimento di afferenza

Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione (DEI)

Docenti afferenti

Giampio Bracchi (full professor)
Giuseppe Pelagatti (full professor)
Barbara Pernici (full professor)
Chiara Francalanci (associate professor)
Mariagrazia Fugini (associate professor)
Mauro Negri (associate professor)
Danilo Ardagna (assistant professor)