FF RR II SS CC OO A FRAMEWORK OF INFORMATION SYSTEM CONCEPTS The FRISCO Report (Web edition) by Eckhard D. Falkenberg Wolfgang Hesse Paul Lindgreen Björn E. Nilsson J. L. Han Oei Colette Rolland Ronald K. Stamper Frans J. M. Van Assche Alexander A. Verrijn-Stuart Klaus Voss IFIP 1998 ISBN 3-901882-01-4 Full text of the FRISCO Report (MS-Word 6.0) (as available by anonymous ftp://ftp.leidenuniv.nl/pub/rul/fri-full.zip) The FRISCO Report, originally completed in December 1996, is now made available as a downloable file for research and educational purposes. Not to be distributed for profit, in any form, without written permission of the International Federation for Information Processing (enquire: [email protected]) Printed copies (soft and hard cover) are available with permission of the copyright holder, at cost + postage, from the Department of Computer Science, University of Leiden, The Netherlands (enquire: [email protected]) IFIP 1996, 1998 ISBN 3-901882-01-4 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREAMBLE 1 1 INTRODUCTION 7 1.1 The Information System Area 7 1.2 Roots of the Problems in the Information System Area 10 1.3 Setting up a Framework of Information System Concepts: 14 1.4 The Structure of Our Conceptual Framework 16 1.5 The Structure of the FRISCO Report 18 2 A LINE OF REASONING ABOUT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 19 2.1 Searching for a Starting Point 19 2.3 Some Fundamental Questions to be Asked and Some Simple Answers 22 2.4 Towards a Raison d'être 37 3 INFORMATION SYSTEM CONCEPTS: An Integrated Overview 40 3.1 Our "Weltanschauung" 43 3.3 Actors, Actions and Actands 59 3.4 Constructing and Representing Conceptions 62 3.5 Communicating Conceptions: Restrictions Imposed by the Constructivist View 74 3.6 Models 76 3.7 Systems 82 3.8 Organisations, Information and Communication 86 3.9 Information Systems 95 3.10 Computerised Information Sub-systems 100 3.11 Summary of Assumptions and Definitions 108 4 INFORMATION SYSTEM CONCEPTS: A Formal Approach 118 4.1 The Fundamental Layer 120 4.2 The Layer of Actors, Actions, and Actands 127 4.4 The Layer of System Concepts 136 4.5 The Layer of Organisational and Information System Concepts 138 4.6 Summary of Primitives, Axioms, Definitions and Functions 140 5 A SAMPLE APPLICATION OF OUR CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 150 5.1 Description of the Test Case 150 6 ELABORATION ON SELECTED TOPICS 166 6.1 Semiotic Concepts 166 6.2 System Concepts 175 6.3 Modelling Concepts 183 7 REFLECTIONS: Committed Positions on the Report 196 - FRISCO – “Mission * Impossible” ? (Eckhard D. Falkenberg) 196 - Is Information to Become the Phlogiston of the Late 20th Century? (Wolfgang Hesse) 202 - On Collaborative Linking Support for the FRISCO Concept System (Pentti Kerola) 208 - FRISCO - A Way to Insight? (Paul Lindgreen) 213 - Reflections from a Practitioner on the Information Concept (Björn E. Nilsson) 218 - A Dissenting Position (Ronald K. Stamper) 222 - FRISCO Reflected Upon: So What or Aha? (Alexander A. Verrijn-Stuart) 229 REFERENCES 236 GLOSSARY 243 INDEX 251 The FRISCO Report Preamble Away with a corrupt world! Let us breathe the air of the Enchanted island. George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel PREAMBLE What is the FRISCO Report About? The FRISCO report presents the results of the work of the IFIP WG 8.1 Task Group FRISCO1. The group was proposed in 1987 [FL87] and established in 1988. It organised three conferences on this subject [FL89, FRE92, FHO95] and produced an interim report in May 1990 [Lin90a]. This (final) report is intended to provide a suitable conceptual framework, i.e., wherever possible, simple, clear and unambiguous definitions of, and a suitable terminology for the most fundamental concepts in the information system field, including the notions of information and communication, and of organisation and information system. The report approaches these issues at two levels, namely (1) a broad examination of relevant fields, and (2) a set of definitions and formal modelling principles. It is hoped that based on these definitions, it will be possible to achieve a clear understanding of the various kinds of information systems, such as information systems for companies, government departments, other organisations and communities of people, and of the various kinds of computerised information sub-systems, such as database systems, knowledge-based systems, decision support systems, expert systems, office information systems, management information systems and the Internet, to name but a few. One thrust of the report is to provide an ordering and transformation framework allowing to relate the many different information system modelling approaches (i.e. sets of concepts for modelling information systems, meta-models) to each other. Most importantly, the report places the social, information-oriented and technical aspects in appropriate conjunction. In other words, the conceptual framework is not intended to be confined to computerised information sub-systems, but is applicable to information systems in the broader sense. Who should Read the FRISCO Report? The report is written such that it can be understood by any person with a practical or theoretical background in organisations and/or information systems. It is particularly useful for everyone who is concerned in some way or another with the problems and issues of communication and information in organisations, enterprises and business environments, such as: • System analysts and engineers; • Information analysts and engineers; • System and software developers; • System development method engineers (system methodologists); 1 The FRISCO Report Preamble • Researchers and scientists in the areas of information and communication, system analysis and development; • Teachers, textbook writers and PhD-students in these areas. The FRISCO Report Preamble Why was the FRISCO Report Written? The objectives of the FRISCO task group grew out of a concern - as early as 1987 - within IFIP WG 8.1 (Design and Evaluation of Information Systems) about the then scientific, educational and industrial situation. This was clearly expressed in the first manifesto [IFIP88]: "There is a growing concern within IFIP WG 8.1 about the present situation, where too many fuzzy or ill-defined concepts are used in the information system area. Scientific as well as practice-related communication is severely distorted and hampered, due to this fuzziness and due to the frequent situation that different communication partners associate different meanings with one and the same term. There is no commonly accepted conceptual reference and terminology, to be applied for defining or explaining existing or new concepts for information systems". The real concern (the misunderstanding of what is involved in organisational communication) is still there - in spite of our studies - and one may fear that some of the problems are innate to the various interested parties. The roots lie in the past, for the information system area has suffered from the fact that due to historic accidents, different facets of the area have been dealt with by different scientific disciplines or "cultures", in particular computer science and social sciences [e.g. Gog92]. Too little communication among these different "cultures" has taken place. While developing computerised information systems, too many computer scientists have neglected the essential organisational, cognitive and social aspects of information system development, and have hardly been aware of the central role of information and communication in organisations. This has often resulted in partial or even total failure of development projects of computerised information systems. On the other hand, social and organisational scientists have often been unaware of the importance of considering (the most essential) formal aspects of information system development and thus wandered aimlessly where more precision would have helped them out. The FRISCO group itself underestimated these problems, in particular the existence of "hidden agendas" of the interested parties. Thus, the study took much time, but was certainly rewarding in that it helped clarify many of the conceptual foundations of the information system area, providing suggestive definitions of the relevant concepts and the basis for a suitable terminology. What are the Major Global Achievements of the FRISCO Work? The FRISCO report justifies the information system area scientifically by placing it in a more general context, comprising philosophy, ontology, semiotics, system science, organisation science, as well as computer science. Thereby, the concepts of the information system area become "rooted" or "anchored", that is, related to concepts of these other areas. The FRISCO report provides a reference background for scientists and professionals in the information system area comprising a consistent and fully coherent system of concepts and a suitable terminology that enables them to express themselves about matters in the information system area in a structured and well-defined way. This framework of concepts can serve as a theoretical basis, as well as for further scientific work such as for the production of textbooks on various levels in the information system area. The FRISCO Report Preamble At the same time, we must admit that what has been borrowed from different disciplines should not be seen as constituting new - and certainly not a "complete" - re-formulations. In order to adapt foreign theories to our area, we have been forced to make simplifications, which to professionals from those