Emanics WP1 - Vision and Integration Programme

Phase 1

Motivation

Integration is the essence of success of ay network of excellence. It requires strong efforts in many fields of the cooperation (education, research, dissemination). Integration means buidlign a common and well accepted common vision of the major challenges and offering a structured process to reach them.

Objectives

This workpackage has the following objectives:

• Initiate and lead a long term integration of the European research and teaching activities regarding IT management topics
• Build a structured process to establish a common vision of promising future research topics, achievements, challenges and forces within the network
• Collect requirements from Industry, SMEs & Users and bring them to the European management community
• Establish and maintain a map that evaluates the degree of integration achieved within the network

Tasks

T1.1: Research observatory

To build a Vision and Integration Program the first activity will be the identification and structured representation of the research and teaching activities of all NoE participants which could be represented within a network and service management research map. This map will be updated in a regular basis to reflect the NoE integration capabilities. The map represents a thematic mapping of research topics and assignment of experts to and within each topic. This document could also be used as a foundation to establish smaller teams within the NoE which work on similar topics and as a focal point for further interesting topics.

The NoE partners will establish a yearly summary of worldwide achievements in the discipline to derive actions which improve global visibility of European IT management research. These two documents and the discussion between the NoE partners will be used to identify research challenges to be addressed in the future (next year, next 3 years, next 5 years). These outputs will also be used to serve the evaluation of the integration achieved within the network of excellence. The measurable integration map is described below.

T1.2: PhD integration program

To establish a long lasting integration program, EMANICS will not only focus on research but also on teaching aspects within the network. With its students, especially its Ph.D. students, the network has the opportunity to establish a European integration program which outlives the lifetime of EMANICS. In a first step the partners will found joint Ph.D. committees to establish more inter-European contacts for Ph.D. students and international support. In a next step joint Ph.D. programs will be initiated. In such a program a Ph.D. student can spend his/her research time in two or even more research institutions to gain national and international support for the thesis.

T1.3: Common course program & mobility support

Besides the above presented activities the general mobility among NoE participants and their students must be encouraged. Therefore student exchange programs will be established which afford students to do advanced practical work or final theses in a cooperating research institution abroad. To improve the prospects of individual mobility and the comparability as well as convert ability of grades and experiences a common course program will be established. The aim is a course program on the graduate level which is consistent within all European universities of the network and which provides a quality label in network and service management.

Partners

The following EMANICS partners are involved in this work package:

• INRIA LORIA (INRIA) (Olivier Festor)
• University of Twente (UT) (Aiko Pras)
• Imperial College (IC) (Emil Lupu)
• International University of Bremen (IUB) (Juergen Schoenwaelder)
• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) (Rolf Stadler)
• University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich (CETIM) (Gabi Dreo-Rodosek)
• University of Zurich (UNIZH) (Burkhard Stiller)
• Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU) (Helmut Reiser)
• University of Pitesti (UPI) (Luminita State)

Deliverables

The deliverables produced by this workpackage can be found here.

Phase 2

(Vision and Integration Programme)

Objectives

This work-package has the following objectives:

• Maintain a map of research activities among EMANICS partners and world wide: Ph.D. theses, topics of conference sessions, current projects that researchers are involved in or are planning to do
• Refine the problem space and the semantics of the management activity by developing a taxonomy (ontology) for network and service management
• Define and update an EMANICS common course program to achieve a standardized level of knowledge among EMANICS participants, provide a repository of teaching material
• Foster mobility and joint research activity within the NoE
• Measure and document integration and collaboration between NoE partners and visibility of EMANICS Description of work

Tasks

T1.1: Research observatory

An initial map of research and teaching activities of EMANICS partners has already been developed in the first phase. Experiences gained through the acquisition of topics showed thenecessity to support a decentralized way to update the information about research activities and projects. Thus, within the next period (i) the information necessary to be filled in (researchactivities, current projects, planned proposals etc.) and the (ii) mechanisms (tools) need to bedefined. Access to data maintained in conference management systems such as JEMS areunderway. Discussions with experts from industry and academia have already resulted in the identification of new challenges and orientations of network and service management (hot topics, innovationsin network and service management, new challenges). This process should continue in the next period.

T1.2: Taxonomy, Ontology

Establish a set of foundation definitions (glossary) for management activities, develop taxonomy or network and service management, define new directions for network and servicemanagement.

T1.3: Common course curriculum

Create and maintain a common course programme for network and service management to chieve a standardized level of knowledge among EMANICS partners (i.e., EMANICScertificate). The common course program will cover both MsC and PhD. Programs. It will be organized in modules, and serve also as a pool of relevant teaching material for EMANICSpartners. Course content will be based on courses given at various partners places and from results of WP3 in this area.

T1.4: Mobility support

To foster mobility among EMANICS partners, the mobility support will be open call based (short stays: few days, medium stays: few weeks, long stays: few months).

T1.5: Ph.D. Integration

The support for joint Ph.D. committees will continue in a similar way. To even strengthen the integration among Ph.D. students and thus among EMANICS participants and to extend thevisibility of EMANICS, external “promoters” from industry should be invited to support a Ph.D. student by bringing in their expertise.Discussions are underway in order to establish a joint Ph.D. program to allow a Ph.D. student to spend research time in two or even more research institutions to gain national and internationalsupport for the thesis. This program will also foster exchange of Master students willing to pursue work in the area of network and service management

T1.6: Integration/Impact/Visibility measurement

To measure the integration among EMANICS partners, a prototype, called EMIN (EManics Integration), was developed. Work will continue on the development of the tool, the definition ofintegration and visibility metrics, and other benchmarks (impact factor and indexing in search engines) to measure the visibility of EMANICS. Activities are funded on a nine months basis, following a selection process based on open calls,

Partners

The following EMANICS partners are involved in this work package:

• INRIA LORIA (INRIA) (Olivier Festor)
• University of Twente (UT) (Aiko Pras)
• Imperial College (IC) (Emil Lupu)
• International University of Bremen (IUB) (Juergen Schoenwaelder)
• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) (Rolf Stadler)
• Oslo University College (HIO) (Mark Burgess)
• University Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) (Joan Serrat)
• University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich (CETIM) (Gabi Dreo-Rodosek)
• University of Zurich (UNIZH) (Burkhard Stiller)
• Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU) (Helmut Reiser)
• University of Pitesti (UPI) (Luminita State)

Deliverables

The deliverables produced by this workpackage can be found here.

Phase3

(Vision and Integration Programme)

Objectives

This work-package has the following objectives:

• Maintain a map of research activities among EMANICS partners and world-wide: Ph.D. theses, topics of conferences and workshops, keywords of published papers
• Refine the problem space and the semantics of the management activity by developing a taxonomy for network and service managementMaintain and extend the EMANICS common course program and the repository of teaching materialFoster mobility and joint research activity within the NoE
• Measure and document integration and collaboration between NoE partners and the visibility of EMANICS

Description of work

T1.1: Research observatory

A map of research and teaching activities of EMANICS partners has already been developed in the first phase and was extended and updated in phase 2. Information has been gathered from different internal and external sources. The maintenance of the system as well as the input of new information are required in phase 3. Published joint papers are a metric for collaboration in research; to reflect this we included data from publication databases. E.g., currently, DBLP data delivers basic information about publications but not keywords and paper topics. An extraction of keywords from the papers will allow us to combine them with the developed taxonomy, and define topics of interest for researchers and thus foster their collaboration.

Discussions with experts from industry and academia have already resulted in the identification of new challenges and orientations of network and service management (hot topics, innovations in network and service management, new challenges). This process will continue in the next period.

T1.2: Common course program

Maintain and extend the teaching repository with content tagged according to the created common course program.

T1.3: Mobility support

To foster mobility among EMANICS partners, the mobility support will be open call based (short stays: few days, medium stays: few weeks, long stays: few months).

T1.4: Ph.D. Integration

The support for joint Ph.D. committees will continue. To strengthen the integration among Ph.D. students and thus among EMANICS participants and to extend the visibility of EMANICS, external “promoters” from industry will be invited to support a Ph.D. student by bringing in their expertise.

T1.5: Integration/Impact/Visibility measurement

To measure the integration among EMANICS partners, a prototype system (EMIN) was developed. Work will continue on the development of the tool, the definition of integration and visibility metrics, and other benchmarks (impact factor and indexing in search engines) to measure the visibility of EMANICS. As a measurement system of integration, EMIN could be used also for other projects. Activities are funded on a six/twelve months basis, following a selection process based on calls open to all EMANICS partners.

Active projects during 2009

Common Course Program (CCP)

The content of a network and service management module will be investigated by considering relevant courses offered by EMANICS partners (and also elsewhere) and defining the syllabus of a representative module that will promote the discipline. Existing books from which material could be drawn will be identified but, more important, the outline of an up-to-date representative support book for this module will be produced.

EMANICS Integration Tool Maintenance and Data Updates (EMIN)

To measure the integration of the EMANICS partners a tool called EMIN was developed. We will maintain the EMIN integration tool and host it. We will further integrate new information that becomes available for 2008 and 2009 to show EMANICS integration. If there are new data sources coming up, we will adapt the EMIN tool to use them.

A Practical Approach to the Operation of Telecommunication Services driven by the TMF e-TOM Framework (PAOTS)

This projects is intended to create a course module as part of task T1.3 aimed at the following objectives in respect to the students attending the course:- Know the challenges a service provider or network operator have to face in order to provide services to their customers- Understand the role of e-TOM in the context of the NGOSS framework and the benefits brought by its potential use by service providers- Know how to express the needs of service providers and network operators in terms of e-TOM artefacts

Worldwide Research Map (WwRM)

A map of research and teaching activities of EMANICS partners has already been developed in the first phase of the project and was extended and updated in phase 2. Information has been gathered from different internal and external sources. In phase 3 the maintenance of the system as well as the input of new information will be investigated.

Partners

The following EMANICS partners are involved in this work package:

• University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich (CETIM) (Gabi Dreo-Rodosek)
• INRIA LORIA (INRIA) (Olivier Festor)
• University of Twente (UT) (Aiko Pras)
• Imperial College (IC) (Emil Lupu)
• Jacobs University Bremen (JUB) (Juergen Schoenwaelder)
• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) (Rolf Stadler)
• Oslo University College (HIO) (Mark Burgess)
• University Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) (Joan Serrat)
• University of Zurich (UNIZH) (Burkhard Stiller)
• Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU) (Helmut Reiser)
• University College London (UCL)(George Pavlou)

Deliverables

The deliverables produced by this workpackage can be found here.