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Data service (DS) is a special software service that enables data access in cloud environment and provides a unified data model for cross-origination data integration and data sharing. The purpose of the work is to automatically compose DSs and quickly generate data view to satisfy users' various data requirements (DRs).

The paper proposes an automatic DS composition and view generation approach. DSs are organized into DS dependence graph (DSDG) based on their inherent dependences, and DSs can be automatically composed using the DSDG according to user's DRs. Then, data view will be generated by interpreting the composed DS.

Experimental results with real cross-origination data sets show the proposed approaches have high efficiency and good quality for DS composition and view generation.

The authors propose a DS composition algorithm and a data view generation algorithm according to users' DRs.

The aim of this paper is to make a descriptive exploratory effort to discern the role of IT exports in India's macro-economic indicators, like national income, employment and balance of payment in the post-Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization strategy in the 1990s. The paper also explores the vital historical developments of various dimensions of IT, such as its export growth, major software and services exports destinations, compositions of IT exports and domestic growth in India.

This study is based on secondary data, which were collected from Balance of Payment Statistics Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM),rtd and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY). This study has used descriptive analysis and growth models for studying the objectives. Major IT sector dimensions, such as total output, exports revenue, domestic revenue, gross domestic product, employment and exports of the software and service industry, have been examined for the period 1991–2016.

The findings suggest that over the last 26 years, the information technology industry's economic footprint has extended by more than seven times. Over the same period, direct employment in the information technology sector increased at an average growth rate of around 17%. Software and services exports earn, on average, about three times greater than the other three major services of India's current account of the balance of payment.

This study focuses on originality in examining the role of IT exports in India's macro-economic indicators economic reforms of the 1990s and also explores the historical developments of various dimensions of IT exports and domestic growth in India. All the work has been done in original by the authors, and the work used has been acknowledged properly.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the servitization phenomenon of product-centric companies, by identifying the resources, capabilities and organizational aspects needed to successfully deploy a servitized business model (BM).

By adopting a literature-based approach, this paper develops a servitization maturity model (SeMM) aimed at assessing and positioning companies in the servitization journey. The paper also illustrates the model application to two small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a machinery and a forklift truck company.

The SeMM identifies a set of 85 critical requirements that are used to evaluate the servitization level of product-centric companies, through a specific five-stage measurement scale. The requirements are categorized into: five maturity dimensions (organizational approach, process management, performance management, tools, capabilities) and nine BM Canvas components. The empirical application exemplifies how the SeMM can support managers in identifying and bridging the gaps in their servitization journey.

The SeMM adopts an original bi-dimensional approach and provides an operationalization of the servitization process through the identification of specific critical requirements framed on established BM and maturity dimensions taken from the literature. Moreover, the model responds to a call for research to develop practitioner-oriented tools and guidelines to support the servitization process, in particular for SMEs, and to the need to go beyond to measures of servitization based on indicators about number of services offered or their turnover.

This study aims to develop a systematic method called servitization maturity model to support companies in developing distinctive capabilities for successful servitization.

The concept of maturity models is adopted to support companies in developing distinctive capabilities for servitization. A systematic literature review and case study approach are employed to develop the maturity model.

The findings highlight 46 capabilities classified into seven categories: strategy and leadership, performance, offerings, customers, organization, network and digital technology. Furthermore, the evolutionary path is defined by combining two types of levels, i.e. capability and maturity levels, to develop these capabilities.

The evolutionary path was partially validated through the application, while further investigation is required to validate the evolutionary path. Therefore, future research should investigate the further validation of the evolutionary path by conducting multiple case studies.

The proposed maturity model enables companies to not only capture the bigger picture of the required capabilities without oversight, but also determine a process for improving the requisite capabilities with feasible efforts.

Existing maturity models focused on the transition from less to more advanced services. However, recent studies emphasized that companies need to determine strategies that reflect their capabilities rather than simply move toward more advanced services. Based on this assumption, this study provides successive stages that enable companies to improve their capabilities through feasible efforts.

The organizational digital transformation (ODT) in companies presents small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – who remain at the beginning of this transformation – with the challenge of offering digital services based on sensor technologies. Against this backdrop, the present paper identifies ways SMEs can enable digital servitization through sensor technology and defines the possible scope of the organizational transformation process.

Around 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from different hierarchical levels across the German manufacturing SME ecosystem. Using the Gioia methodology, fields of action were identified by focusing on influencing factors and opportunities for developing these digital services to offer them successfully in the future.

The complexity of existing sensor offerings must be mastered, and employees' (data) understanding of the technology has increased. Knowledge gaps, which mainly relate to technical and organizational capabilities, must be overcome. The potential of sensor technology was considered on an individual, technical and organizational level. To enable the successful implementation of service offerings based on sensor technology, all relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem must network to facilitate shared value creation. This requires standardized technical and procedural adaptations and is an essential prerequisite for data mining.

Based on this study, current problem areas were analyzed, and potentials that create opportunities for offering digital sensor services to manufacturing SMEs were identified. The identified influencing factors form a conceptual framework that supports SMEs' future development of such services in a structured manner.

Testing business processes is crucial to assess the compliance of business process models with requirements. Automating this task optimizes testing efforts and reduces human error while also providing improvement insights for the business process modeling activity. The primary purposes of this paper are to conduct a literature review of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) testing and formal verification and to propose the Business Process Evaluation and Research Framework for Enhancement and Continuous Testing (bPERFECT) framework, which aims to guide business process testing (BPT) research and implementation. Secondary objectives include (1) eliciting the existing types of testing, (2) evaluating their impact on efficiency and (3) assessing the formal verification techniques that complement testing.

The methodology used is based on Kitchenham's (2004) original procedures for conducting systematic literature reviews.

Results of this study indicate that three distinct business process model testing types can be found in the literature: black/gray-box, regression and integration. Testing and verification approaches differ in aspects such as awareness of test data, coverage criteria and auxiliary representations used. However, most solutions pose notable hindrances, such as BPMN element limitations, that lead to limited practicality.

The databases selected in the review protocol may have excluded relevant studies on this topic. More databases and gray literature could also be considered for inclusion in this review.

Three main originality aspects are identified in this study as follows: (1) the classification of process model testing types, (2) the future trends foreseen for BPMN model testing and verification and (3) the bPERFECT framework for testing business processes.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand and study the architecture and system characteristics of the underlying support platform for crowd system, by recognizing the characteristics of service internet is similar to the coordination characteristics between the massive units in the underlying platform of crowd system and studying the form, nature and guidelines of the service internet.

This paper points out the connection between the underlying support platform of crowd system and service internet, describes the framework and ideas for researching service internet and then proposes key technologies and solutions for service internet architecture and system characteristics.

The research unit in the underlying support platform of crowd system can be regarded as a service unit. Therefore, the platform can also be regarded as service internet to some extent. The ideas and technical approaches for the study of service internet’s form, criteria and characteristics are also provided.

According to this paper, relevant staff can be guided to better build the underlying support platform of crowd system. And it can provide a highly robust and sustainable platform for research studies of crowd science and engineering in the future.

The description of “blockchain banking”, the determination of “the sub-processes” of “blockchain banking” as a “business process”, and the assessment of “maturity level” in Parsian Bank.

Theoretical sources on “blockchain banking” were initially investigated. Then the “sub-processes” of “blockchain banking” as a “business process” were extracted by Parsian Bank's experts through the “Delphi method”. Next, the “sequence” of the “sub-processes” was determined by means of the “AHP”. Eventually, Parsian Bank's maturity levels for all the sub-processes as well as the overall maturity level were specified on the basis of the “CMMI” V1.3 in order for Business Process Management (BPM).

Blockchain banking’ combines traditional banking with cryptocurrencies, which can be provided by merging “hybrid e-wallet” with “bank account” and “bank card” – all together as “crypto bank account”. Plus, “hybrid e-wallet” is a form of mobile e-wallet on blockchain that supports both cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies in the same platform by which the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies are possible. Besides, “Blockchain banking service” can also be offered within the framework of “open banking” aligned with “open innovation” through a FinTech (or a beta bank) in collaboration with a licensed bank via “open API”, which is called “blockchain banking based on FinTech”. At last, the eight sub-processes of “blockchain banking” were determined and Parsian Bank's “maturity level” was specified.

This is the very first practical guide to “blockchain banking service”.

Information literacy is defined as discrete abilities that a person requires to have in order to find, assess, use and share information. As information literacy skills play a prominent role in the students' academic achievement, students and in particular international students coming to continue their postgraduate studies in other countries may face problems in finding and using library services. The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the information literacy skills, challenges and needs of international and domestic students at the Finnish universities.

This paper uses a mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected through an online survey (82 respondents) and qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 international and 10 domestic students.

Academic library services are used but in different ways. The findings indicate that international students have a relatively low level of information literacy skills compared to domestic students and faces various challenges, especially in the beginning of their studies.

The study was exploratory, and data were collected from limited number of Finnish universities and may not be representative of the underlying population.

Academic libraries should provide effective courses on research methods and library services to the international students while keeping in mind the international students language and cultural barriers.

This is one of the first attempts in information literacy research that focusses on international and domestic students' information literacy skills at the higher education environment. As such, the results provided in this paper can help librarians and decision-makers at the higher education environments to plan better and become more efficient in delivering information services meeting students' information needs and expectations.

Facing the diverse needs of large-scale customers, based on available railway service resources and service capabilities, this paper aims to research the design method of railway freight service portfolio, select optimal service solutions and provide customers with comprehensive and customized freight services.

Based on the characteristics of railway freight services throughout the entire process, the service system is decomposed into independent units of service functions, and a railway freight service combination model is constructed with the goal of minimizing response time, service cost and service time. A model solving algorithm based on adaptive genetic algorithm is proposed.

Using the computational model, an empirical analysis was conducted on the entire process freight service plan for starch sold from Xi'an to Chengdu as an example. The results showed that the proposed optimization model and algorithm can effectively guide the design of freight plans and provide technical support for real-time response to customers' diversified entire process freight service needs.

With the continuous optimization and upgrading of railway freight source structure, customer demands are becoming increasingly diverse and personalized. Studying and designing a reasonable railway freight service plan throughout the entire process is of great significance for timely response to customer needs, improving service efficiency and reducing design costs.