I'll Tag It!!

Mungkin ide nya mudah, but practically, hal ini bisa menjembatani kepentingan industri (vendor pengembang), yg seringkali dilupakan akademia. Yakni:

RQ1: Apakah praktisi masih embracing conceptual modeling secara serius?
cabang pertanyaanya: Teknik pemodelan apa yang paling popular

RQ2: How was adoption pattern of modeling technique in regards to some variables, say, organization size, purpose, topics, jenis software, pemodel/analis?
pertanyaan ini membantu akademia memperkecil gap ekspektasi dari kalangan industri yg selama ini punya fokus yg belum sinkron.

Selain menggunakan data kuantitatif, penelitian yang diusung nanti dapat juga menjadi sarana meletakkan batu pertama dalam penelitian kualitatif, yakni menentukan secara kontinu faktor faktor tren yg menjadi penentu keberhasilan sebuah aplikasi pemodelan sistem. Mahasiswa bisa mulai mengenal alat analisis non kuantitatif, seperti menggunakan NVivo. Metodenya bisa dengan studi kasus, atau juga grounded research.

Selamat Hari Jum’at kawan TGI Friday!!
Gruß

For my students who are interested to get some reading in conceptual model, be it in object, process and data model, place your request on the comments box.

Topik 1
Pekerjaan akuntansi, sama seperti sistem informasi, penyedia informasi yang berkualitas. SysTrust sebagai organisasi, ataupun COBIT sebagai kerangka IT Governance telah memberikan pijakan dalam menentukan kualitas sebuah informasi. COBIT sendiri menyebutnya sebagai information criteria a.k.a business requirement. (1) Effectiveness, (2) Efficiency, (3)Confidentiality, (4)Integrity, (5) Availability, (6) Compliance, dan (7)Reliability. Students dapat:

RQ1: Mengevaluasi dalam konteks tertentu (berupa control context, risk management, audit, atau lainnya), bagaimana COBIT memiliki validitas dan konsistensi internal dalam mencapai kriterita informasi itu, or
RQ2: Bagaimana kualitas informasi diterapkan dalam pelaksanaannya? lebih relevan bila diselenggarakan dalam studi kasus, walaupun menggunakan cross sectional method juga tidak masalah
RQ3: Bagaimana kualitas informasi akuntansi dengan basis kerangka selain COBIT,seperti SysTrus, ITIL, COSO atau ISO? bahkan bisa diexpan RQ nya dengan komparasi untuk mencari tahu
RQ4: Bagaimana kerangka IT Governance mendukung kualitas informasi melalui perbandingan kerangka tersebut, dalam konteks Indonesia.

Topik 2

Ontologi merupakan domain pengetahuan yang juga banyak diadopsi kalangan peneliti di bidang analisis dan perancangan sistem. Pada intinya, ontologi mencoba menjembatani kebutuhan “kognitif” seseorang dalam memahamai fenomena dunia nyata. Dalam konteks pengembangan sistem, konteks pemodelan dunia nyata menjadi penting, karena pengembangan dan analis perlu memetakan dan mengidentifikasi konstruk dunia nyata yang mana yang perlu dimasukan dalam katalog informasi/pengetahuan model sistem. Analisis Representaional (berbasis teori Representasi oleh Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) dapat dijadikan pijakan awal untuk mengevaluasi bagaimana model proses bisnis ataupun model struktur data, ataupun model aktifitas organisasi sudah memenuhi “kebutuhan informasi” sebagaimana mana di positkan oleh BWW.

Dengan mengevaluasi suatu model, diharapkan pemahaman thd dunia nyata (modeling) dapat lebih terakomodasi dan terwujud dalam aspek yang sudah melalui tingkatan pengukuran yang ilmiah dan terbukti.

RQ1: Bagaimana kemampuan representasional dinilai, bila dikaitkan dengan teori representasi BWW atas teknik pemodelan tertentu (DFD, Flowchart, UML activity, REA, BPMN, ebXML, dll) dalam hal permasalahan tertentu (e.g:compliance, penyelesaian suatu tugas spesifik, penciptaan informasi proses bisnis)?
RQ2: Isu apa saja yang perlu diperhatikan oleh akademis, vendor, dan praktisi terkait dengan teknik pemodelan tertentu saat ini saat yg akan datang?
RQ3: Bentuk kombinasi model apa saja apa yang mendukung kebutuhan pengembang atau pun pengguna dalam pemecahan permasalahan/pengambilan keputusan?

PS: Buat temen2 mhsw yg kesulitan/tertarik discuss utk pengembangan topik skripsi mereka. Pintu terbuka lebar untuk supply jurnal yg berkaitan dgn apa yg sudah sy bicarakan.

Thank you.
(sambil pusing mikirin proposal sendiri)

Mumpung masih ingat, langsung ditulis. RQ ini berhubungan dengan sistem informasi akuntansi, khususnya dalam konteks pemahaman terhadap proses bisnis. Kita ketahui dalam keberhasilan pengembangan atau pun penggunaan sistem informasi akuntansi, pendekatan user centric merupakan pendekatan yang bisa digunakan untuk memastikan seberapa berguna / berhasil kah sebuah sistem yang akan dirancang dalam run time.

Berikut RQ yang dimungkinkan dalam konteks terhadap evaluasi kritis terhadap sistem.

1. Bagaimana model data memiliki kualitas yang bisa disampaikan pada pengguna dalam hal pemaknaan terhadap realitas proses organisasi. Peneliti bisa menggunakan metode riset kuasi eksperimen dengan membandingkan beberapa model data yang biasa digunakan dalam praktik (ER, Objek, IDEF, atau UML) kemudian terapkan pada sampel partisipan yang memakainya.

2. Mengevaluasi kualitas struktural dari sebuah model dalam mengekspose pengendalian aplikasi, atau khususnya pengendalian pada proses bisnis (business process control)? hal ini penting, krn dalam praktik information assurance/auditing, pemahaman terhadap IT Governance yg khususnya IT control di bagi menjadi beberapa layer, entity level, service level (general control) dan business process level (application control). Silahkan refer ke COBIT.

3. Meneliti seberapa jauh kemampuan model/diagram dalam perancangan sistem terhadap pemahaman user dalam melaksanakan tugas mereka (sering disebut Task Implementation) yang diamanatkan pada mereka. Sekali lagi, metode riset yang cukup representatif adalah eksperimen. Studen pada awalnya menciptakan skenario terlebih dahulu, rancang bangunan model yg akan dipakai lengkap dengan versioningnya, kemudian terapkan pada sampel user (bisa mahasiswa akuntansi lainnya, atau vendor untuk mencerminkan relevancy). Hal ini empirically lebih robust dibanding melakukan analisis melalui kuisioner.

That’s it for now….
Gruß

/* This article is the source for those who want to read what happened to EY case which motivated me to write a popped up question. I know it is quite sometime ago, but still worth learning. Enjoy folks. */

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK | Tue Dec 21, 2010 6:47pm EST

(Reuters) – Accounting firm Ernst & Young was sued by New York prosecutors over allegations it helped to hide Lehman Brothers’ financial problems, in the first major government legal action stemming from the Wall Street company’s 2008 downfall.

The civil fraud case contends that Ernst & Young stood by while Lehman used accounting gimmickry to mask its shaky finances. The lawsuit says Lehman ran “a massive accounting fraud,” but it did not name as defendants any former top executives at the investment bank whose September 2008 collapse helped spark the global financial crisis.

The lawsuit seeks more than $150 million in fees that Ernst & Young received from 2001 to 2008 as Lehman’s outside auditor — less than 1 percent of its global annual revenue — plus other unspecified damages.

The lawsuit was filed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. People close to Cuomo said one factor in bringing the case was that he knows that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission already is investigating former Lehman chief Richard Fuld and other former top Lehman executives.

Cuomo “wants to go after the one party he knows isn’t being sued,” said John Coffee, a professor of corporate law at Columbia University.

In a statement on Tuesday, Ernst & Young said it intended to “vigorously defend” the lawsuit.

Lehman’s bankruptcy occurred in the midst of a global financial crisis and was not caused by any accounting issues, the company said.

“Lehman’s audited financial statements clearly portrayed Lehman as a highly leveraged entity operating in a risky and volatile industry,” the accounting firm said.

Legal and accounting experts said earlier they expect that Ernst & Young will try to settle the case rather than engage in a long court fight.

“It tends to be lot less expensive for both parties to resolve it through settling and getting it behind them,” said Bruce Pounder, an expert on accounting ethics and president of Leveraged Logic, an Asheville, North Carolina, firm that provides continuing education to accountants.

He said he does not see significant fallout for Ernst & Young in terms of its viability as an audit firm.

Ernst is the third-largest by revenue of the “Big Four” U.S. accounting firms, behind Deloitte and PwC.

Cuomo filed the lawsuit days before he is to leave office and become governor of the state in January. A spokesman for incoming attorney general Eric Schneiderman declined to comment.

REPO 105

Cuomo said in the civil complaint that for more than seven years leading up to Lehman’s bankruptcy, the investment bank engaged in fraudulent accounting transactions that Ernst & Young explicitly approved. The case focuses on an accounting technique known as Repo 105, which temporarily removed as much as $50 billion in assets from the balance sheet in 2008.

“This practice was a house-of-cards business model designed to hide billions in liabilities in the years before Lehman collapsed,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes nine months after a court-appointed examiner in the Lehman bankruptcy concluded that Ernst & Young was “professionally negligent” in its audit duties.

The report by examiner Anton Valukas also said that Lehman could also have claims against Fuld and former chief financial officers Chris O’Meara, Erin Callan and Ian Lowitt for negligence or breach of fiduciary duty related to the use of Repo 105 transactions.

PAST CASES

The case, filed in New York state Supreme Court, is one of the biggest legal cases involving an accounting firm since Arthur Andersen was criminally indicted in 2002 over the Enron scandal.

The Ernst & Young case is a civil lawsuit, while Andersen was charged criminally and later convicted of obstruction of justice for its role in Enron’s collapse.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Arthur Andersen conviction in 2005, but the firm was virtually out of business by then — and its reputation was shattered.

Andersen’s demise reduced the number of big accounting firms that audit most large companies globally to just four, including Ernst & Young. Since then, prosecutors have been wary of charging entire firms with fraud because of worries that another audit firm collapse would harm the financial system.

In one major settlement, KPMG agreed in 2005 to pay $456 million to settle a federal investigation into questionable tax shelters, avoiding a potentially crippling criminal indictment. The firm agreed to make internal changes and to be overseen by an outside monitor temporarily as part of the pact.

In 1999, Ernst & Young agreed to pay $335 million to shareholders of Cendant Corp to settle a case stemming from an accounting scandal at the travel and real estate service company. Ernst & Young said at the time that it was misled by Cendant and had done nothing wrong.

London-based Ernst & Young employs about 140,000 people. It had revenue of $21.3 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, Dena Aubin, Scot J. Paltrow and Dan Levine. Editing by John Wallace, Robert MacMillan and Matthew Lewis)

***This is a copy of my FB note***

Alarmed this news from one of my best colleague, I think students n peers also ought to know about the recent state of what currently happen to EY. Hey, guess it’s nice to post this note bundled in series of “Popped Up Research Question” note :). Students may use them for their future references in developing their research works for their final thesis.

Just come across this intriguing questions. You may extend into more broader or narrower extent for your own interests. But remember it shall be connected to current practice of auditing and accounting accepted principles.

1. How does current standard of audit scope determination REALLY pay off for developing auditor independence position in disclosing the proper and mandated financial information?

2. Are current norms pulling the auditor’s weight in doing their obligation to independently expose clients activities ?

Well, that’s it for this moment.

I sincerely wish you the best for the upcoming and most wanted moment for all of us, the Ramadhan. The fasting, better worship and tilawah, more training on physical fitness, the joyful of doing good deeds, and many more we expect to do in the Ramadhan. May we all be purified and successfully go through the whole month with divinity without any flaws.

To my family, please apologize that I can not be with you all this year. But above of all, we have God that unites us within our hearts. I wish you Bunda, the best for the whole month, getting better and always in healthiness. To teteh Runi, you’ll make it this year girl, I know you can. To ceu2 Naila, I hope this would be your first time practicing the fasting. And to the little one Sarah, happy all the time. I miss you like crazy here. I love you all so much. (BIGG HUGGSSS AND KISSESS)

Mohon maaf semua kesalahan kami sekeluarga. Atas nama Ritchi, Ocke, Runi, Naila dan Sarah kami mengucapkan selamat datang Ramadhan!

The following verse I find very interesting as it mentions man and women repetitively so much so that it looks appealing to me to reveal more what the tafsir/interpretation could be. This verse explains what sort characteristics of human are real worth in the sight of AIlah. Guess will be better to share it, just make it my first. I also add the Indonesian version. (Sourced from quranenglish.com).

Surah Al-Ahzab verse 35:

Most surely *53 the men and the women who have surrendered themselves to Allah; *54 who are believing, *55 obedient, *56 truthful, *57 and patient; *58 who bow down before Allah, *59 practise charity, *60 observe the fasts, *61 guard their private parts *62 and remember Allah much: *63 Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a vast reward. *64

Tafseer:
*53 Presentation of this theme immediately after the foregoing paragraph contains a subtle allusion to the fa[c]t that the -instructions given above to the Holy Prophet’s wives are not exclusively meant for them but the Muslim society as a whole should reform itself in accordance with them.
*54 “Who have surrendered themselves to Allah : Who have accepted Islam as a code of life for themselves, and have decided to follow it in their lives, and who have no wish to resist the Islamic way of life and thought, but have adopted the way of obedience and submission to it.
*55 “Who are believing”: Whose obedience is not merely outward nor unwilling but who sincerely regard the guidance given by Islam as based on the truth whose faith is that the way shown by the Qur’an and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be Allah’s peace and blessings) is the only right and straight way in following which alone lies their true success. That which has been declared as wrong by Allah and His Prophet is certainly wrong even according to their judgement and that which has been declared as right by AIlah and His Prophet is certainly right even according to their thinking and sense. Psychologically and intellectually also they do not regard as improper any injunction that has been enjoined by the Qur’an and Sunnah, and do not remain on the lookout to change it somehow to suit their own desire or mould it according to the current trends of the world, avoiding at the same time the blame that they have effected a change in the Command given by AIlah and His Prophet. The Holy Prophet has described the true state of faith in a Hadith in these words: “He who reconciled himself to Allah as his Lord and to Islam as his Way of Life and to Muhammad as his Messenger, has the true taste of Faith.” (Muslim) In another Hadith, he has explained it thus: “None of you becomes a believer until the desires of his self become subordinate to what I have brought.” (Sharh as-Sunnah)
*56 That is, “They do not rest content with mere belief but are obedient practically also. They are not the sort of the people who would honestly believe that what Allah and His Messenger have commanded was true but would violate it in practice: that they would sincerely regard what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden as bad but would go on following the same in practical life.”
*57 That is, “They are truthful in their speech and honest in thou dealings. They do not deal in lies, deceptions, frauds and forgeries. They utter with their tongues only what their conscience approves as true. They practise and perfom only what they honestly find to be in accordance with righteousness and truth, and they arc honest in all their dealings with others.”
*58 That is, “They patiently and steadfastly bear and face all the obstacles, dangers, difficulties and losses that they might have to encounter in following the right way taught by Allah and His Messenger and in establishing Allah’s Religion in the world; no fear and no temptation and no lust of the self can succeed in diverting them from the right way.”
*59 That is, “They arc free from pride, vanity and haughtiness: they havc full understanding of the reality that they arc servants and they havc no other position than that of servitude. Therefore, their hearts as well as their bodies remain bowed before Allah, dominated by fear of Him. They never display the attitude which is the hall-mark of the lives of those who are fearless of God and arc involved in arrogance. ” From the sequence it appears that the mention of Khushu’ (expression of humility) in particular along with the general attitude of the fear of God implies the Prayer, for the mention of the practice of charity and fast has been made just after it.
*60 This does not only imply payment of the obligatory Zakat, but it also includes general charity. It means to say that they spend their wealth freely in the way of Allah and they are not at aII niggardly in the matter of helping the servants of Allah as much as they can. No orphan and no sick or afflicted person, no weak or disabled person, no poor and needy one remains deprived of their support in their dwelling; and if there arises the need for monetary help for promoting the cause of Allah’s Religion, they arc never miserly in expending their wealth for that purpose.
*61 This includes both the obligarory and the voluntary fasts.
*62 This has two meanings: (1) They refrain from adultery; and (2) they avoid nudity. One should also note that nudity dces not only mean being naked but it is also nudity to put on a thin dress which shows the body, or is so tight-fitting that it reveals aII the outlines of the body.
*63 “Remember Allah much” means that one should mention Allah’s name in one way or other at aII times in every business of life. Man cannot develop such a state of the mind unless the thought of God becomes deeply embedded in his heart. When this idea has passed beyond his conscious mind and settled deep in his subconscious and unconscious mind, then only he will remember and mention God’s name in whatever he does and in whatever he says. He will begin with bismillah when he eats and say al-hamdu lillah when he finishes; he will remember Allah when he goes to bed, and mention Allah’s name when he gets up. In his conversation also he will again and again pronounce bismillah, al-hamdu-lillalh, insha-Allah, ma sha Allah, etc. and ask for Allah’s help in every matter, and thank Him for every blessing. He will seek His mercy in every affliction, and turn to Him in every trouble. He will fear Him on encountering every evil, and ask for His forgiveness when he happens to havc committed an error and will pray to Him for fulfilment of every need. In short, in every state and in every business of life his function will be to remember Allah.
This. In fact, is the essence of the Islamic life. For all other acts of worship there is a prescribed time when they are performed, and one is free when one has performed them. But this is the worship which has no special time; it has to be performed constantly so that it links up the man’s life with Allah and His service permanently. The other worships and religious acts themselves also become meaningful only when the heart of man remains inclined to Allah not only at the time when the act is actually being carried out but at aII times when the tongue is uttering Allah’s name constantly. In such a state as this worship and religious acts develop and flourish in a man’s life precisely in the same manner as a plant grows in a congenial climate and environment. Contrary to this, the example of the religious services and worships which are carried out only on special times and occasions in the life which is devoid of this constant remembrance of Allah is of the plant which has been planted in an un-congenial climate, and which is growing only due to the special attention and care of the gardener. This very thing has been explained by the Holy Prophet in a Hadith, thus:
“Mu’adh bin Anas Juhani relates that a person asked the Holy Prophet of Allah. who among those who fight in the way of AIlah will get the highest reward? He replied: The one who remembers Allah the most. The man asked: Who among the observers of the fast will get the highest reward? He replied: The one who remembers Allah the most. The man then asked the same question about the offerer of the Prayer, the payer of the Zakat and charities and the performer of Hajj and the Holy Prophet in every case gave the same answer, saying: He who remembers Allah the most.” (Musnad Ahmad)
*64 This verse plainly tells what qualities and characteristics are of real worth in the sight of AIlah. These are the basic values of Islam which have been compressed into one sentence. As regards these, there is no difference between the man and woman. However, as for their life-activity, the two sexes have separate spheres to function. The males have to function in some particular spheres and the females in some others. But if they possess these qualities and characteristics equally, Allah will raise them to equal ranks and bless them with equal rewards. It will in no way affect their rank and reward if one carried out household chores and the other performed the duties of caliphate and enforced the Shari’ah injunctions; one reared children in the house and the other went to the battlefield and fought for the sake of Allah and His religion.

Indonesian version (wikisource.org)
“Sesungguhnya laki-laki dan perempuan yang muslim, laki-laki dan perempuan yang mukmin, laki-laki dan perempuan yang tetap dalam ketaatannya, laki-laki dan perempuan yang benar, laki-laki dan perempuan yang sabar, laki-laki dan perempuan yang khusyuk, laki-laki dan perempuan yang bersedekah, laki-laki dan perempuan yang berpuasa, laki-laki dan perempuan yang memelihara kehormatannya, laki-laki dan perempuan yang banyak menyebut (nama) Allah, Allah telah menyediakan untuk mereka ampunan dan pahala yang besar.”

So, I got this idea to embed google search widget onto my blog (hooray…I have it now). After spending hours of searching such widget (I know I was supposed to get my PhD done, haha, but hey, it’s for the sake of knowledge), I learned that google is deprecating their Google Web Search API and replacing it with another application programming interface offer named Google Custom Search. I did not really know the difference (and a bit do not care too), but in the subscription process, I guessed the tool can only provide search within the website. I ignored the search tool and continue with hope to get much proper tool as expected.

I ended up with a suggestion to use Google Search with AdSense. As I thought this AdSense would be able to accept global search, I then applied for the memberships. But hey, the process returned to Google Custom Search! By applying Google AdSense, you would be using Google Custom Search too. But, how about the internal only search capacity of Google Custom I firstly thought? It turned out that it does having global search capability in its search preferences on its control panel. Only I did not find such options when I first tried to apply Google Custom in separate way ( not through Google AdSense).

With a help of my admin, I manage to insert this java script-based code by using special plugin (Google Custom Search uses java script which is not provided by local admin before). Type your words snippet in my google search and hopefully, you get what you’re looking for.

PS: My subscription with Google AdSense did not work out. I’ll tell you the story in the forthcoming posting.

Hilarious but possible.
That’s what I see when our data are all there, everywhere, not always on the cloud. Not only a heavenly new order for big bucks commercials, but what we are all doing is simply detected by the Big Boss. You want that? I won’t. This comical clip is reflecting my point. Enjoy!

I somehow just hope the emergence of yet-another conceptual models would slow down and eventually vanish. No kidding, this whole variety of diagramming techniques (or grammars, languages, scripts) sometime gets me into my nerves. Just stick with standardized model and dig knowledge would have been better I suppose.

Anyway, quoting from the resource directly, please read this fine reference (at least for me as newbie). There will be more to feed.

Join this group if you want to discuss with BPMN lovers, haters, users and experts about how to use BPMN for (business) process modeling. Do you have any best practices or experience reports about BPMN? Is something in the BPMN specification unclear? Do you have a BPMN model you want to discuss? Here is the perfect BPMN Community place to post all those questions and ideas!

BPMN Community.