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Dissertation Information for Leon Jean Hanouille

NAME:
- Leon Jean Hanouille

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Computer Science

SCHOOL:
- Syracuse University (USA) (1983)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Thomas H. Martin

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: DISTRIBUTED APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING: A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVED END USER UTILIZATION OF AND SATISFACTION WITH DATA PROCESSING SERVICES

Abstract: This research emerged from the consideration of various proposals found throughout computing literature and in everyday business experience. The considerations centered on whether users of computer services could be trained to prepare their own reporting programs and what effect such training and usage would have on their environment, workload, and relations with the data processing department.

A framework for implementing Distributed Applications Programming (DAP) was developed to help identify both those areas of corporate activity which would be affected by user programming and the factors within each area which could influence applications. The main areas of consideration were the corporate environment, the data processing department, the users, and the applications. Some of the influencing factors are the corporate organizational philosophy and political infrastructure, individual motivation and cognitive style, and need.

To test the concept and the framework, a pretest/posttest experiment was devised. Three groups (experimental, quasi-control, and control) were used in order to guard against any Hawthorne effect. Agway, Inc., a large, diversified farmers' co-operative headquartered just outside Syracuse, New York, volunteered to be the test site. Both the experimental and quasi-control groups were "treated" with personal interviews, but only the experimental group was trained in FOCUS, the high-level retrieval language used by Agway. User-satisfaction with data processing services was selected as the variable representative of the relations with data processing. This variable was most easily measured and quantified by using a semantic-differential Likert-scale questionnaire.

Based on the quantitative results of the questionnaire and the non-use of FOCUS by the experimental group, the experimental implementation of DAP would have to be considered a failure. Among the factors contributing to the failure were a normal resistance to change, the economic condition of the test company during the experiment, and the ready availability of alternative data retrieval functions for the experimental group. Taken in the light of the personal interviews, however, and in view of other observed non-experimental uses of FOCUS, the basic structure of the framework appears valid and worth pursuing.

MPACT Scores for Leon Jean Hanouille

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2009-06-17 11:15:21

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