A reference curriculum for teaching collaborative

In: Methods and tools for Collaborative Networked Organizations, pp 491-511, Springer: New York, 2008.

A reference curriculum for teaching collaborative networks Luis M. Camarinha-Matos 1, Hamideh Afsarmanesh 2, Tiago Cardoso 1, Edmilson Klen 3 1

New University of Lisbon, Portugal – [email protected], [email protected] University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands – [email protected] 3 Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil - [email protected] 2

Abstract

A proposal for a reference curriculum for teaching Collaborative Networks at university level is introduced. This curriculum is based on the experience of the authors in teaching and dissemination corresponding concepts in the context of several international projects as well as on the findings of a survey conduct worldwide. A set of teaching units and the corresponding content are introduced. Guidelines for the application of the curriculum are given. A set of exercises and projects are also suggested as a support for the accompanying hands-on lab work.

Keywords: Collaborative networks, virtual organizations, virtual enterprises, professional virtual communities, virtual breeding environments 1. INTRODUCTION Education plays a vital role in facilitating the dissemination and broad acceptance of virtual organizations (VO) and other forms of collaborative networks. The practical development and exploitation of new collaborative network forms such as virtual organizations / virtual enterprises, VO breeding environments, professional virtual communities (PVC), virtual laboratories, virtual institutes, etc., is hindered by the lack of an organized and widely accessible body of knowledge on the related supporting concepts, models, technologies, processes, and methodologies. Although considerable progress has been achieved in recent years, most of the underlying knowledge in this area is possessed only by a limited number of researchers and engineers. In fact, the study of collaborative networks is still absent from most of the traditional university programs [4]. Nevertheless the situation is changing. As reported in previous works [4], [6], [7], [9] several universities worldwide already offer courses on related topics and this number is increasing rapidly. As shown by a survey conducted in the scope of this work, most of these courses are however somewhat unbalanced, giving only partial views and, in many cases, biased by the scope of the department offering the course. As the area is growing as an autonomous discipline, i.e. gaining its own “identity” [3], it is becoming clear that there is a need to elaborate more comprehensive, less biased, programs. Similarly to what has happened with other disciplines in the past, it is necessary to establish a “reference curriculum” in order to: - help extending the focus / coverage of early initiatives; - help launching new training initiatives. This article represents a proposal for such a reference curriculum for a university-level course on collaborative networks. A preliminary version was applied and evaluated in a number of cases (e.g. at New University of Lisbon, 1st ECOLEAD Summer School, Polytechnic University of Valencia, BEST Summer School in Lisbon) and also discussed in conferences and in the context of IFIP Working Group 5.5 on Virtual Enterprises and e-Business and SOCOLNET – Society of Collaborative Networks [2], [9].

1

The version included in this report integrates the received feedback and acquired experience with previous draft and represents a more consolidated proposal. Nevertheless, like with any other emerging discipline, this curriculum certainly needs to be periodically updated and improved. In addition to the curriculum itself, a number of practical experiments and projects are suggested to support the hands-on lab work of the students. Finally, the experience of applying this curriculum at the New University of Lisbon is reported.

2. THE NEW DISCIPLINE OF COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS A new discipline. Collaborative networks manifest nowadays in a large variety of forms both in industry and services. Examples include virtual organizations, virtual enterprises, dynamic supply chains, professional virtual communities, etc. All these forms resort to computer networks and new ICT tools to support joint work among autonomous and geographically distributed entities [3], [7]. A collaborative network (CN) is thus a network consisting of a variety of entities (e.g. organizations and people) that are largely autonomous, geographically distributed, and heterogeneous in terms of their operating environment, culture, social capital and goals, but that collaborate to better achieve common or compatible goals, and whose interactions are supported by computer network [1], [2]. Although not all, most forms of collaborative networks imply some kind of organization over the activities of their constituents, identifying roles for the participants, and some governance rules. Therefore, these can be called manifestations of collaborative networked organizations (CNOs) (Fig.1). Other more spontaneous forms of collaboration in networks can also be foreseen. For instance, various ad-hoc collaboration processes can take place in virtual communities, namely those that are not business oriented – e.g. individual citizens’ contributions in case of a natural disaster, or simple gathering of individuals for a social cause. These are cases where people or organizations may volunteer to collaborate hoping to improve a general aim, with no pre-plan and/or structure on participants’ roles and how their activities should proceed. Collaborative Network Collaborative Networked Organization

Ad-hoc Collaboration

Long-term strategic network

Goal-oriented network

Professional Virtual Community

VO Breeding Environment

Industry cluster

Collaborative virtual lab

Industrial district

Continuous production driven net

Grasping opportunity driven net

Virtual team

Virtual organization Extended enterprise

Disaster rescue net

Business ecosystem

Supply chain

Virtual government

Dynamic VO

Virtual enterprise

Fig. 1. Examples of Collaborative Networks

Among the CNOs, some networks are goal-oriented in which intense collaboration (towards a common goal) is practiced among their partners, as opposed to longer term strategic alliances where in fact not collaboration but cooperation is practiced among their members. Goal-oriented networks can themselves be either driven by continuous production / service provision activities, or driven by the aim of grasping a single (collaboration) opportunity. In Goal-oriented networks, the first case of CNOs labeled as Continuous-production driven in Fig. 1, includes those networks that 2

have a long-term duration and remain relatively stable during that duration, with a clear definition of members’ roles along the value chain. Another class of CNOs is the long-term strategic alliances aimed at offering the conditions and environment to support rapid and fluid configuration of collaboration networks, when opportunities arise. VO breeding environments (VBE) [1], [2], and professional virtual communities (PVC) exemplify these kinds of networks. A large body of empiric knowledge related to collaborative networks is already available, and an important focus of research nowadays is put on the consolidation of this knowledge and building the foundations for a more sustainable development of this area. The definition of reference models and the establishment of a scientific discipline for collaborative networks are strong instruments in achieving this purpose. But this research effort needs to be accompanied by a similar effort in training new professionals to drive the area. Forecasting the needs. In order to identify the level of interest and opinions about teaching Collaborative Networks, as well as the already existing initiatives, from the perspective of educators, a survey was performed involving some of the best Institutes around the world. From the beginning it was clear that conducting an extensive survey for an emerging area would be a very resource consuming task. On one hand, in order to cover a significant number of geographical regions, the number of universities and other educational institutes would grow dramatically. On the other hand, even when focusing on a limited number of institutions, there is a major difficulty regarding the identification of which departments and which academic staff to contact. Being CNs a multi-disciplinary area, it is natural that teaching initiatives emerge in different departments. In order to determine the universe of institutions to contact for this initial study the following steps were followed: 1. Select a preliminary group of top universities. As a starting basis the list of the top 500 universities according to the “Academic Ranking of World Universities”, organized by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm), was considered. Taking into account the limited resources available to perform this survey it was not feasible to consider this full list. Therefore, only a subset (66) of this list was selected: - The top universities per geographical region (5 from each of the following continents: America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and 4 for Africa), plus - An additional group of 42 institutions selected randomly from the remainder of the list. The decision regarding the size of the target group was solely based on the estimated effort required and the available resources. 2. Others from web search.In addition to the institutions selected in the first step, some other universities were added to the list when it was possible to identify, by a simple search on the web, that they already offer teaching initiatives on CNO. 3. Others from analysis of conferences. Complementarily to the web search, a few others were selected via a brief analysis of the proceedings of past PRO-VE conferences. As a result of this selection process, a total of 82 institutions were considered as the target “population” for this survey. The next step was the identification of potential participants from selected institutions, i.e. which professors at those institutions to contact. For the cases of courses found on the web or through publications in conference proceedings, the contact persons were directly identified. The other cases required and extensive and focused manual search through the web sites of the selected institutions (focusing mainly on engineering and management departments). As a result, a total of 1024 academic staff was contacted from the 82 institutions out of which (only) 76 replies were received. The received answers included contributions from 44 institutions (i.e. about 54 % of our target universe of institutions). Table 1 below summarizes the participation per country. Table 1 – Respondents per country

3

4

3

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

he rla nd No s rw ay Si ng ap or e To ta l

N et

R ic a De nm ar k Fr an ce It al y

C hi na C os ta

gK on M g ex ic o Po rt ug al Sw ed en U K

nd

5

H on

10

Fi nl a

G er m

an y A us tr al ia So ut h A fr Br ic a az il

rie s U SA

C ou nt

19

1

1

1

1

44

The following diagrams illustrate some of the results of this survey. More details can be obtained in [5].

70%

60%

60%

50% 50%

40%

40%

30% 37,7%

61,0%

30%

50,6%

20%

20%

10%

10%

10,4%

1,3%

27,3% 3,9%

7,8%

0%

0% Yes

No

Similar discipline(s)

Yes

No Answer

Figure 1 - Is there a dedicated discipline on CN in your Institution?

No

Part of them

No Answ er

Figure 2 - Do you consider the concepts in the CN area already consolidated?

These percentages need to be read with some caution. They do not represent a percentage of the full universe of high education institutions but rather a percentage of the respondents to the survey, i.e. people that are involved in the area or likely to be motivated for its importance. Nevertheless, under this constraint, these numbers give an indication that several CN teaching initiatives already exist. The answers to this question clearly confirm the need to invest more on the consolidation and structuring of knowledge in the area.

Figure 4 – Which subjects should be included in a CN basic course?

Fig. 4 summarizes the list of topics suggested by the respondents to include in a basic course. This diagram is certainly affected by the options offered in the questionnaire but nevertheless it gives some useful indications: 4

- ICT is certainly associated with the core issues in CNs. - Case studies are very important to create motivation, illustrate the applicability of the concepts, and help identifying requirements. - The theoretical foundation (including theoretical basis, concepts and definitions, reference models, and ontologies) is fundamental in a training program. - Interoperability, although somehow important, it is not perceived as too critical. The same with procurement, contracts and negotiation. Based on the results of this survey and additional search on the web, the second phase of this study was devoted to identify and collect information about existing teaching initiatives. The existence of quite distinct initiatives made it clear that it would not be reasonable to compare them all together. Therefore, three main kinds of courses were identified: Formal university courses / disciplines fully dedicated to the subject. This typically includes a one-semester course that is offered as part of a formal university program. Short courses dedicated to the subject or long courses that include a short module on CNs. In this category, either the course is not fully dedicated to “Virtual Enterprise” or “Virtual Organization” paradigms or it is a short course or summer course. On-line / Web-based courses. Among these categories, the most significant kind of courses to analyze is the first one – the University initiatives fully focused on CNs and related manifestations. Most of the identified initiatives (88%) are offered either at the undergraduate or Master level. It is also important to notice that there is quite a large heterogeneity in terms of the structure of the university courses. Some universities consider a model of 3 years (bachelor) plus 2 years (master), while others offer a 2-year master degree after a 5-year university course. The two notions (and levels) of master are necessarily different. In other countries there is a single degree for engineering courses (5 or 5.5 years). PhD courses, due to their specificity, are to a large extent out of the scope of this study. In many universities the PhD program does not include a formal training program but rather research work only. The ongoing implementation of the Bologna model in Europe is likely to lead to a more uniform structure. Table 3 shows the main initiatives identified for formal university courses. This is certainly not a full survey, but nevertheless offers a good set of base information. Table 3 – Formal university courses # Course name 1 Virtual Enterprises 2

Virtual Organizations

3 Enterprise Integration Systems 4 Information Systems / Virtual Organization 5 Agile Virtual Enterprise 6 Management and Information Systems 7 Seminar in Virtual Collaboration 8 Organizational Networks and Communication 9 Managing in a Virtual Environment 10 Virtual Organisation Management 11 Information Systems

Location / Institute New University of Lisbon Portugal ITCR Costa Rica UFSC Brazil City University of New York USA Universität der Bundeswehr München University of York UK University of Nebraska at Omaha USA Helsinky University of Technology Claremont Graduate University The University of Queensland Edith Cowan University 5

Duration 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 year

12 Information Based Manufacturing 13 Coordination and Control in the Virtual Organization. 14 Virtual Organisations 15 e-Business Technologies

New Mexico State University The FOX School of Business and Management City University of Hong-Kong University of Porto

1 semester 1 semester 1 semester 1 semester

In terms of focus of each course, the first indicator is the course’s name. Here, many differences can be noticed. While some courses take a general / horizontal point of view, some others choose one particular perspective about these new paradigms, like the enterprise integration or the agility characteristic. On the other hand, two other main perspectives can be identified in the course names analysis: management and organization. Based on the information collected during this survey and some additional web search, a number of example curricula were collected. This collection includes curricula from both formal university courses and also from some of the short courses / modules. These materials, together with the experience acquired in several training actions conducted by various R&D projects in which the authors were involve, were the basis for the current curriculum proposal.

3. CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION When designing a new curriculum it is convenient to consider the classic three pillars of Kaufman: (i) Society to serve, (ii) Target students, and (iii) Knowledge to teach. Society to serve. Although the potential benefits of collaborative networks are becoming known to a growing number of people, in order to have real impact it is necessary to increase the general awareness for CNs and the availability of well trained professionals in this area. The curriculum shall be independent of the specificities of a particular geographic region. Nowadays mobility of experts and the potential trans-national nature of collaborative networked organizations require subjects to be taught in the broadest perspective. Although being designed in the context of a European project, which also involves Latin American partners, the curriculum and supporting materials and being made available to any interested entity worldwide. On the other hand, the elaborated curriculum will serve only as a general guide that will be customized by each institution. It is also important to note that due to the lack of support materials, the wide adoption of any curriculum will depend, to some extent, on availability of support materials (texts, lab experiments, videos, etc.). Target students. The primary focus for a curriculum development will be on engineers and engineering students with a reasonable background in computer science. The secondary focus will in fact require the opposite background, namely computer science students with a reasonable background in engineering. In the case of engineering students, students at their final part of the engineering course or MS in Computer Science) are envisaged. Nevertheless this needs some analysis of the local context. For instance, in some countries Computer Science students do not learn much about engineering. Once a first general curriculum is established it can, later on, be adapted to other audiences (e.g. management students, etc.). Regarding engineering education, it is worth mentioning a workshop organized in 1998 by the European Commission on “Engineers for industry in the XXI century” [10] that elaborated a number of recommendations, including: - Life long learning and training of active engineers requires a close cooperation among the academia, industry, and professional associations. - There is a need to attract young students to engineering. - There is a need for new engineering curricula satisfying industry needs, namely focusing the virtual enterprise / extended enterprise paradigm in order to prepare engineers able to play the role of VE architects. 6

Unfortunately these recommendations did not have wide dissemination and they remain very opportune even after so many years. In addition to the mentioned students, other programs could be considered such as management, economy, even law studies. Knowledge to teach. It is important to avoid the risk of elaborating a curriculum that is excessively biased by specific technologies. Although it is not realistic to think of a training program totally technology-independent, the approach shall try to contribute to the preparation of “systems architects”. In other words, professionals able to understand the new organizational forms and new value chains as well as able to design the necessary support infrastructures and model the new distributed business processes, which is rather challenging. Low

CN architect

Depth of knowledge

High

Systems integrator

Traditional engineer Span of knowledge

Low

High

Figure 2 – Needed transition of competencies

The course shall therefore provide a clear perspective (concepts and their analysis) of the organizational forms, models of components, information and knowledge, architectural infrastructures, operating processes, and complete life cycle of the collaborative networks.

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE CURRICULUM The following generic and specific objectives are considered in this proposal: Generic objectives. A reference course on CNs shall have the following generic objectives: - Provide an intuitive introduction to the paradigm of CN, with illustration based on case studies, and discuss why collaboration is becoming a key competence. - Provide a good understanding of the various technical and scientific components involved in CNs. - Develop systems integration competencies (holistic perspective). - Contribute to help the student develop planning and problem solving capabilities in the context of integrated and distributed collaborative systems. - Develop the capacity to attack problems whose specification is incomplete, leading to focus on creativity and search for new systems and solutions. - Clarify and exemplify the multi-disciplinarity of the CN paradigm. - Develop an understanding and a critical perspective regarding the impacts of ICT in modern society. Specific objectives. As specific objectives the course shall help the student understand the various underlying topics in CN and the way they are inter-related, which includes: - Acquisition of (business) process modeling skills and familiarization with related tools, such as workflow tools. 7

-

Understand the basic functionalities of an interoperable infrastructure for collaborative networks. Acquisition of a capability to plan a CN infrastructure fitted to target scenarios. Understand the issues of integration / interoperability among different technologies. Acquisition of skills to specify coordination mechanisms. Understand the role and limitations of standards in supporting collaboration. Distinguish the basic focus of the most typical manifestations of collaborative networks. Understand the main strategies and mechanisms for safe communications and distributed information and knowledge management. - Understand the socio-economic impacts of the introduction of new technologies and new paradigms in the companies. - Acquisition of a general perspective of the trends and expectations in CNs. Clearly many of these objectives are not achievable if only presented through the theoretical material suggested in the curriculum. Their achievement also depends on many other factors such as the practical work (lab experiments), the support materials and case studies, and even the pedagogic approach. As the survey work also showed, there is a lack of support materials for teaching CNs. At least in terms of materials available through the web, only a few support texts and slides could be found (in several cases, even in languages other than English). In our study, direct enquiries to the persons that have organized courses, also did not produce more information either. One of the major difficulties observed so far is the lack of well prepared examples / case studies and laboratory experiments that could provide some practical experience and, at the same time, fit within the time limits of a single course. From the didactic and course delivery perspectives it would be interesting to exploit new approaches based on collaborative networks and e-learning. However this will require considerable resources to develop. A preliminary study regarding pedagogic approaches for training and education through distance learning, although limited to the extended enterprise, is done by the GEM project [11].

5. COURSE SYLLABUS 5.1 Units In order to cope with the mentioned requirements and objectives, the following main units are proposed for a reference curriculum on Collaborative Networks:

UNIT 1: MOTIVATION FOR THE PARADIGM This first unit aims at creating a motivation for the course through a brief presentation of application areas, illustrated by concrete examples in industry, services, government, etc. A brief historic overview of the industrial organizational paradigms leading to collaborative networks as well as a summary of current technological and organizational trends is presented. For each example an attempt to identify the main involved problems (e.g. organizational forms, processes, cooperation, and collaboration forms) is made, calling the attention for the potential contributes from other disciplines. The socioeconomic importance of each case is also briefly highlighted.

UNIT 2: BASE CONCEPTS OF COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS After the motivation phase, the base concepts are introduced. Considering the large variety of collaborative networks, a categorization of the various forms is made and a taxonomy is introduced in order to give students a global perspective of the area. The main types of collaborative networks, namely the long term strategic alliance as well as the dynamic (short term) opportunity driven collaborative network is addressed. The various actors involved in a collaborative network as well as the roles they can play are identified. Finally the life cycle of a collaborative network is discussed in terms of its main phases.

UNIT 3: VO BREEDING ENVIRONMENTS

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The concept of Virtual organization Breeding Environment (VBE) is elaborated and justified. Illustrating examples are provided. The components, structure and life cycle of this organizational form as well as its involved actors and roles are identified and characterized. Main processes, working & sharing and governance principles are discussed. The architecture and supporting functionalities for a VBE management system as well as the corresponding information and knowledge bases are introduced in a step by step approach. The issues of trust and value systems are analyzed in terms of modeling, support functionality, and practical use. . The management of competencies, VBE assets, and trust, as well as the value systems is analyzed in terms of modeling, support functionality, and practical use.

UNIT 4: VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS The concept of Virtual Organization (VO) previously introduced is briefly revisited and the conditions for its emergence are discussed. Particular emphasis is devoted to the creation of dynamic VOs in a VBE context. The life cycle – creation, operation, evolution, and dissolution – of the VO is analyzed and the supporting information / knowledge and functionalities are discussed together with the involved actors and roles. Special attention is devoted to the consortia formation, negotiation, distributed business process planning and supervision, performance management, dissolution and inheritance, and business modeling. The relationship to other more classic networks such as supply chains is made. Examples in various domains are analyzed.

UNIT 5: VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES The concept of Virtual Community (VC) previously introduced is briefly revisited and compared with the concept of VO. A typology of VC is introduced and a particular attention is devoted to Professional Virtual Communities. The components, structure, and life cycle of PVCs are discussed and modeling options introduced in comparison with the VBE. Architectural options for a PVC management system and supporting functionalities are introduced. The creation of Virtual Teams within a PVC and their management are studied. Governance principles, main processes, intellectual property issues, and social computing issues are discussed.

UNIT 6: BASE INFRASTRUCTURES The establishment of adequate communication channels and protocols is a basic pre-requisite for the operation of collaborative networks and interoperation among its components and subsystems. Therefore the main logical components of a communications infrastructure are introduced. Various implementation approaches are discussed, included agent-based and service-oriented approaches. The security issues deserve special attention and the various mechanisms and technologies are discussed in terms of their benefits and limitations. Emerging computing models, mobile and pervasive computing are briefly studied in terms of their contribution to collaborative networks.

UNIT 7: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Information management in a distributed, multi-ownership context is discussed and mechanisms for information sharing, information exchange, and access rights definition and enforcement are introduced. The role of standards is discussed and main standards briefly characterized. Various information management approaches are briefly discussed, with particular emphasis on the federated information management systems. Different implementation approaches are also discussed.

UNIT 8: SPECIAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE STANDARDS A number of standards particularly relevant for collaborative networks are introduced and analyzed. Among them: EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), which in historical terms represents one of the first tools for cooperation among enterprises, is introduced and briefly characterized. The interaction between EDI and ERP systems is briefly discussed. The EDIFACT standard is presented and current XML-based implementations mentioned. The STEP standard for the exchange of technical product data is described and its applicability in virtual enterprises is discussed. Support technologies as well as PDM systems are discussed. Other emerging standards for information and knowledge exchange are pointed out.

UNIT 9: COORDINATION MECHANISMS Various modalities of collaboration are discussed and the corresponding coordination needs introduced. The concept of coordination is highlighted. Process-based coordination and the 9

corresponding distributed business process modeling, planning, scheduling, and execution are particularly focused. Languages for business process modeling are introduced. Workflow / process execution engines are discussed and standard architectures for inter-organization workflow are analyzed. Finally challenges in flexible coordination are raised and the students are motivated to suggest approaches.

UNIT 10: MANAGEMENT OF COMMON ONTOLOGIES Considering the complexity of the collaborative network environments, a number of benefits are gained through provision of the ontology for collaborative networks, e.g. to support common understanding of their related entities and concepts, to classify their knowledge in order to facilitate the knowledge interoperability both among the network participants and among different networks, as well as for development of a management system for collaborative networks, the needed databases and data/knowledge access functionality. Approaches for a common ontology will be presented and mechanisms required for ontology customization and management will be addressed.

UNIT 11: e-COMMERCE AND e-MARKETS Although these issues are not part of the Collaborative Networks, they share a number of common issues. Therefore the concepts of e-Commerce and e-Market are introduced and the differences and commonalities in relation to collaborative networks highlighted. The involved organizational issues are discussed and supporting architectures and technologies introduced. Finally the contact points between these areas and collaborative networks in a new digital ecosystems context are discussed.

UNIT 12: NON-TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES The success and effectiveness of implementation of the collaborative networks depend on a number of other important issues besides the technological solutions. In this unit social, ethical, legal, and organizational issues are discussed and current trends pointed out. New business models and their applicability are discussed, namely through the introduction of examples. Marketing and sustainability of the network, intellectual property management, systems of incentives, etc. are other relevant issues. Alternatively these topics can each be introduced in parallel and along the other units.

UNIT 13: REFERENCE MODELS The concept of reference model and its need is introduced. Modeling frameworks are presented and discussed. Example reference models are introduced and methods for models evolution and derivation of particular models are briefly discussed. A reference modeling framework for CNs will be presented, addressing its specific dimensions and elements. Some CN reference models, for example for VBEs and VOs will be presented.

UNIT 14: EMERGING COLLABORATIVE FORMS In this last unit, and after a brief summary of the various collaborative forms studied in previous units, a discussion of possible new models and generalizations is made. As a starting basis, new forms of collaborative e-government, e-science, virtual institutes, Virtual laboratories, etc, are discussed. Other generalizations include: networks of sensors, networks of machines, etc. Then students are encouraged to suggest other application areas and identify the innovative collaborative forms needed.

5.2 Curriculum Table 1 shows the proposed reference curriculum. Table 1 – Reference curriculum for Collaborative Networks UNIT TOPICS Practical examples of collaborative networks. 1. MOTIVATION FOR THE Historic overview. PARADIGM Technological and organizational trends. Discussion of the usefulness / benefits and current limitations of CNs Categories of CNs. 2. BASIC CONCEPTS OF Actors and roles. COLLABORATIVE 10

NETWORKS 3. VO BREEDING ENVIRONMENT

4. VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS

5. VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES.

6. BASE INFRASTRUCTURES.

7. INFORMATION MANAGEMENT 8. SPECIAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE STANDARDS

9. COORDINATION MECHANISMS

10. MANAGEMENT OF COMMON ONTOLOGIES.

11. e-COMMERCE AND eMARKETS.

12. NONTECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES. 13. REFERENCE MODELS

Life cycle and related key processes. Concept and examples. Components, structure, actors and roles. Competencies and assets. Processes and governance principles. VBE management system. Trust and value systems. Concepts, organizational models and operational rules. Life cycle. VO creation process and functionalities. VO management functionalities and performance measurement. VO dissolution and inheritance. Concepts and typology. Components, structure, and life cycle. Professional virtual communities (PVC). PVC management system. Virtual teams. Governance principles and social computing. Computer networks basics. Base Internet technologies. Components of a communication infrastructure. Implementation approaches: agent-based, service-oriented, etc. Security mechanisms and technologies. Emerging computing models. Information management requirements. Mechanisms for information sharing and exchange. Access rights definition and enforcement. Federated /distributed information management. Importance of standards in collaborative networks. EDI and EDIFACT. Interaction with legacy systems. XML and its role. STEP and PDM. Other standards. Collaboration modalities. Concept of coordination. Distributed-business process modeling and planning. Distributed scheduling and re-scheduling. Languages for business process modeling. Workflow and process execution engines. Challenges in flexible coordination. Glossary and specification of base entities and concepts. Core level common ontology for collaborative networks. Ontology engineering approaches. Learning ontology from unstructured sources. Semi-automatic customization of common ontology to specific domain/application Concepts of e-Commerce and e-Market. Relationships to collaborative networks. Support institutions. Support systems. Portals. Negotiation. CRM. Logistics. Social, ethical, legal, and organizational issues. Contractual issues. New business models. Collaboration sustainability mechanisms. Intellectual property management. Concept of reference model. Modeling frameworks. 11

14. EMERGING COLLABORATIVE FORMS

Examples of reference models. Derivation and evolution methods. Summary of studied collaborative forms. New application examples: collaborative e-government, e-Science, Virtual institutes, Virtual Labs, etc. Networks of machines, networks of sensors. Other emerging cases.

5.3 Sequence of topics The proposed curriculum does not imply a rigid sequence of topics although some dependencies among subjects can naturally be identified, as shown in Fig. 3. The “Non-technological issues” can either be introduced towards the end, or they can be “merged” with the other topics and be addressed when the VO Breeding Environment, the Virtual Organization, and the Virtual Communities are introduced. Another approach is to emphasize technological aspects in the first phase, giving students the background to start the laboratory work, and postpone the other issues to a later stage. Non-technological issues

VO Breeding Environment Virtual Organizations Motivation for the paradigm

Basic concepts of CN

Reference models

Virtual Communities

Emerging collaborative forms

Base Infrastructures

Management of Common ontology Information Management

depends-on may-depend-on

Special info exchange standards

Coordination mechanisms

E-Commerce & e-Markets

Figure 3 - Main dependencies among subjects

Taking the indicated dependencies into account, various alternative schedule sequences can be considered. Two examples are illustrated in Fig. 4. Option A corresponds to introduce the main concepts and organizational forms before the technological aspects. This option can be adequate if the experimental lab work does not start in parallel with the theoretical lectures. Option B might be more adequate for those cases in which theory and practical work have a parallel schedule. For instance when the course plan includes a theoretical lecture and a practical lecture every week, as it is common in some universities. This option might be more motivating for students that want to have “hands-on” experience from the beginning.

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Option A

Motivation for the paradigm

Option B

Motivation for the paradigm






Information Management

Virtual Communities




Information Management





Virtual Communities

Management of Common ontology

Management of Common ontology



Non-technological issues

Non-technological issues

Reference models

Reference models



Figure 4 - Examples of sequences of topics

5.4 Application guidelines Although other possibilities can be considered, the assumed context in this report is the inclusion of a course on Collaborative Networks on an existing program such as Engineering, Management, Computer Science, etc. The actual implementation and the emphasis or focus of each unit will naturally depend on the scope of the “host program”. For instance, if the course is included in an Electrical and Computer Engineering or Computer Science program, the emphasis of most modules is put on the ICT support. If included in an Industrial Engineering program, with limited background in ICT, then the emphasis shall be put in modeling, processes design, and management aspects of the CNs. The elaboration of a curriculum will certainly need to consider not only the knowledge to be transferred but also the mechanisms for acquisition of skills and competencies [12]. It is important not only to transfer knowledge to students but also to teach them how to acquire new knowledge in the future, especially in a so dynamic area as CNs, and how to apply gained knowledge. Therefore, adequate lab experiments and practical projects need to be designed. Furthermore, the issues of life-long learning, vocational training, and e-learning shall also deserve attention. Preliminary results from GEM give some guidance in this direction [11]. Finally, it is important to highlight that the quality of knowledge transfer is very much dependent on individual preferences, background knowledge and cultural background as well as the type of knowledge being transferred and the learning period. 13

An alternative to a course taught by a single university (and even a single professor) would be the organization of a “virtual institute” aggregating experts from different institutions to teach the course. If appropriate ICT infrastructure is available, a virtual community of students and professors – Virtual Learning Community – can be considered. Ultimately the particular sequence of topics and corresponding emphasis could be tailored to each particular student, as illustrated in Fig. 5.

ICT

(based)

Traditional

Figure 5 – A Virtual Learning Community approach to teach CN

It is however important to notice that the success of this approach requires the elaboration of a proper Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) model. Many early attempts in this direction failed exactly because they did not pay enough attention to IPR.

6. LAB WORKS AND PROJECTS Depending on the program, the norms in the institute, and the interest and expertise of the teachers giving the course, there are two possible approaches for students’ assignments in this course. The first approach is to define specific lab works and assign each one to a group of 2 to 4 students. The second approach is more ambitious, by defining projects that involves larger groups and ultimately all of the students working together on a common piece of work. These are further described below.

6.1 Examples of lab works Depending on the program in which the CN course is offered, different lab works can be suggested for students. Below we foresee the main probable educational programs by which the CN course can be offered to include (1) the Computer science, Electrical Engineering and related disciplines, (2) the Management and business disciplines, (3) the Industrial engineering and related disciplines, and (4) the Social sciences, legal, and related disciplines. For each of these disciplines 2 suggestions can be given for the type of lab work. 14

1- Computer science, Electrical engineering and related disciplines • Design and develop new functionalities to support the management of a specific CN The specific CN can either be opportunity-based VO, or a long term alliance such as a specific PVC or VBE. A wide variety of tools and systems can be designed and developed to assist the management of these environments. E.g. a simple module to manage competencies or to select partners for a given collaborative task. • Customizing the existing generic models and systems for specific CN environments For example, extending the generic ontology of the VBE with the specific ontology of certain VBE that is related to a regional logistics and rental of storage areas line of business. Another example would be to customize the generic trust management framework of VBEs to the specific needs of one VBE environment for instance in the area of elderly assistance. 2- Management and business disciplines • Study of business modeling and management in VOs and virtual teams (VT) Design of an appropriate business model is required for each CN, depending on the sector/area, as well as its norms and value systems. The lab work can focus on a specific VO or VT, asking the students to study and design its business model. • Study of the influences of different management approaches on the cooperative and collaborative atmosphere within VBEs and VOs respectively. CNs are by nature different than a single enterprise, therefore new thinking and new management approaches are required to motivate their members and facilitate the operational stage of the CN. 3- Industrial engineering and related disciplines • Identification of key performance indicators for specific CNs This requires a careful field study to identify the indicators in the CN environment, e.g to assist with the CN management or to identify what is important for trust building in the CN, etc. • Adaptation of different engineering models (e.g. software) to CN business processes A careful field study of the business processes at the CN can also reveal the best approach to managing these processes. Specific application tools must be chosen and students will be asked to study them. 4- Social sciences, legal and related disciplines • Study of the organizational behavior in collaborative networks Although the subject of behavior in groups is addressed in several disciplines, e.g. individual’s behavior in groups (in social sciences), agent’s behavior in multi-agent systems, etc. none of these yet address the issue of organization’s behavior in a CN. This is an interesting subject for research but also for discussion in a lab class. • Study of the influence of internal laws and regulations on CNs International laws and regulations are required for proper contracting in global CNs, on one hand to regulate partner failures and on the other hand to support the CNs and their survival by tax laws, etc.

6.2 Examples of projects The basic idea of a project is: Instead of small disconnected experiments to be performed by students, the suggestion is to have more ambitious lab works in which various groups of students design and develop components to be integrated in a collaborative platform. In this way, the working method to be adopted by the students will be collaborative, giving them more real understanding of the issues involved in a collaborative network. The lab works are supposed to be developed along several sessions, typically along one semester. 15

6.2.1 Examples for students with a background in ICT Example 1: Infrastructure to support a central Certification Breeding Environment Scenario. Consider you want to build one house from scratch. You start buying the land and contacting an architect to elaborate a project design for your house. After that, the house construction starts and things go on normally but, as it seams to be usual, instead of the planned 12 months you realize that the key came to your hands only two years after the construction started. Other than some circumstance constraints, the main reason for the delay was the need of getting several certifications along the construction process, namely: • Construction certification – got in the City Hall, needed for the construction to start, … • Electrical Certification – needed to guarantee the electrical installation, … • Communications Infrastructure Certification – needed to guarantee the quality of the communication infrastructure, … • Usage Ability Certification – final certification needed for you to be able to live in the new house. Sad with all the time lost, you decide to propose to your city council the creation of a Centralized Website where people could apply for any kind of certification services. Objectives. This work aims at designing and developing a platform to support public certification processes for buildings, i.e. the support of a Certification Breeding Environment (CBE). Based on this framework, a Certification Virtual Organization could be created for each needed specific certification process. Taking into account the distinct phases of the software lifecycle this lab project will be divided into 4 phases: Analysis, Design, Development and Tests. For the analysis phase, the students should identify the system goals and skeleton, i.e., who are the actors, which modules will compose the system, what are their functionalities or features – the Use Cases. In this specific context, a discussion has to take place in order to clearly identify the goals of the infrastructure to be developed – the Certification Breeding Environment, namely: • Register Certification entities, as well as their capacities / certification fields that the entities are able to certify. • Find, within the CBE, entities that are able to make specific certifications. • Create a Certification Business Process – CBP, composed of a graph of certification Services associated to specific certification entities from the CBE. • Execute and Monitor the execution, of specific CBPs. • … In terms of the CBE skeleton or architecture, it must contain modules responsible for: • Storage and management of the service provision members. • Provide an interface to the certifying entities. • Provide an interface for clients who need to access certification services. • Provide an interface for the creation of Certification Value Added Services, through the creation of workflow specification of CBPs. • … Working Method. Students will be divided in groups to discuss the needs and constraints for this infrastructure. Each group makes a presentation of their work in the third lab session and proposes a final System Architecture, as well as the development technology to use. After all the proposals are discussed, the class will decide a common final System Architecture and the development technology to use. Each group of students will then be given a specific set of modules from the architecture to design, develop, integrate and test. In other words, each group will contribute with a distinct piece of the global system. Nevertheless, all groups have to be aware of what is going on with the other groups – the difficulties they are facing, the results they are producing, etc., in order to facilitate the final integration and improve the overall performance.

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Example 2: Infrastructure to support a PVC of Engineering consultants Scenario. A group of engineers from different specialties and living in different geographical regions / countries are organized as a PVC to provide consulting services. The PVC interacts with potential customers through a web portal. Customers will see this community as a service market. Basic services can be combined in higher level services (value added services) in order to better respond to market opportunities, implementing, in this way, a kind of “learning system”. Therefore, it shall be possible to use the output of a service as input for another service. The coordination of a value-added service execution is also supported by the platform that keeps track of the status of evolution, exceptions, etc. Objectives. This work aims at designing and developing a platform to support a Professional Virtual Community devoted to offer engineering consulting services. The typical phases of Analysis, Design, and Development shall be carried out. For the analysis phase the students shall be organized around a forum, playing different roles, in order to identify and characterize: - The needs from the end-users point of view. - The possibilities offered by current ICT tools and systems. - The opportunities for commercial exploitation. The next phase shall involve the design of the system’s architecture, with a clear identification and specification of the various needed modules, as well as their interactions. During the implementation, each group of students (2 or 3) will develop a specific module and will be responsible for the integration of this module with the other modules. Some initial questions to motivate the work: - Which basic functionalities are needed to interact with potential customers? - Which basic functionalities are needed to support the organization of a value-added service? - Is it feasible to have shared information spaces? How to deal with visibility and access rights? - How to keep track of the execution status of services? - How to model the support information structures? Working method. Each group of students will be given a specific task in order to add value to the common goal, just like in a virtual community. In other words, each group will contribute with a distinct piece of the global system. Nevertheless, all groups have to be aware of what is going on with the other groups – the difficulties they are facing, the results they are producing, etc., in order to facilitate integration and improve the overall performance. During the initial analysis phase, students are supposed to also identify existing platforms and tools that will facilitate the development. Example 3: Document-Oriented Agreement Management Framework – DoUagree Scenario. Consider a group of engineers that decided to build an international Professional Virtual Community. The objective of this PVC is to bring together Engineers from distinct geographic locations in order to put them working together in a collaborative form. In terms of collaborative work, they will submit project proposals / bids together, on behalf of the community. Each time one of the community members finds a Business Opportunity, he or she starts the creation of two documents: 1. Collaborative Means Document – This document describes who the involved engineers are and what the duties of each member are for that specific project, as well as the corresponding rewards. 2. Technical Annex – This document is closely connected to the first one, but covers the technical specifications of the project. This is a simplified typical DoUagree usage scenario. Therefore a community space is needed for members to submit documents for a subset of the other members (i.e. the members that will be involved in this specific Business Opportunity) to access and complete. Finally, an agreement between them is needed and the documents have to be signed and registered in an e-notary. Objectives. This project targets a semi-automation of agreement establishment in a professional virtual community, through the Internet. The base system concept is a Document Management System (DMS) where a group of individuals can post, manage, review and finish documents, such as project proposals / bids, technical specifications, 17

system’s design, etc. What is requested is to extend this concept enabling the establishment of an agreement between the involved members of the community over the contents of a final version of a document. When we focus on a specific professional’s community – a Professional Virtual Community (PVC) – people have to produce the documents describing collaboration means, and agree on their contents, before their professional collaboration can start. This document production and specially the final agreement process, needed for the professional collaboration to start, is the target of this work. Some initial questions to motivate the work: • How can one member of the community post a Document to a specific subset of the members of the community to access? Some should help in the edition and some others should only be able to read … • Is it possible to have a discussion environment “local” to the subset of members working on a specific document, including chats, forums, etc? (concept of virtual negotiation room) • Is it possible to create subsequent versions of a document? How to comment / update it? Does it make sense “rolling back” to a previous version? • In the case an agreement seams difficult to achieve, is it possible to create a voting process? • How to materialize the (electronic) “signature” of the agreement? • How to guarantee security? Is it possible to create something like an e-notary to ensure that the signatures come from their owner? Working method. Each group of students will be given a specific task in order to add value to the common goal, just like in a virtual community. In other words, each group will contribute with a distinct piece of the global system. Nevertheless, all groups have to be aware of what is going on with the other groups – the difficulties they are facing, the results they are producing, etc., in order to facilitate integration and improve the overall performance. During the initial analysis phase, students are supposed to also identify existing platforms (e.g. LifeRay) and tools that will facilitate the development. 6.2.2 Examples for students with other backgrounds Example 1: P2P Social Networking Tools for the Support of PVC Scenario. Imagine the following situation: you, together with your classmates, are part of a Professional Community which basically consists of the students of the course. You are together in a Community because you have similar interests and goals as for instance to learn about Collaborative Networks, to develop your competencies and to work collaboratively. Now, imagine further: the relation among the members of this Community will mainly be mediated through the use of computers. There will be face-to-face interactions, but these will not be the predominant ones. The tools used for these interactions will be the ones used for P2P social networking: Skype, MSN, Orkut, blogs, videologs, emails, SMS, GoogleSpreadsheets, etc. Now the question is: can you work together and collaboratively according to this social and organizational structure taking advantage of the internetenabled society? Objectives. The students will form a Virtual Team to work collaboratively in order to put together a project proposal to be submitted (hypothetically) to a Funding Agency call. The expertise aggregation should allow the elaboration of a proposal in the field of Collaborative Networks. In this sense, students have to take into account the current topics and the Open Calls for project proposals. Guidelines and rules to elaborate the proposal are the ones provided by the funding agency. Some initial questions to motivate the work: • How can the work be distributed among the members of the Virtual Team? • Which governance principles are going to be used / adopted? • How can conflicts be handled? • How can the quality of work be measured? • How to deal with Intellectual Property Rights? • How to deal with trust issues? • How can the tasks be monitored with transparency? 18

Working method. Students will have two face-to-face meetings mediated by the course assistant namely: the first and the last lab sessions. In the first one, the experiment will be explained and the roles will be pre-defined according to the background and competencies of each participant. Also during the first session, a brainstorming on the project idea and the definition of start-up tools will take place. In the last lab session, a round table will be organized to discuss and evaluate the procedure, the achievements as well as the strong and weak points of the experiment. All other lab sessions will be carried out remotely. Students will interact either from home, office or from the University premises. The remote lab sessions will be monitored by the course assistant. The first remote session will be used to agree on the set of tools to be used as well as on the topic to be developed for the project proposal. If other interesting tools are identified a posteriori, they might be suggested and included in the set if the participants agree on. Ideally, students should try to discuss issues related to the experiment using only the identified tools (and not informal personal chats, for instance). With this lab project, students will be exercising and practicing concepts and models related to: working and sharing principles, governance, trust, management, IPR and transparency in a CN environment. Example 2: Home-made scenario; world-made tool Scenario. There is no scenario. The scenario will be developed by the students. The scenario should consist of a VBE, a business opportunity (BO) and a VO to carry out the identified BO. The VBE and VO life-cycles should be taken into account; members, roles and rights should be defined. The business opportunity should be represented by a distributed business process (DBP). Fake data should be generated and the VO operation should be managed with the support of an already existing (free/open) Project management (PM) tool. Objectives. The main objectives of this lab experiment are to: - define a scenario composed by a VBE and its respective key components, features and operating principles; - identify a Business Opportunity; - model a distributed business process; - create and initialize a VO; - manage a VO. Some initial questions to motivate the work: • Which application domain should be chosen? • How to characterize the involved entities (Institutions, Enterprises, etc.)? • Which formalism should be used to model the DBP? • How to choose partners to compose the VO? • How to choose a Coordinator to manage a VO? • Which tool functionalities are required to manage a VO? Working method. The experiment will be composed of 2 parts: - Part 1: Students will be divided in 2 groups. o Group 1: will be devoted to develop the scenario (VBE, BO, VO). A guideline should be generated. o Group 2: will identify existing (free) Project Management tools and carry out a detailed analysis/comparison of the tools and their functionalities in order to elect one to be used for VO Management purposes. - Part 2: Students will work together. First, Group 1 and Group 2 will exchange knowledge. The scenario will be explained by Group 1 to Group 2. Then, the elected PM tool and its functionalities will be presented by Group 2 to Group 1. Together, the students will discuss weak and strong points of the scenario and the PM tool. At this stage, some refinements/adjustments to the scenario might be required in order to enable the continuation of the experiment. Finally, fake data originated from the scenario guidelines will serve as input to the PM tool which should run and manage the VO. Some situations should be simulated and its behavior should be monitored by the students with the support of the tool. 19

With this lab experiment, students will be exercising and practicing: CN base concepts and ontology, scenario simulation, DBP modeling and management, partners search and selection, VBE and VO management, collaborative work. Example 3: Design a business model to support cooperative process Scenario. Imagine you are the owner of a SME (small and medium enterprise) in a given sector and together with other entrepreneurs you decided to establish a CN in order to gain dimension and survival capabilities in a turbulent market environment. Objectives. Identify and characterize the necessary business processes for the intended scenario. The term business process model intuitively suggests it has to do with business and it has something to do with models. According to Cambridge Learner' s Dictionary these two terms have the following definitions: - business: the activity of buying and selling goods and services, or a particular company that does this, or work you do to earn money. - model: a representation of something, either as a physical object which is usually smaller than the real object, or as a simple description of the object which might be used in calculations. By combining the two concepts we get a first understanding that a business process model for collaborative activity is a representation of how enterprises working together can exchange goods and services and earn money. On the other hand, the purpose of creating a CNO-related model is to help understanding, describing, and predicting the cooperative or collaborative processes in the network. Taking into account this background, this project work will be divided into 4 phases: Scenario definition, business strategy characterization, business component identification, and modeling the business processes. Some initial questions to motivate the work: • What are the main elements of a business model for the CNs? • How can business process models be described and represented? Which formalism(s)? • In addition to the business-related processes, which other processes should be designed to support the CN operation? • How to characterize the involved entities (VO, Enterprises, etc.)? • Which ICT functionalities are required (from the user point of view)? Working method. The experiment will be composed of 3 parts: - Part 1- Building a scenario – After a first agreement about the selected sector, the students will be divided into 2 groups. o Group 1: will be devoted to analyze and characterize the scenario in global terms – Opportunities, threats, industry competition and competitor analysis. Guidelines should be generated. o Group 2: will be devoted to develop the scenario in terms of an internal perspective – resources, capabilities, core competencies. Guidelines should be generated. At the end of this part, each group makes a presentation and together, the students will discuss weak and strong points of the scenario and make some refinements/adjustments, if necessary, in order to enable the continuation of the experiment. - Part 2: - Business model design – Students will be divided in groups to discuss the business strategy and the requirements that a business model should include to support collaborative processes. Each group makes a presentation of their work and proposes a final structure, as well as the modeling tools to use. - Part 3: - Modeling the business process – After all groups have agreed on a common business model structure, each group of students will be given a specific component from the business structure to model some business process. In other words, each group will contribute with a distinct business process. Nevertheless, all groups have to be aware of what is going on with the other groups in order to assure a consistent final business model.

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7. AN EXAMPLE INSTANTIATION An instantiation of the proposed curriculum has been included in the Electrical and Computer Engineering program of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the New University of Lisbon. This is an integrated MSc program (5 years) and the CN course is entitled “Virtual Enterprises”. Although the course is, for historic reasons, entitled Virtual Enterprises, it covers all CN-related subjects proposed in this curriculum. This course is located in the summer semester of the 4th year of the master program. Previous to this course, students have gone through several other courses that provide important ICT background to facilitate the understanding of the Virtual Enterprises curriculum. The following diagram illustrates those subjects that constitute relevant background for the CN course (Fig. 6). Winter

Summer

Year 1

Programming Algorithms & Data Structures Introduction to Telecommunications

Year 2

Telecommunication Systems

Year 3

Year 4

Real Time Systems Data modeling in Engineering Intelligent Supervision Systems Integration

Main contribution Minor contribution

Year 5

Virtual Enterprises Figure 6 – Virtual Enterprises course and supporting courses

In the first occurrences of this course (till 2006), the course included 14 theoretical lectures of 2 h each, and 14 lab sessions of 3 h each. With the recent adaptation of the program to follow the Bologna model, the lab sessions were reduced to 2 h each. The course spans along 14 weeks; in each week there is 1 theoretical lecture and 1 lab session. Given the nature of the program where this course is included, a strong emphasis on the ICT aspects was naturally adopted. The implementation of such a course with a strong laboratorial component faced a number of obstacles, namely: -Complexity of the area; -Lack of tradition of teaching these subjects; -Lack of appropriate didactic materials; -Dilemma between the option of increasing the number of students per lab session (limited by the available lab resources) or increasing the number of times each lab session is repeated (limited by the university policy regarding teaching assistants). But in spite of these obstacles, the adopted approach was to keep a strong laboratorial component in order to give students a sound hands-on experience. Although this course is offered as elective (optional), the number of registered students is growing every year, as shown in Fig. 7.

21

38 40

34

35 27

30 25

19

21

20 15 10 5 0

2000 / 2003

2003 / 2004

2004 / 2005

2005 / 2006

2006 / 2007

Figure 7 – Evolution of registered students for the Virtual Enterprises course

In the last 2 years, due to the number of students, the lab sessions had to be duplicated, with half of the students attending each turn. As lab work, a different project, based on the examples provided in section 6.2.1, has been successfully implemented every year. At the end of the semester it has been possible to demonstrate a working integrated system composed of modules developed by different groups of students. As an indicator of success, in the year 2004, the project example nº 2 described in section 6.2.1 was adopted. The developed work was submitted to the Microsoft competition “Imagine Cup” and won the 1st position in the national competition, taking a group of students to the world finals in Brazil. The developed system was called “Collaborative Networked Environment – CNE” and the central aim of the infrastructure was to put together various consultants, as described before. Follows a brief description of CNE usage: 1. [Consultant Registration] - Other than personal data, each consultant provides a set of services he is able to offer to the virtual community. As more consultants register, the resulting community gets bigger, as well as the provided services increase. 2. [New Business Process Model Creation] – Each member of CNE can start a new Business Process Model. The typical case is when such member finds a new Business Opportunity that he cannot fulfill alone. In that case, he comes to CNE to find the consultants that complement his services, in order to respond to that specific Business Opportunity. 3. [Workflow Model Design] - The consultant starts identifying the needed activities and the correct transitions. After that, he selects the services to be implemented in each activity from the CNE-services-pool. 4. [Partners Selection] – The next step is the selection of a specific Figure 8 - CNE – Collaborative Networked Environment consultant to execute each service. This task is supported by a performance supervisor included in the system, providing distinct ordering criteria for the consultants’ set available for each service. Finally each selected consultant is contacted by the system, asking if he wants to join this Virtual Team that is about to be formed. The process repeats until all the services have an executor and the Business Model gets complete. 5. [Business Process Workflow Model Execution] - CNE includes a Workflow Engine responsible for this task, sending a message to each consultant when the time for his service to start comes. When 22

each consultant finishes the specific service, he sends back a message to the engine, eventually including relevant files, and the process is repeated for the next consultant(s) on the workflow graph. 6. [Execution Monitoring] - CNE also provides an execution monitor, enabling all the consultants involved in a common Business Process to see the state of its execution (as shown in Fig. 8). In addition to the integrated MSc program (5 years) mentioned above, the New University of Lisbon started offering a new MSc program (2 years) for students possessing a bachelor degree in engineering. One of the profiles offered in this program, started in 2006/2007, is a Master on Collaborative Enterprise Networks. In this program, in addition to the course on Virtual Enterprises, various other related courses are offered, giving a more comprehensive education on collaborative networks (Fig. 9). Master (2 years) In Electrical, Systems an Computer Engineering Profile: Enterprise Collaborative Networks

Semester 3:

Semester 1:

Semester 2:

-Intelligent Supervision -Integrated Telecommunication Networks I -Databases -Option A -Option B

-Systems Integration -Virtual Enterprises -Integrated Telecommunication Networks II -Option C -Option D

-Thesis – Part 1 -Robtic Systems & CIM -Sociology of new IT

Semester 4: -Thesis – Part 2 -Distributed Manufacturing Systems -Multimedia Information Systems

Option A + B: -Technology of Geographic IS -Artificial Intelligence -Decision Models -Sensorial Systems -Information Systems Management -Marketing and Innovation

Option C & D: -Computer Networks -Logistics -Economic Engineering -Wireless Communications -Software Development Methods -Quality Planning and Control -Simulation -Introduction to Operational Research -Databases II

Figure 9 – Structure of the MSc program on Enterprise Collaborative Networks

8. CONCLUSIONS Collaborative networks are already recognized in the society as a very important instrument for survival of organizations in a period of turbulent socio-economic changes. A growing number of collaborativenetworked organization forms are emerging as a result of the advances in the information and communication technologies, the market and societal needs, and the progress achieved in a large number of international projects. The accumulated body of empiric knowledge and the size of the involved research community provide the important pre-conditions for the foundation of a new scientific discipline of collaborative networks. Nevertheless in order to guarantee a wide dissemination and implementation of this new paradigm in the various sectors of society, it is necessary to complement the R&D with education and training initiatives. This curriculum is aimed to provide a basis for a world reference. Specific courses can be derived from this general reference curriculum, taking into account the specific context where the course will be introduced and the target students. Some guidelines are provided for this instantiation, namely in terms of where to put the emphasis and which sequence of topics to follow. An instantiation example at the New University of Lisbon is given and results of its application briefly reported. This particular instantiation, together with other specific teaching actions (e.g. ECOLEAD Summer School, BEST Summer School, Module on Collaborative Networks introduced in the Master program on Logistics of the Polytechnic University of Valencia), show the feasibility of the proposed curriculum. 23

As Collaborative Networks is a new and very dynamic field, a training curriculum for this area certainly needs periodic revisions and improvements. Therefore, the current proposal has to be seen as an initial basis.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the ECOLEAD project funded by the European Commission. The authors also thank the contributions from their partners. Special thanks to Antonio Abreu, Edmilson Klen and Simon Msanjila.

REFERENCES 1. Afsarmanesh, H., L. M. Camarinha-Matos (2005). A framework for management of virtual organization breeding environments. In: Collaborative Networks and their Breeding Environments (L.M. CamarinhaMatos, H. Afsarmanesh, Ed.s), pp. 35-48, Springer, Boston. 2. Camarinha-Matos, L. M. - Towards an education curriculum on Collaborative Networks, IFIP Newsletter, March 2006. 3. Camarinha-Matos, L. M.; Afsarmanesh, H. - Collaborative networks: A new scientific discipline, J. Intelligent Manufacturing, vol. 16, Nº 4-5, pp439-452, 2005. 4. Camarinha-Matos, L. M.; Cardoso, T. – Education on Virtual Organizations: An Experience at UNL, in Virtual Enterprises and Collaborative Networks (L. M. Camarinha-Matos, Ed.), Springer: Boston, 2004. 5. Camarinha-Matos, L. M.; Cardoso, T.; Klen, E.; Afsarmanesh, H. - A study of VO, VBE and PVC curricula, Deliverable D71.2, ECOLEAD project, March 2005, www.ecolead.org. 6. Garita, C. – A case study of VO education in Costa Rica, in Virtual Enterprises and Collaborative Networks (L. M. Camarinha-Matos, Ed.), Springer: Boston, 2004. 7. Gloor, P.; Paasivaara, M.; Schoder, D.; Willems, P. – Correlating performance with social network structure through teaching social network analysis, in Network-centric collaboration and support frameworks (L.M.Camarinha-Matos, H. Afsarmanesh, M. Ollus, Ed.s), Springer: Boston, 2006. 8. Goranson, H.T. - The Agile Virtual Enterprise – Cases, metrics, tools (Quorum Books), 1999. 9. Klen, E., Cardoso, T., Camarinha-Matos, L. M. - Teaching Initiatives on Collaborative Networked Organizations, in Proceedings of 38th CIRP - International Seminar on Manufacturing Systems, May 16-18, Florianópolis-SC, Brazil. 10. Conclusions of the Workshop on Engineers for Industry, European Commission, DG XIII, Brussels, Belgium, 11 Dec 98. 11. Haugen, J.; Hussein, B. A.; Solbjørg, O.; Andersen, B. - Pedagogic Approaches for Training and Education (Distance Learning) in the Extended enterprise, GEM deliverable D2.1, Dec 2002. http://www.sintef.no/static/tl/projects/gem/documents/D2.1.pdf 12. Winterton, J.; Delamare - Le Deist, F.; Stringfellow, E. - Typology of knowledge, skills and competences: clarification of the concept and prototype, CEFEDOP project, Jan 2005, http://www.wipaed.wiso.unigoettingen.de/download/lehrveranstaltungen/U3_SS2005_Competences/CEDEFOP_26_January_2005.pdf

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