Michael Aram, MSc

Doctoral Program in Information Systems: currently; Vienna University of Economics and Business; Michael is currently working on his dissertation in the area of evolutionary information systems at the Institute for Information Systems and New Media under supervision of Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gustaf Neumann.
Master Program in Information Systems: 2007 – 2009; Vienna University of Economics and Business; In the master program Michael chose the specializations Informationswirtschaft und Recht ("Infonomics and Law") and E-Business. Michael wrote his master thesis in Walldorf (Germany) for the prestigious IT company SAP.
Bachelor Program in Information Systems: 2002 – 2007; Vienna University of Economics and Business; In the course of his bachelor studies, Michael specialised in E-Commerce and New Media. Michael's bachelor thesis was awarded a first prize by IBM in the context of a cross-university student competition.
Business Administration: 1998 – 2002; Vienna University of Economics and Business; Michael completed the first study section in business administration, but switched to information systems after becoming fully aware of his passion for IT.
High-school Diploma: 1990 – 1998; Bundesgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium St. Pölten

Academic Work

A Grading Data Warehouse Approach to Measuring and Analyzing Learning Performance: From Grading to Competency-Oriented Assessment: Michael Aram, Felix Mödritscher, Gustaf Neumann und Monika Andergassen; 2019; Handbook of Research on E-Assessment in Higher Education – IGI Global; doi: 10.4018/978-1-5225-5936-8.ch005; Abstract: E-assessment comprises a variety of activities in and beyond the classroom. However, traditional e-learning platforms support only a part of assessment (e.g., individual and group assignments, the grading of such activities, and student record management). Typically, such platforms lack competency orientation, or face performance issues due to increasing application complexity and usage intensity. To overcome technical limitations and provide a basis for competency-based assessment, the authors present an analytics component that is inspired by data warehouses. The potential of this artifact is elaborated, and the improvements are evaluated through a case study about Learn@WU, the LMS of WU Vienna. Although the focus was competency-based aggregation of learning results, early experiences show performance increases for retrieving simple grades of 45% to 98%. Sample scenarios demonstrate how to define and calculate indicators along activity hierarchies and competency graphs to enable the measurement of learning performance along both generic indicators and competency-oriented assessment.
Long-Term Analysis of the Development of the OpenACS Community Framework: Michael Aram, Stefan Koch and Gustaf Neumann; 2017; Open Source Solutions for Knowledge Management and Technological Ecosystems – IGI Global; doi: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0905-9.ch005; Abstract: The OpenACS community framework is a mature software toolkit for developing online community platforms. Originally invented at a university, it has prospered due to a high commercial demand and major investments, and subsequently settled as an open source project. In this chapter, the authors extend a previous analysis of the evolution of this software framework and its surrounding community. This long-term analysis of fourteen years of the project's evolution considers the commercial background of the members of the developer community (for-profit or non-profit), investigates the changing contribution and collaboration structures and the geographical distribution of the user community. The results reveal a continuous shift from new product development work by commercial developers to maintenance work by the open community and a relatively uniform and growing global distribution of users over the years.
Multilayered analysis of co-development of business information systems: Michael Aram and Gustaf Neumann; July 2015; Journal of Internet Services and Applications; doi: 10.1186/s13174-015-0030-8; Abstract: Business information systems (BIS) comprise technological (e.g. programs), informational (e.g. content) and social artifacts (e.g. collaboration structures). Typically, such systems are constantly and collectively developed (co-developed) further by a variety of individuals within the organization. By recognizing these varying types of actors (concerning their goals, technical expertise and language means) and their predominantly developed artifact type, one can distinguish two types of subsystems: technical subsystems wherein the development of the system behavior is conducted by software developers; and business subsystems dominated by end-users developing informational artifacts. So far, co-development structures within and between these subsystems are not well understood, especially the aspect that – potentially driven by appropriate measures such as the provision of domain-specific languages – co-development might shift between these subsystems.
This paper presents an approach for characterizing the co-development of real-world BIS with respect to direct participation from different kinds of contributors. This multilayered approach allows us to analyze the co-development with programming languages, domain-specific languages and end-user tools. The approach is suited to assess the direct participation of individuals from different subsystems in the development of evolving BIS. We focus on the intersection of these subsystems, present appropriate metrics and a multilayered analysis scheme. Contributions to artifacts are analyzed using social network analysis to detect structural properties of continuous co-development.
The application to Learn@WU, a real-world BIS, demonstrates how end-user enabling technologies have shifted the co-development effort of the system from a small group of developers to a several orders of magnitude larger group of contributors. We observed an increase of direct participation over time on both informational and executable artifacts, while the number of technical experts was more or less constant.
Our approach may act as a trigger for the application and further development of rigorous instruments for assessing co-development of BIS.
Evolutionary Business Information Systems. Perspectives and Challenges of an Emerging Class of Information Systems.: Gustaf Neumann, Stefan Sobernig and Michael Aram; February 2014, Volume 6, Issue 1, pp 33-38; Business & Information Systems Engineering; doi: 10.1007/s12599-013-0305-1; Abstract: This article reflects on existing and emerging future challenges arising in the area of “evolutionary business information systems,” a class of systems that demand an evolutionary software development process and which support secondary design of various conceptual layers. We place both existing contributions and future research opportunities in context by referring to an idealized, preliminary system architecture. Finally, we emphasize our pluralistic perspective on the research object and the resulting need for methodological flexibility in the sense of interdisciplinary configurations of research methods.
Exploring Collective DSL Integration in a Large Situated IS: Towards Comprehensive Language Integration in Information Systems: Michael Aram and Gustaf Neumann; August 2014; Proceedings of the 2014 European Conference on Software Architecture Workshops; doi: 10.1145/2642803.2642823; Abstract: In large situated information system instances, a great variety of stakeholders interact with each other via technology, constantly shaping and refining the information system. In the course of such a system's history, a range of domain-specific languages may have been incorporated. These language means are often not sufficiently integrated on an ontological level leading to syntactical and conceptual redundancies and impeding a shared understanding of the systems' functionalities. In this paper, we present our ambitions towards a language integration approach that aims at mitigating this problem. We exemplify it in the context of an existing educational information system instance.
Applying the Widget Paradigm to Learning Design: Towards a New Level of User Adoption: Bernd Simon, Michael Aram, Frans Van Assche, Luis Anido Rifon, David Griffiths and Manuel Caeiro Rodríguez; 2013, pp 520-525; In: Scaling up Learning for Sustained Impact. 8th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2013, Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013, Proceedings. Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 8095. Subseries: Programming and Software Engineering; Abstract: Researching the sharing of learning designs is a well-established domain within the technology-enhanced learning research community. However, until now tools supporting educational modelling languages such as IMS Learning Design have not reached a wide adoption in today’s school practice. Following a design science research methodology we report on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel tool referred to as "Composer". The Composer supports the design of learning activities and has been developed according to design principles such as (a) interoperability between design-time and run-time systems based on the W3C Widget Standard, (b) inclusion of artefact types beyond content such as tools, people and events, (c) a user-friendly authoring environment. A first evaluation of the proof-of-concept implementation suggests that the tool is easy-to-use and provides added value for teachers when it comes to reflecting about the design of learning activities.
Towards a Framework for Analytics-driven Domain-specific Mashup Environments: Michael Aram und Gustaf Neumann; 2013, pp 1-6; EC-TEL Doctoral Consortium; Abstract: Mashup environments enable end users to directly engage in the design process of the information system. Traditional mashup technology oers users generic components and therefore targets technically skilled people. Recent research investigates domain-specific mashup platforms with the aim to be easier to understand and use. We present a proposal for research towards a generic framework that supports the design of domain-specific mashup environments through native analytics.
Verfahren zur semantischen Modellierung von CCTS-basierten Datenstrukturen: Blocking notice; Master thesis; Grade A; Language: English
XOPortal – Studie für eine neue Oberfläche von .LRN auf Basis von Web 2 Mashups: Bachelor thesis; Grade A; Language: German; Award: First Price at IBM competition
seoAjax – Entwicklung suchmaschinenoptimaler Ajax-basierter Webanwendungen: Bachelor thesis in the course of the IT internship; Grade A; Language: German

Michael Aram, MSc

Professional Background

Education

Academic Work