EECE 818: Cooperative Information Systems

Spring 2000: M&W, 2:00 p.m.––3:15 p.m. Room B213

Professor: Dr. Michael N. Huhns, Room 3A41, 777-5921, (786-2686 home), huhns@sc.edu

This course will present the current state of research in cooperative information systems. Topics will include theories, architectures, languages, and techniques for achieving coordinated behavior among a decentralized group of information system components. The course will describe successful applications in telecommunications, manufacturing automation, and information retrieval; and discuss future applications over worldwide information networks.

Text: The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson, Addison Wesley, 1999. The text will be supplemented with research papers.

Course Outline

  1. Introduction

    2. Information systems; motivations for cooperation (Slides)

  2. Traditional Information Systems

    3. Centralized and distributed architectures
    Object modeling
    State transition diagrams
    Data flow diagrams
    Entity-relationship diagrams

  3. Heterogeneous Information Systems

    4. Legacy systems (Slides)
    Schema integration, federation, and interoperation (Slides)
    Workflow systems (MTS/MQS, MOM, TMs, and TPs)
    Java, XML, and JDBC
    Process-model integration
    Ontologies, OKBC, and knowledge sharing

  4. Software Agent Techniques and Architectures (Slides)

    5. Description, decomposition, and distribution of tasks (Slides)
    Interaction and communication among agents (Slides)
    Representation of system state and distribution of control
    Maintenance of consistency (Slides)

  5. Information Agents

    6. Mediators and directory services
    Workflow agents

  6. Status and Trends

Grading

First Exam 30%
Second Exam 30%
Homework 25%
Project 15% (experimental project or research paper)