Book Reviews

Process-Aware Information Systems: Bridging People and Soft- organize the whole book. It not only discusses major concepts such as
ware Through Process Technology. Edited by Marlon Dumas, Wil process, information systems, and PAIS, but also provides an overview
van der Aalst, and Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 409 of languages, techniques, and standards at a broad level. After illustrat-
pp. $99.95. (ISBN: 10 0-471-66306-9) ing some of the ongoing trends in information systems as a context of
the emergence of an increasing number of PAISs, Chapter 1 then
Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs) are among today’s proceeds to an excellent discussion of the definition of a PAIS and dif-
hottest topics in the science and practice of information systems. Busi- ferent dimensions to classify PAISs. It is according to one of the classi-
ness processes, workflow management systems, groupware, project fication schemes, “according to the nature of the participants” (i.e., P2A,
management products, enterprise application integration, and business- P2P, A2A), that the following three chapters are organized.
to-business integration attract a lot of attention from R&D profession- Chapter 2 gives a survey of P2A processes as embodied in WFMSs,
als in information systems, management sciences, software engineer- in which workflow management is introduced as a generic concept.
ing, and business-oriented computer science. The book provides an However, concrete commercial workflow management systems are not
integrated introduction to these areas that have evolved somewhat in- presented and hence, there are no proof-of-concept systems to exem-
dependently of one another in an overarching framework. Unlike other plify the terminology, models, or functions of WFMSs. Chapter 3 ex-
titles in this area, the book focuses on technological aspects rather than plains and characterizes relatively more human-centric P2P processes
managerial or strategic aspects, presenting a set of common underlying and systems to support collective group interactions. Chapter 4, on the
principles to effectively model, design, and implement process-aware other hand, introduces more system-centric A2A processes with an in-
information systems. novative view that EAI and B2B integration are really two sides of the
As stated in the Preface, the purpose of the book is to “provide a uni- same coin, i.e., both are relevant and require each others’ cooperation to
fying and comprehensive overview of the technological underpinnings of integrate application systems and businesses. Although only the basic
the emerging field of process-aware information systems engineering.” It concepts and approaches are introduced, references to comprehensive,
is apparently a formidable task. Despite that the book is not exhaustive in technical, and historical discussions are provided for further study.
terms of coverage of specific techniques, the editors are successful in Chapters 5 through 8 are dedicated to process modeling languages.
establishing a broad framework and systematically organizing intelligent Chapter 5 demonstrates clearly how UML, a visual and object-oriented
works that span the technological spectrum of PAISs, including major modeling standard, though primarily designed for modeling software
concepts, modeling languages, techniques, standards, and tools. systems, can be applied to business process modeling. Activity, class,
Graduate and advanced undergraduate students, teachers, and object, sequence, and structure diagrams in UML are examined to de-
researchers in computer science and information systems will find the scribe five major perspectives of process models. Another widely used
book an excellent textbook for a topic-oriented course. There are standard, eEPC, together with its supportive platform, ARIS, are intro-
15 chapters in the book, which can be conveniently covered in a typical duced in Chapter 6. A concise section, “How to Correctly Model EPCs”
university semester. Each chapter begins with a short, general descrip- adds particular value to its usefulness in practice, which consists of
tion of the problem domain and then progresses to relevant concepts straightforward rules to avoid common pitfalls and easy-to-follow
and specific techniques. I especially like the numerous examples and guidelines to model EPCs. Chapter 7 delivers an effective description
illustrations that clarify and simplify complex topics. At the end of each of Petri nets from multiperspectives: as a visual tool, as a formal lan-
chapter, there are thought-provoking exercises ranging from simple guage, and as mathematical structures. Both elementary and high-level
questions to projects and possible assignment subjects. This is very Petri nets are analyzed with an eye on modeling single processes, mul-
useful for classroom settings. tiple processes, and resources.
Practitioners working on workflow and business process manage- Chapter 8 closes this part with a more abstract discussion of pat-
ment, groupware and teamwork, enterprise application integration, terns that can be used to evaluate and adapt modeling languages.
and/or business-to-business integration projects will find the book a Twenty control-flow patterns ranging from very simple patterns such as
valuable reference book as well. Each chapter is self-contained and sequential routing to complex patterns involving complex synchroniza-
directly accessible, and the book, on a whole, represents different tech- tions such as discriminator patterns are presented and grouped into six
nical aspects of PAISs in a logically coherent way. Besides, the place- categories. However, these categories are empirical and no explicit
ment of references at the end of each chapter instead of in a long criteria to classify patterns are presented.
exhaustive list at the end of the book is extremely valuable to those who Part III, “Techniques,” includes three chapters: process design and
want to learn about a particular subtopic or get a quick reference. redesign (Chapter 9), process mining (Chapter 10), and transactional
Also worth mentioning is an up-to-date reading and resource list in business processes (Chapter 11). One of the strengths of Chapter 9 is
the Appendix. It consists of extra suggested readings (complementary that it delves into two concrete process redesign methods that can be
to those at the end of each chapter) and URL pointers to relevant por- exploited according to different redesign goals. One is based on heuris-
tals, standardization bodies, initiatives, and consortia. Brief descrip- tic redesign best practices; the other exploits an information processing
tions and comments are presented for each resource, directing users to perspective on business processes. Chapter 10 presents an overview of
further information regarding various aspects of PAISs. process mining with event logs, followed by an in-depth discussion of
The first four chapters form a conceptual basis for understanding a specific algorithm: the a-algorithm. Some possible solutions are pro-
of process-aware information systems and a general framework to posed to solve the problems while using the a-algorithm. In Chapter 11,
an old technique, transaction management, is investigated in the con-
text of modern processing languages. Atomicity, from the most widely
© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. used ACID transaction model, is identified as the transactional property

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 58(3):455–458, 2007
most applicable in the area of workflow and business process manage- The release of Stimulated Recall and Mental Models, therefore,
ment. Six system development platforms and standardization initiatives could not have been timelier. It describes an empirical qualitative, case
are examined in terms of their support to the concept of “atomicity.” study research conducted by authors Lyn Henderson and Julie Tallman
Chapters 12 through 15, composing the last part of the book, repre- in which they studied the mental models of school librarians teaching
sent effective efforts to apply the concepts, modeling approaches, and K-12 students how to use electronic databases.
techniques in practice. I find it helpful to have some knowledge of In this research, funded by the Spencer Foundation, Henderson and
XML and XML schema while going through the XPDL (Chapter 12) Tallman studied and analyzed the mental models of their subjects, six
and BPEL (Chapter13) examples and exercises in this section. Chapter American and four Australian school librarians, as they went about the
12 briefly introduces five standardization groups that endeavor to im- task of teaching students one-on-one how to access and retrieve the in-
prove process integration. A process description language, XPDL and formation they needed for class assignments from electronic databases.
an interoperability protocol Wf-XML, both developed by WfMC, are Each librarian and student underwent a structured pre-lesson interview
then presented in detail. Chapter 13 introduces a useful standard BPEL to ascertain their mental models (the sum of their prior learning and ex-
that aims to develop PAISs in a highly distributed, heterogeneous, and periences) regarding the upcoming lesson. The lesson followed imme-
networked environment. The book ends with two PAIS development diately and was carefully video- and audio-recorded, with the full
tools: Staffware and FLOWer. Both contain effective toolsets for pro- knowledge of the librarian and her student. After the lessons, both stu-
duction process management, although the FLOWer case-handling dent and librarian were interviewed with the intent of learning what
approach also aims for flexibly structured processes based on an each were thinking and feeling at specific points during the lesson,
information-driven approach. using the recordings as memory joggers. After the first librarian-pupil
Overall, the book paints a rather thorough picture of process-aware session, the student was freed but the librarian was re-studied tutoring
information systems. It provides an integrated introduction to many a second learner. Again, the teacher and new student were pre-
relevant topics with a strong emphasis on techniques necessary for interviewed, their lesson was recorded, and they were debriefed using
development and implementation of PAISs. The book will become an the recordings for stimulated recall.
inspiring textbook and a valuable source of reference for R&D profes- It is important to note here the use of the recordings to create stim-
sionals and practitioners active in the fascinating interdisciplinary area ulated recall. Though considered a dubious practice by many respected
of PAIS. researchers, Henderson and Tallman expend considerable time and
effort in this book trying to establish the credibility of stimulated recall
as a valid research tool. I find it interesting that the authors report
Hongyan Ma that their realization of the value of stimulated recall was a collateral
Department of Information Studies benefit of their study; they claim the original objective of their research
University of California, Los Angeles was to analyze and compare the pre- and post-lesson mental models of
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520 the teacher-librarians (p.15). Apparently, this realization provided the
E-mail: hym@ucla.edu inspiration for this book (pp. 1 & 208). Hence, its place of importance
in the book’s title.
Published online 9 November 2006 in Wiley InterScience In Chapter 1, the authors present a thorough overview of their re-
(www.interscience.wiley.com). search. They describe their research methodologies, the tasks of their
DOI: 10.1002/asi.20456 book, and the rationale and objectives for their study. Basically, they
want to (a) discover the librarians’ mental models before the lesson;
Stimulated Recall and Mental Models: Tools for Teaching (b) determine if those mental models coincided with (were predictive
and Learning Computer Information Literacy. Lyn Henderson and of) their actual teaching styles during the lesson; (c) observe if the li-
Julie Tallman. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. 289 pp. $55.00. brarians responded to situations during the lesson and adapted their
(ISBN: 0-8108-5222-5) teaching methods accordingly or if their teaching methods were set by
their mental models; and (d) know if the librarians would learn from
In February 2006, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) an- their teaching after reflecting on their first lesson and then change their
nounced the release of its brand new core academic assessment of its mental models for the second lesson.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Assess- Chapter 2 is devoted to the literature review establishing the exis-
ment. The core assessment is designed to assess the information tence of mental models. In addition to recent works, sufficient histori-
literacy of high school students transitioning to higher education. Many cal works are included for the authors to establish a theoretical basis for
of us already know ETS for some of its other assessment tools like the mental models. They discuss at length the cognitive representation,
SAT and GRE. But ETS’s latest test comes on the heels of its 2005 functions, and characteristics of mental models. They also present a
release of an advanced level of its ICT Literacy Assessment for college comparison of mental models between novices and experts, recogniz-
students progressing to their junior and senior year of undergraduate ing the varying information literacy skills among the librarians and the
studies. Neither test, ETS insists, is designed to be an entrance exami- students. Further, they advance the concept that mental models are not
nation. Rather, they are packaged and promoted as diagnostic only individually acquired but can also be realized in groups. Unfortu-
assessments. nately, some of the literature mentioned in this chapter is merely boxed-
We are in the grips of the Information Age where information scored. Also, there is scant mention of contrary research.
literacy is a prized skill. Knowledge is power. However, information Henderson and Tallman explore in Chapter 3 the theoretical
literacy is not merely creating flawless documents or slick PowerPoint methodology of stimulated recall. Despite acknowledging “some inter-
presentations on a home PC. It is more than being able to send photos esting criticisms” and “the growing number of studies” to the contrary
and text messages via cell phone. Instead, information literacy is (p. 91), the authors strive to present stimulated recall as a valid research
gauged by one’s ability to skillfully seek, access, and retrieve valid tool through the use of examples and literature review. Whether or not
information from credible and reliable sources and using that information they succeed is entirely a judgment value call on the part of individual
appropriately. It involves strong online search strategies and advanced readers. Surely, some will embrace their arguments and others will not.
critical thinking skills. And, although it is not clear whether they seized In Chapter 4 the researchers tender a case study of one of their sub-
the opportunity or inherited it by default, librarians are in the vanguard ject librarians. Readers receive an intimate view of the evolution of her
of teaching information literacy to the next generation of would-be mental models, provoked by the stimulated recall method, as she pro-
power brokers. gresses through the pre-interview, in-action, and reflective stages of her
two lessons. She has firmly held beliefs that school librarians should be
© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. subject experts, yet she professes some inadequacies with her own

456 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—February 1, 2007
DOI: 10.1002/asi
expertise concerning the technology and databases she uses in the lesson interviews seem remarkably accurate when observing the school
lessons. Indeed, when she encounters compounding difficulties during librarians during the lessons. Additionally, while the librarians were
the second session, her self-esteem suffers as a result of the trammels of able to adapt their lessons based on situations, they generally did so
technology. Eventually, after undergoing the stimulated recall and post- within their mental models of what constitutes good teachers and good
interview, the librarian becomes “more reflective and less emotional” teaching. As for the value of reflecting on their teaching performance,
(p. 129). the authors report the not-so-startling denouement that while it is easy
Chapter 5 offers another case study of another subject librarian. to identify and define malpractice and to commit to changing perfor-
Unlike the teacher in the previous chapter, this subject was more certain mance errors, it is often difficult to actually implement those improve-
of her skills and abilities in teaching the students to search the elec- ments. Essentially, what is first learned is best learned and what is most
tronic databases. She prepares little for the task, relying on her compe- used is best used. In the end, however, the authors rightfully call for
tence to get her and her students successfully through the lessons. Here further study to be conducted by themselves and others.
is an educator who sees her role as that of facilitator rather than teacher. ETS’s core ICT Literacy Assessment is not currently a mandatory
She demonstrates considerable skill in determining the students’ prior college entrance examination. Neither is the advanced ICT Literacy
knowledge, utilizes appropriate questioning techniques, and interprets Assessment a mandatory examination for promotion to upper level
their verbal and nonverbal cues during the lessons to guide her instruc- undergraduate studies. But it would be naïve not to expect some enter-
tional strategies. Yet, during the reflective post-lesson interview with prising institutions of higher education to at least consider making them
stimulated recall, she is quite hard on herself while self-evaluating her so in the very near future. Consequently, librarians of all stripes (public,
questioning procedures. academic, school, or others) would do well to read and study Stimu-
Henderson and Tallman, in Chapter 6, examine the positive benefits lated Recall and Mental Models if they are truly committed to leading
of the use of stimulated recall throughout their research. They use stim- the charge on advancing information literacy in the Information Age. In
ulated recall in the study to more precisely reveal the school librarians’ this book are some valuable how-tos for instructing patrons on search-
as well as the students’ thought processes as they progressed through ing electronic databases. And some of those same principles could be
their lessons. The authors admit that, in some instances, based on their applicable to other areas of information literacy instruction.
experiences and observations, they came to the wrong conclusions
about the lessons they were observing on the videotapes. For example,
their observation and recordings did not capture one school librarian Darrell Cook
watching her pupil’s eyes and determining that the child was struggling El Centro College Library
with the keyboard. The librarian was able to adapt the lesson accord- Dallas County Community College District
ingly but the researchers incorrectly concluded she had strayed from Dallas, TX 75202
one of her pre-interview mental models of teaching. Only when the E-mail: dcook@dcccd.edu
educator pointed to the video and noted, here is where I noticed . . . , did
the researchers realize they made the wrong conclusion. The authors Published online 1 December 2006 in Wiley InterScience
suggest that without the stimulated recall post-interview, they may well (www.interscience.wiley.com).
have generated different results. DOI: 10.1002/asi.20472
Chapter 7 compares at length the Chapter 4 librarian’s procedure-
focused, product-driven pedagogy to the Chapter 5 librarian’s concept- Multimedia Content and the Semantic Web: Methods, Standards
focused, edification-driven pedagogy. Henderson and Tallman then and Tools. Edited by Giorgos Stamou and Stefanos Kollias.
discuss whether the librarians controlled, or were controlled by, their Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley, 2005. 392 pp. $120.00.
prevailing mental models at varying points in their lessons. The authors (ISBN: 470-85753-6)
also explain how and why they believe, from their research, that teach-
ers’ mental models can be prophetic indicators of their teaching styles The concept of the semantic web has emerged because search
and strategies. engines and text-based searching are no longer adequate, as these
This book is evidence that Henderson and Tallman were meticulous approaches involve an extensive information retrieval process. The de-
in following their established protocols and especially in their record ployed searching and retrieving descriptors are naturally subjective and
keeping while conducting their research. There are, however, a few their deployment is often restricted to the specific application domain
issues in the study’s framework and methodology that are worth noting. for which the descriptors were configured. The new era of information
First, although the research was conducted in two different countries— technology imposes different kinds of requirements and challenges.
the United States and Australia—it is not clear from the writing if the Automatic extracted audiovisual features are required, as these features
librarian-pupil pairs of each country hailed from the same schools are more objective, domain-independent, and more native to audiovi-
(making the population opportunistic) or if the sampling was indeed sual content. This book is a useful guide for researchers, experts,
more randomly selected. Readers do know, though, that the librarians students, and practitioners; it is a very valuable reference and can lead
were free to select the students they tutored from within their respective them through their exploration and research in multimedia content and
schools. Thus, there appears to be no randomness. the semantic web.
Second, “[t]he data collection tools and questionnaires were The book is well organized, and introduces the concept of the
grounded in a [single] pilot study with a [single] teacher-librarian” (p. 7). semantic web and multimedia content analysis to the reader through a
Neither the procedures used nor the data collected from the pilot study are logical sequence from standards and hypotheses through system exam-
presented to establish its reliability and validity. Therefore, readers are left ples, presenting relevant tools and methods. But in some chapters read-
with only limited confidence in the study’s instrumentation. ers will need a good technical background to understand some of the
Further, it is obvious from the reading, and admitted by the details. Readers may attain sufficient knowledge here to start projects
researchers, that the recording equipment in open view of the study’s or research related to the book’s theme; recent results and articles re-
subjects skewed the data. That is, one of the librarians under study lated to the active research area of integrating multimedia with seman-
confessed that were it not for the cameras, she would have completely tic web technologies are included. This book includes full descriptions
deserted one of her lessons when encountering what she perceived to of approaches to specific problem domains such as content search, in-
be overwhelming obstacles; a classic example of the Hawthorne Effect in dexing, and retrieval. This book will be very useful to researchers in the
research. multimedia content analysis field who wish to explore the benefits of
Yet, despite these issues, researchers Henderson and Tallman make
a respectable case in this book for the validity of both mental models
and stimulated recall. The mental models developed during the pre- © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—February 1, 2007 457
DOI: 10.1002/asi
emerging semantic web technologies in applying multimedia content challenges, and try to survey the state of the art of the field and thus
approaches. introduce the field to the reader.
The first part of the book covers the definition of the two basic terms The final part of the book discusses research in multimedia content
multimedia content and semantic web. The Moving Picture Experts management systems and the semantic web, and presents examples and
Group standards MPEG7 and MPEG21 are quoted extensively. In applications for semantic multimedia analysis in search and retrieval
addition, the means of multimedia content description are elaborated systems. These chapters describe example systems in which current
upon and schematically drawn. This extensive description is introduced projects have been implemented, and include extensive results and real
by authors who are actively involved in those standards and have been demonstrations. For example, real case scenarios such as ECommerce
participating in the work of the International Organization for medical applications and Web services have been introduced. Topics in
Standardization (ISO)/MPEG for many years. On the other hand, this natural language, speech and image processing techniques and their ap-
results in bias against the ad hoc or nonstandard tools for multimedia plication for multimedia indexing, and content-based retrieval have
description in favor of the standard approaches. This is a general book been elaborated upon with extensive examples and deployment
for multimedia content; more emphasis on the general multimedia methods. The editors of the book themselves provide the readers with a
description and extraction could be provided. chapter about their latest research results on knowledge-based multi-
Semantic web technologies are explained, and ontology representa- media content indexing and retrieval.
tion is emphasized. There is an excellent summary of the fundamental Some interesting applications for multimedia content and the
theory behind applying a knowledge-engineering approach to vision semantic web are introduced. Applications that have taken advantage
problems. This summary represents the concept of the semantic web of the metadata provided by MPEG7 in order to realize advance-access
and multimedia content analysis. A definition of the fuzzy knowledge services for multimedia content have been provided. The applications
representation that can be used for realization in multimedia content discussed in the third part of the book provide useful guidance to
applications has been provided, with a comprehensive analysis. researchers and practitioners properly planning to implement semantic
The second part of the book introduces the multimedia content multimedia analysis techniques in new research and development
analysis approaches and applications. In addition, some examples projects in both academia and industry.
of methods applicable to multimedia content analysis are presented. A fourth part should be added to this book: performance measure-
Multimedia content analysis is a very diverse field and concerns many ments for integrated approaches of multimedia analysis and the
other research fields at the same time; this creates strong diversity semantic web. Performance of the semantic approach is a very sophis-
issues, as everything from low-level features (e.g., colors, DCT coeffi- ticated issue and requires extensive elaboration and effort. Measuring
cients, motion vectors, etc.) up to the very high and semantic level the semantic search is an ongoing research area; several chapters
(e.g., Object, Events, Tracks, etc.) are involved. The second part concerning performance measurement and analysis would be required
includes topics on structure identification (e.g., shot detection for video to adequately cover this area and introduce it to readers.
sequences), and object-based video indexing. These conventional
analysis methods are supplemented by results on semantic multimedia Ashraf M.A. Ahmad
analysis, including three detailed chapters on the development and use Computer Science and Information Engineering
of knowledge models for automatic multimedia analysis. Starting from National Chiao Tung University
object-based indexing and continuing with machine learning, these Hsinchu, Taiwan 300
three chapters are very logically organized. Because of the diversity of E-mail: Ashraf@csie.nctu.edu.tw
this research field, including several chapters of recent research results
is not sufficient to cover the state of the art of multimedia. The editors Published online 30 November 2006 in Wiley InterScience
of the book should write an introductory chapter about multimedia (www.interscience.wiley.com).
content analysis approaches, basic problems, and technical issues and DOI: 10.1002/asi.20489

458 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—February 1, 2007
DOI: 10.1002/asi