Semiotics and Computing

Dr Kecheng Liu,  K.Liu@soc.staffs.ac.uk
School of Computing, Staffordshire University
Note special date, Thursday 25 February, 1999 at 11am

Abstract

Semiotics, as the study of signs and their uses and functions in human communication, offers a great deal to the development of computer systems for business applications. The seminar will introduce semiotics and a semiotic framework for information systems design. Semiotic methods for requirements engineering will be discussed. The methods will be illustrated by an EPSRC project of requirements recovery for legacy systems re-engineering.

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Kecheng Liu is Reader in Computing Science, and Director of MSc in Computing Science at School of Computing, Staffordshire University. He leads a research group of semiotics for information systems. He has created and now leads the research MSc (specialist) Award of Information Systems with Semiotics.

From 1982 to 1989 Dr. Liu worked in the Commission for Integrated Survey, China State Planning Committee and Chinese Academy of Sciences as a systems analyst and designer where he won a bid of 200,000 Chinese Yuan for a project developing an economic information system for Yuannan Province.  From 1989 to 1993 he worked first on his PhD and later as one of the key investigators in a research team MEASUR (Methods for Eliciting, Analysis and Specifying Users' Requirements) led by the internationally recognised Professor Ronald Stamper at University of Twente, The Netherlands. He then joined Staffordshire University in 1993 as Senior Lecturer and soon created a research group on semiotics for information systems.

The Semiotics Research Group led by Dr. Liu has been working in a number of projects in various computing areas, such as Information Systems Methodologies, Requirements Studies, Information Systems Engineering, Communication and Collaborative Work. As the principal investigator, Dr. Liu has been awarded a research grant of more than £100,000 by the British Research Council EPSRC. This grant allows his team to work for at least three years with their industrial partners on re-engineering of legacy information systems.

Dr. Liu has taught in Information Systems and Semiotic methods for systems analysis and design at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels for a number of years. His publications in last years cover the topics of Organisational Semiotics, Information Systems Development Methods and Techniques, Information Systems Architecture, and Information Management for Strategic Purposes. He is produced a book on semiotics for information systems, to be published by Cambridge University Press. He has been involved in supervising a number of PhDs in the UK, the Netherlands, and Portugal in the areas of IT for Strategic Use, EDI, Information Systems Re-engineering, and Systems Development Methods.




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