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Dr Karl Cox

Senior Lecturer

contact:
Computing, Engineering and Mathematics
Moulsecoomb
Brighton
BN2 4GJ

Telephone: +44 (0)1273 642470

Email: K.Cox@brighton.ac.uk

Research Interests

Karl’s work (research and practice) focuses on the business side of IT and technology: strategic & business analysis, strategic alignment, performance management, business process management, project management and green, safe technologies.

Professional Affiliations

Member of the British Computer Society

Work Experience

August 2009 ->

Senior Lecturer, School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, University of Brighton, UK

  • Course Leader Business Computing
  • CEM Learning Environments Coordinator
  • Carbon Management Programme Team member

April 2008 - June 2009

Founder, Director, CTO, Enterprise Analysts Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia

Sept 2004 - June 2009

Visiting Fellow School of Business; School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia

Sept 2004 - April 2009

Senior Research Scientist and Management Consultant, NICTA Limited, Australia

Jan 2003 - Sept 2004

Senior Research Associate, University of New South Wales, Australia

Oct 1998 - Dec 2002

Lecturer (FT & PT) and PhD Student, School of Design, Engineering and Computing, Bournemouth University, UK

Competitive Funding

  • £4,000 SEEDA grant consulting with local business on flood risk management 2011.
  • £112,000 KTP at University of Brighton from 2010-2012 with local company, e-DBA Ltd.
  • AUD$1.5M RESA project at NICTA (2005-2008).The funding was awarded by NICTA after an externally validated internal competitive process.
  • AUD$10,000 awarded by NICTA in 2006, to develop a research software prototype.
  • AUD$50,000 Market Validation Grant, awarded by NICTA in 2006. A highly competitive internal funding process that only a few projects have qualified for (less than 5%). Requirements are strong evidence of market interest and uptake of potential product.
  • AUD$101,000 Proof of Concept Grant, awarded by NICTA in 2007 to develop an alpha prototype software tool that can be trialed in market. A highly competitive process and acceptance criteria for this grant, which only a very small number of projects have been awarded.

Examination Experience

  • 5 PhD external examinations (UK, Australia, Jordan)
  • 1 Masters by Research external examination (New Zealand)

Student Supervision

  • Steven Bleistein, PhD, UNSW, B-SCP: an integrated approach for validating alignment of organizational IT requirements with competitive business strategy, awarded May 2006 (primary supervisor).
  • Anju Jha, Masters by Research (MPhil equivalent), UNSW, Strategic requirements engineering for web services, awarded April 2007, (primary supervisor).
  • Abdul Babar, Masters by Research (MPhil equivalent), UNSW, Managing the evolution of strategic IT, awarded May 2007, (primary supervisor).
  • Bhavani Palyagar, PhD, Macquarie University, A Framework for Validating Requirements Engineering Process Improvement, awarded Dec 2007, (associate supervisor).
  • Soo Ling Lim, PhD, Requirements for Services-Oriented Computing, started Feb 2007 (primary supervisor) at UNSW. Soo Ling transferred to University College London in 2009 and has completed her PhD.
  • Lili Abdullah, PhD, UNSW, Risk factors in outsourcing Strategic IT projects, submitted in August 2010 (co-supervisor).

Editorial Board Membership

  • Information and Management (2011-)
  • Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering (2006-2009), Associate Editor (2010 - ).
  • Recent Patents on Engineering (2006-present).

Journal Guest Editor

  • Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering, with Jon G. Hall, Lucia Rapanotti and Zhi Jin, Special Issue on Advances and Applications of Problem Frames, 25 (1), pp.4-86 (February 2008).
  • Journal of Systems and Software, with Steven Bleistein, June Verner and Alan M. Davis, 1st International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Business Need and IT Alignment, (special section), 80 (3), pp.283-355 (March 2007).
  • Information and Software Technology, with Jon G. Hall and Lucia Rapanotti, Special Issue on Problem Frames, 47 (14), pp.891-954 (November 2005).

Recent Conference Involvement

EESSMod 2011, SCA 2011, PATTERNS 2011, SOTICS 2011, LISS 2011, SEKE 2011, ACM-SAC 2011, ICEIS 2011, EASE 2011, IEEM 2010, RTSOAA 2010, SEKE 2010, ICEIS 2010, IWAAPO 2010, EASE 2010, ACM-SAC 2010, AWRE 2009, RTSOAA 2009.

Some Publications

Karl has published over 70 articles in books, journals, conferences and workshops worldwide. Here are some of them:

  • B. Hughes, G. Winstanley and K. Cox (2010), Ontological modelling to support the planning of IS development processes, International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development – KEOD 2010, Valencia, Spain, October 25 – 28.

This paper explores how ontologies can be useful in planning for development processes. It is an on-going area of research that will look at many IS processes to assess the utility of applying ontologies as a mechanism for identifying process steps and gaps.

  • C. Veres, J. Sampson, K. Cox, S. Bleistein and J. Verner (2009), An Ontology Based Approach for Supporting Business IT Alignment, in Complex Intelligent Systems and Their Applications, Springer Book Series: SPRINGER OPTIMIZATION AND ITS APPLICATIONS, Edited by: F. Xhafa, L. Barolli, P. Papajorgji, (in press).

This book chapter proposes a way to manage goal-context dependencies in large projects by providing an ontological support for the B-SCP Enterprise Modelling methodology. Taken further, this concept could significantly improve management of such dependencies.

  • K. Cox, M. Niazi and J. Verner (2009), An Empirical Study of Sommerville and Sawyers Requirements Engineering Practices, IET Software, 3 (5), pp.339-355.

This paper explores the relevance of Sommerville and Sawyers recommended RE practices. Guess what? Most of the practices recommended are useful and in use where appropriate in the 10 companies we surveyed, which is what I expected.

  • S. Bleistein, K. Cox, J. Verner and K. Phalp (2006), B-SCP: a requirements analysis framework for validating strategic alignment of organisational IT based on strategy, context and process, Information and Software Technology, 48 (9), pp.846-868.

This paper introduces integration of the business process modelling into the B-SCP enterprise modelling framework as presented in the JSS paper below. This modelling framework works – we’ve used it in business on real projects successfully. We use Role Activity Diagrams as our process notation since business people understand this pretty quickly.

  • S. Bleistein, K. Cox and J. Verner (2006), Validating Strategic Alignment of Organisational IT Requirements using Goal Modeling and Problem Diagrams, Journal of Systems and Software, 79 (3), pp.362-378.

This paper introduces the B-SCP enterprise modelling framework that presents a way to capture and model business strategy and context and decompose these to IT requirements and context. This modelling framework works – we’ve used it in business on real projects successfully.

  • K. Cox, J. Hall and L. Rapanotti (2005), A Roadmap of Problem Frames Research, Information and Software Technology, 47 (14), pp.891-902.

This paper presents a complete literature review and analysis of problem frames research up to the date of publication. Anyone wanting to look into this subject should take a read. The paper also introduces the selected special issue papers from the first IWAAPF workshop.

  • K. Cox, K. Phalp, S. Bleistein and J. Verner (2005), Deriving Requirements from Process Models via the Problem Frames Approach, Information and Software Technology. 47 (5), pp.319-337.

This paper presents some ideas I put into practice in a consulting engagement at a financial services company. Specifically, the paper explores how business processes and problem frames can combine in the identification and representation of requirements.

  • H. Al-Kilidar, K. Cox and B. Kitchenham (2005), The Use and Usefulness of the ISO/IEC 9126 Quality Standard, ISESE 2005-4th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, 17th –18th November, Noosa, Australia, pp.126-132.

This paper criticizes the ISO 9126 standard as flawed with regards to design and comprehension. This paper has been championed by Bob Glass in CACM and IEEE Software in his concerns about standards in the industry.

  • K. Cox, K.T. Phalp and M. Shepperd (2001), Comparing Use Case Writing Guidelines, REFSQ 01, 7th International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality, Interlaken, Switzerland, 4 –5th June 2001, pp.101-112.

This paper reports on some of my PhD work comparing use case description guidelines. I came to the somewhat obvious but needed to be said conclusion that ‘keep it simple stupid’ really is the best approach.

  • K. Cox (2000) Cognitive Dimensions of Use Cases: Feedback from a Student Questionnaire, Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, edited by A. F. Blackwell and E. Bilotta, Corigliano Calabro, Italy, 10-13th April 2000, pp.99-121.

I applied the cognitive dimensions analysis framework to use case modelling, surveying students who had had a fair bit of practice and experience in this. The overriding conclusion was there were some cognitive issues but then again, given how simple the use case notation is, it is still a surprise how often it is done wrong.