TY - GEN
T1 - Comparing a Shipping Information Pipeline with a Thick Flow and a Thin Flow
AU - van Engelenburg, Sélinde
AU - Janssen, Marijn
AU - Klievink, Bram
AU - Tan, Yao-hua
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Advanced architectures for business-to-government (B2G) information sharing can benefit both businesses and government. An essential choice in the design of such an architecture is whether information is shared using a thick or a thin information flow. In an architecture with a thick flow, all information is shared via a shared infrastructure, whereas only metadata and pointers referring to the information are shared via the shared infrastructure in a thin flow architecture. These pointers can then be used by parties to access the information directly. Yet, little is known about what their implications for design choices are. Design choices are influenced by the properties of the architecture as well as the situation in which B2G information sharing takes place. In this paper, we identify the properties of architectures with a thin and thick flow. Next, we determine what this implies for the suitability of the architectures in different situations. We will base our analysis on the case of the Shipping Information Pipeline (SIP) for container transport. While both architectures have their pros and cons, we found that architectures with a thin flow are more suitable when non-standardized, and flexible sharing of sensitive information is required. In contrast, we found that architectures with a thick flow are more suitable when in-depth integration is required.
AB - Advanced architectures for business-to-government (B2G) information sharing can benefit both businesses and government. An essential choice in the design of such an architecture is whether information is shared using a thick or a thin information flow. In an architecture with a thick flow, all information is shared via a shared infrastructure, whereas only metadata and pointers referring to the information are shared via the shared infrastructure in a thin flow architecture. These pointers can then be used by parties to access the information directly. Yet, little is known about what their implications for design choices are. Design choices are influenced by the properties of the architecture as well as the situation in which B2G information sharing takes place. In this paper, we identify the properties of architectures with a thin and thick flow. Next, we determine what this implies for the suitability of the architectures in different situations. We will base our analysis on the case of the Shipping Information Pipeline (SIP) for container transport. While both architectures have their pros and cons, we found that architectures with a thin flow are more suitable when non-standardized, and flexible sharing of sensitive information is required. In contrast, we found that architectures with a thick flow are more suitable when in-depth integration is required.
KW - Business-to-government information sharing
KW - Information sharing
KW - Shipping information pipeline
KW - Supply Chain
KW - Thick flow
KW - Thin flow
KW - Information Architecture
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6a4516cf-89eb-4861-bb86-bbc2aaba688c
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-64677-0_19
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-64677-0_19
M3 - Conference contribution
VL - 10428
T3 - Lecture notes in Computer Science
SP - 228
EP - 239
BT - Electronic Government: 16th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2017, St. Petersburg, Russia, September 4-7, 2017, Proceedings
A2 - Janssen, Marijn
A2 - Axelsson, Karin
A2 - Glassey, Olivier
A2 - Klievink, Bram
A2 - Krimmer, Robert
A2 - Lindgren, Ida
A2 - Parycek, Peter
A2 - Scholl, Hans J.
A2 - Trutnev, Dmitrii
PB - Springer
T2 - 16th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2017
Y2 - 4 September 2017 through 7 September 2017
ER -