Vasileios Theodorou
Research topic: Automating User-Centered Design of Data-Intensive Processes
Home University: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Host University: Technische Universität Dresden (TUD)
Advisor (Home University): Alberto Abelló (UPC)
Advisor (Host University): Wolfgang Lehner (TUD)
Research Interests: Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse Design, Business Process Modeling
EDUCATION
October 2013 to the present:
Doctoral Candidate IT4BI. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Technische Universität Dresden
Sept 2011 - Sept 2013:
MA, Information Technology. York University, Toronto, Canada
Thesis title: “Adaptive Mechanisms for Mobile Spatio-temporal Applications”
Sept 2005 - Sept 2010:
MS, Electrical and Computer Engineering. National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece
Thesis title: “Framework for the Simulation of Business Processes with Configurable Cost Models”
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
May 2013 - Sept 2013:
SAVI Intern, Juniper Networks - Toronto, Canada
Sept 2011 - Sept 2013:
Research Assistant, Adaptive Systems Research Lab (ASRL), York University - Toronto, Canada
RESEARCH
Business Intelligence (BI) enables an organization to collect and analyse internal and external business data to generate knowledge and business value, and provide decision support at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Typically, enterprises rely on complex Information Technology (IT) systems that manage all data coming from operational databases running within the organization and provide fixed user interfaces through which knowledge workers can access information for analysis and assessment. The consolidation of data coming from many sources as a result of managerial and operational business processes is itself a statically defined business process and knowledge workers have little to no control over the characteristics of the presentable data to which they have access. This project aims at defining models, techniques and tools to support the alignment of user requirements with the runtime characteristics of business processes for data management. Thus, the first step is studying conceptual models for process modelling in context of data augmentation and data warehousing. After obtaining a deep understanding of data features and schematic variations, models will be defined that will describe data utility as a result of operations within the BI-related business processes. These models will facilitate reasoning about and evaluation of alternative business processes through quantifiable analysis of the processes using concrete metrics. The ultimate goal of this project is the development of a user-centered framework that will automate the process of business process model selection for BI-related data processing. Some of the key requirements for the design of this framework are usability, efficiency and effectiveness.