School of Computing

Profile

Dr. Sharif is a senior lecturer in E-Business at the School of Computing, a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, a member of the Systems & Information Systems Research Group and an associate member of the Centre for Development Informatics at the University of Manchester. He holds a PhD in E-Commerce and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Manchester and is the distinguished engineering graduate of the University of Liverpool in Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (2003). He has held various positions in Hi-Tech and ICT industry and provides consultations to public and commercial organisations in a number of research areas which include:

• E-Business/E-Commerce
• E-Government
• Entreprenurship
• Market Simulations
• Multi-Agent Systems
• Workforce Management
• Agent Based Simulations

Teaching and Editorial Activities

Dr. Sharif is involved with supervision of undergraduate and post-graduate students (both Masters and PhD) in the broad area of Information Systems and Business Information Technology. Presently he is the unit leader for: “Research Methods for Strategic Business IT (MSc)”; “E-Commerce Infrastructure and Technologies”; and “Undergraduate Final Year Project Unit”.

He is also involved in editorial and reviewing activities in a number of journals and international and continental conferences, amongst them are:

• Electronic Government, An International Journal ...
• Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research ...
• Journal of Information Science and Engineering ...
• Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice ...

• International Conference on Digital Society ...
• International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems ...
• International Conference on Advances in Information Mining and Management ...

• European Conference on E-Learning ...
• European Conference on Electronic Government ...
• European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation ...

PhD Research Themes

E-Government:

Using computer networks - and in particular the internet - to streamline public services is becoming an attractive area for many governments. Given the large number of interactions between public sector organisations and citizens, businesses and other government departments, the efficiencies offered through incorporating ICT could be considerable. Some research areas under this theme are:

• Comparing between different national e-government projects/outlets: What do they offer and how is it offered? How effective are they? How could they be improved?
• Local authorities and e-government: Given that most citizens’ interactions are with their councils and municipalities, how could these organisations better incorporate e-Government to offer a higher level of service to the citizens?
• E-Government in Developing Countries: What specific challenges do developing countries face in implementing e-Government solutions? How could these challenges be overcome most effectively? How benefits of e-Government could be measured?

M-Government:

Using mobile devices to offer government services (or m-Government) is a new area in e-Government. With the wide spread of increasingly more powerful mobile gadgets as well as relatively cheaper cost of providing mobile networks compared to fixed-wire networks, can e-government delivery be transformed through m-Government? What are the benefits, dangers and future trends and opportunities? Is this an area which developing countries must take more seriously compared to the conventional e-Government?

M-Commerce:

In many countries, mobile phone penetration has surpassed internet penetration. Latest figures in the UK showed the number of mobile phone subscriptions to be more than 24% of the UK population. In 2010, it was estimated that there were 5 billion mobile phone subscriptions globally (73% of the world’s population). Particularly, in developing countries, cost of establishing mobile phone coverage is notably cheaper than providing fixed landline connections. Moreover, rapid dispersion of smarter and more capable phones - with their decreasing prices - as well as faster and cheaper mobile network connections, have all led to the creation of a ‘Mobile Phenomenon’ at a global level. Given the pivotal role of these devices in verbal and non-verbal communication and that they are carried by their owners most of the time, isn’t this a new gold mine of e-Commerce opportunities? What are the issues related to this form of e-Commerce? What are the future successful business models in the m-Commerce arena? How are the SMEs going to be affected by this?

Internet Marketing:

According to the IAB 2009 report, during the first half of 2009 internet advertising in the UK grew by 4.6% to reach £1.8 billion, despite the entire advertising sector contracting by 17%. The internet has now become the UK’s single biggest advertising medium (overtaking TV and newspaper advertising). Similar trends can also be observed in other countries; in brief, internet marketing seems to offer considerable benefits and efficiencies to businesses over other advertising methods. What are the most/least effective mechanisms for internet marketing? How do they compare with one another? What are the considerations when using these mechanisms?

Web 2.0 and Online Social Networking:

User generated content and online social networking sites, from blogs to sites like YouTube and Facebook, have attracted millions of internet users worldwide. In the UK, according to the regulatory body Ofcom, half of the individuals aged 8-24 have online social networking profiles. The number of registered users on some of these social networking sites is now more than 100 million. From a business point, what effective business models could be constructed using online social networks? What are the potential direct/indirect benefits and detriments of these sites for individuals and businesses? How effective is Web 2.0 marketing? What are the key success factors and potential pitfalls?

Potential PhD candidates who wish to discuss any of the above or other research themes which fall under Dr. Sharif’s research interests may contact him directly at: hossein.sharif@myport.ac.uk