Arne Sølvberg is Professor of Computer Science at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, since 1974. He received a siv.ing. (M.Sc.) degree in Applied Physics in 1963, and a dr.ing. (Ph.D.) degree in Computer Science in 1971, both from The Norwegian Institute of Technology (now incorporated in NTNU - The Norwegian University of Science and Technology). He is Dean of NTNU’s Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering since 2002.

His main fields of competence are information systems design methodology, database design, information modelling, information systems engineering environments, model driven design.

He has been active in international organizations for research cooperation. He was Norwegian national representative to IFIP General Assembly in 1979-82. He has been chairman of IFIP WG8.1 for Information Systems Design in 1982-88. He was a trustee in the VLDB Endowment until 1994. He was a co-founder of the CAiSE conference series. He has been a Visiting Scientist with IBM San Jose Research Labs, The University of Florida, The Naval Postgraduate School, The University of California at Santa Barbara, and most recently with the University of California at Los Angeles.

On IT-modelling in a cross-competence world

The deep penetration of computers in all realms of society makes technological change the key driver for changing our lives. This will result in a change in approach, from viewing the role of information technology to mainly support the other disciplines, to the integration of IT knowledge with domain-specific knowledge.
Because information technology provides component solutions to almost every other discipline we experience increasing fragmentation pressures on the discipline of IT itself. Every domain where IT is used seems to contain seeds for creating their own kind of discipline where IT concepts, tools and theory are integrated into the modelling theories of the supported disciplines. This is evidenced by labelling like, e.g., medical informatics, organisational informatics, and industrial informatics. And we sometimes see that common IT knowledge is reinvented in new application settings.
The basic IT knowledge needed is similar for the different application domains. But in order to apply computers effectively there is also a need for cross-discipline competences. IT professionals must know how to apply IT in the different application domains, and those that have the domain knowledge must know enough of IT to be able to participate in enlightened discussions with the IT professionals.
Modelling of IT systems in a cross-competence world is the theme of the talk!

Conference Program