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59 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the difference between information systems and information technology?
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• An information system can be defined as an information-technology based system designed to gather, manage, and distribute information throughout an organization; it supports the daily operations and decision-making functions of an organization.
• The strategic role of information systems involves using information technology to develop products, services, and capabilities that give a company major advantages over the competitive forces it faces in the global marketplace. |
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What are the main components of an information system? Provide an example of each
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• Purpose — the reason for having the system
• People — includes the developers, managers, and users of the system • Information Technology — the hardware, software, and network components • Procedures (documentation and rules) — how people interact with the system • Data — including text, images, sounds, and video Resources of IT systems: People Information Technology Information Those three key resources: people, information technology, and information, are inextricably linked. If one fails, they all fail, and then chances are the business will fail. People use information technology to work with information. When this relationship happens, businesses succeed. |
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What are the main components of a computer? Provide an example of each.
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• CPU – The actual hardware that interprets and executes the program (software) instructions and coordinates how all the other hardware devices work together; contains two units: Control Unit (interprets software instructions and tells the other hardware devices what to do) & Arithmetic-Logic Unit (performs all arithmetic and logic operations) (e.g., Intel, AMD).
• Primary Storage – The computer’s main memory, which consists of the random access memory (RAM) - a computers primary working memory; often called read/write memory, cache memory: small unit of ultra-fast memory; stores recently or frequently accessed data so the CPU does not have to retrieve this data from slower memory circuits such as RAM, and the read-only memory (ROM): portion of the computer's primary storage; does not lose its contents when one switches the power off that is directly accessible to the central processing unit (CPU). • Secondary Storage – Equipment designed to store large volumes of data for long-term storage (e.g., memory stick, hard drive, CD). • Input – Equipment used to capture information and commands (e.g. keyboard, mouse). • Output Devices – Equipment used to see, hear, or otherwise accept the results of information processing requests (e.g., monitor, printer). • Communication devices – Equipment used to send information and receive it from one location to another (e.g., modem). |
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4. What are the main types of software? Provide an example of each.
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• Operating System & Utilities – operating systems control the application software and manages how the hardware devices work together; utilities provides additional functionality to the operating system such as anti-virus software and screen savers
• Supports multitasking: allows more than one piece of software to be used • When using Excel to create and print a graph, the operating system software controls the process, ensures that a printer is attached and has paper, and sends the graph to the printer along with instructions on how to print it) • Packages – Tools to make applications or “do stuff” (e.g., browsers, spreadsheets) • Application – used for specific information processing needs, • Includes payroll, customer relationship management, project management, training and many others • Used to solve specific problems or perform specific tasks |
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5. What can you do for project management using MS project that you couldn’t or most likely wouldn’t do managing the project manually?
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• MS project helps one stay organized and makes it easier to update or note when things are done and when things are not done
• The program calculates the cost equals the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level • Projects tend to be delayed, over budget and often never reach completion • Helps organizations deliver successful, quality software on time and under budget |
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6. What are the main steps in the systems development life cycle? What are the major activities required for each step?
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• An information system includes a computer program, application, or combination of hardware and software that is developed to solve a specific problem.
• Five Phases • The Planning phase is a feasibility study is conducted to determine whether a new system is a feasible solution; a plan is developed and approval for the plan is obtained from management. • The Analysis phase indentifies detailed requirements for the system. • The Design phase has determined what the system will do and determines how it will do it. • Development involves taking all of the detailed design documents from the design phase and transforming them into the actual system. This phase the project transitions from preliminary designs to the actual physical implementation. • Testing involves bringing all the project pieces together into a special testing environment to test for errors, bugs, and interoperability and verify that the system meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis phase. • The Implementation phase involves placing the system into production so users can begin to perform actual business operations with the system. • The Maintenance phase lasts until the system is no longer in use. The system must be monitored to ensure that it continues to work properly. Errors may be found that need to be fixed; new needs may arise which require modifications to the system. If a problem cannot be fixed, the cycle starts over to create a better system. |
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7. Explain the tradeoff between cost, time, and quality. Provide an example in terms of MIS.
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• Decreasing a project’s time frame means either increasing the cost of the project or decreasing the scope of the project to meet the new deadline
• Increasing a project’s scope means either increasing the project’s time frame or increasing the project’s cost, or both • Project management is the science of making intelligent trade-offs between time, cost, and scope • All three of these components determine a project’s quality |
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8. What are the components of project feasibility? Provide an example of each.
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• A feasibility study is conducted focusing on technical, organizational, and economic aspects of the new system
• Limits affect feasibility studies Types: • Economic – establishing the cost-effectiveness of the proposed system i.e. if the benefits do not outweigh the costs then it is not worth going ahead. • Technical – involves questions such as whether the technology needed for the system exists, how difficult it will be to build, and whether the firm has enough experience using that technology • Organizational – involves questions such as whether the system has enough support to be implemented successfully, whether it brings an excessive amount of change, and whether the organization is changing too rapidly to absorb it. • Legal: examines all potential legal and contractual ramifications of the proposed system. • Schedule: assesses the likelihood that all potential time frames and completion dates will be met • Operational: examines the likelihood that the project will attain its desired objectives. |
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9. What are the major considerations in deciding whether to buy new software or to build it within one’s firm?
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• Time to market – if time to market is a priority, then purchasing a good base technology and potentially building on to it will likely yield results faster than starting from scratch
• Availability of corporate resources – the costs to an organization to buy systems are extremely high; these costs can be so high that acquiring these technologies might make the entire concept economically unfeasible. Building these systems, however can also be extremely expensive, take indefinite amounts of time, and constrain resources. • Corporate core competencies – the more an organization wants to build a technical core competency, the less likely it will want to buy. |
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10. What is the difference between architecture and infrastructure?
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• Information architecture indentifies where and how important information, like customer records, is maintained and secured; actual design
• Infrastructure architecture includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when combined, provide the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals. Equipment used to make the architecture. |
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11. What are four different types of testing? When should testing occur during the development process? Describe and provide an example of each
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• Technical testing – should be an integral part of the developmental process
• Unit testing – tests each unit upon completion; each element by itself • Integration testing – exposes faults in the integration of software components or units; elements all together • Backup and recovering testing – tests the ability of an application to be restarted after failure • Documentation testing – verifies instruction guides are helpful and accurate • User acceptance testing (UAT) – tests if a system satisfies its acceptance criteria |
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12. What are the two main types of installation? When would you use each?
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• Cut over – to transfer existing data, functions, or users of a computer system to new facilities or equipment in a synchronized manner
• Parallel – is a method for transferring between an old IT system to a target IT system in an organization |
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13. What are the main types of documentation? Provide an example of each.
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• Architecture/Design –overview of software; includes relations to an environment and construction principles to be used in design of software components.
• Technical – documentation of code, algorithms, interfaces, and APIs. • End User – manuals for the end-user, system administrators and support staff. • Marketing – product briefs and promotional collateral. |
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14. When is it most cost effective to discover errors in systems? Why?
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• Testing should be done throughout the development because it is more efficient and easier to fix bugs earlier.
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15. What is Moore’s Law? What are its implications for business and technology?
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• Many real projects have hundreds of business requirements, take years to complete, and cost millions of dollars. Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, observed in 1965 that chip density doubles every 18 months. This observation, known as Moore’s law, simply means that memory sizes, processor power, and so on, all follow the same pattern and roughly double in capacity every 18 months. Moore’s law states that technology changes at an incredibly fast pace; therefore it is possible to have to revise an entire project plan in the middle of a project as a result of a change in technology. Technology changes so fast that it is almost impossible to deliver an information system without feeling the pain of changing technology.
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16. What are the five main strategies for decision making? Provide an example of each.
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• Rational – investigating every alternative; if business wants to find the very best
• Satisfying – look until your criterion is met • Bureaucratic – make a rule (policy) and decision based on rule – very efficient but no exceptions • Political – majority – sometimes you accept things that aren’t ideal but so group can agree • Garbage can – people take action with no clear decision made |
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17. What are Simon’s stages of decision making? Provide a business example of each.
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• Intelligence – discovering you have a problem, nature of problem, what information is needed
• Design – developing some kind of plan • Choice – process of choosing (mathematically, intuition, tools) • Implementation – project management |
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18. What are the components of a decision support system? Provide an example of a sort of decision in business that you would use a decision support system for. Explain the role of each component in helping the decision maker with this problem.
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A decision support system (DSS) models information to support managers and business professionals during the decision-making process
Three models: 1) Sensitivity analysis: the study of the impact that changes in one (or more)parts of the model have on other parts of the model (users change the value of one variable repeatedly and observe the resulting changes in other variables) 2) What-if Analysis: checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution. For example, "What will happen to the supply chain if a hurricane in South Carolina reduces holding inventory from 30% to 10%?" Users repeat this analysis until they understand all the effects of various situations. 3) Goal-seeking analysis: finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output. Instead of observing how changes in a variable affect other variables as in what if analysis, goal-seeking analysis sets a target value (a goal) for a variable and then repeatedly changes other variables until the target value is achieved. For example, "How many customers are required to purchase our new product line to increase gross profits to $5 million?" The main components of a DSS are the database, the model base, and the interface. the database contains the information about internal and external data that contributes to the decision making process; considers the input data to the system and the outputs to the user the model base contains a set of algorithms that makes decisions based on the information in the database; this information is then summarized in tables or graphs the interface is what the user will ues to interface with the system; this is complimented with an interactive help and navigation screen ex: a railway company may have a DSS which tests its equipment on a regular basis using a DSS; a problem faced could be worn-out rails, which can result in hundreds of derailments per year; with a DSS, the railway company may decrease the incidence of derailments while railway companies without a DSS would experience an increase |
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19. Name five attributes of information that affect its value. For each illustrate how changes in the attribute can create higher or lower value for the information in the business setting.
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• Accuracy – Are all values correct?
• Completeness – Are any values missing? • Consistency – Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? it the same way each time • Uniqueness – Is each transaction, entity, and event represented only once in the information? You’re the only one that has it and also the fewer people that have it, the more value it is to you; seeing patterns that no one else can see; see how to use it • Timelines – Is the information current with respect to the business requirements |
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20. Clearly basing decisions on poor data leads to the possibility of poor decisions. However, there are times when organizations will accept poor data. Why might they do these? What sort of situation might this occur in?
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• Using poor information can lead to making the wrong decision which can cost time, money, and reputations
• Bad information leads to: • Inability to track customers • Difficulty identify organization’s most valuable customers • Inability to identify selling opportunities and wasted revenue from marketing to nonexistent customers and non deliverable invoices • Difficulty tracking revenue because of inaccurate invoices • Inability to build strong relationships with customers – which increases their buying power • Sources of poor information • Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate information to protect privacy • Information from different systems have different standards and formats • Call center operators enter abbreviated or erroneous information by accident or to save time • Thirst party and external information contains inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors |
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21. What is the difference between a key performance indicator and a metric? Provide a business example of each preferably related to each other.
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• Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the measures that are tied to business drivers-things that determine and influence business success (Ex: McDonalds – quick service is key performance indicator)
• Metrics are the detailed measures that feed those KPIs (Ex: McDonalds – measure time between person comes in and gets good.) |
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22. What is the difference between efficiency and effectiveness? Provide an example of each in the business setting.
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• Efficiency – doing things at the least coast
• Efficiency IT metrics – measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, and availability 1. Set goal and see how little it costs you to get there 2. Assign resources and see how much you can get • Effectiveness – doing the right thing • Effectiveness IT metrics – measure the impact IT has no business process and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and sell-through increases • Ex: not using sweat shops even though it would be cheaper |
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23. What are the different layers in client-server architecture? Why are there different layers? What sort of processing would occur at each layer (provide an example)?
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• Uses 2 kinds of software
• If application gets complicated, when you need a lot of date from a lot of different sources, break into more than 3 tiers • The multi-tiered architecture splits functionality into segments • Presentation layer – generally client side – how we like to view things • Application layer – business logic layer, specifies logic, specifies exactly what we want • Data layer – generally server side • Example: 1. presentation layer – requests data regarding a running shoe order 2. application layer – uses business rules to determine the pricing based of various strategies for different types of customers 3. data layer – retrieves basic price and product description information from a companywide database |
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1. Waterfall
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A sequential, activity-based process in which each phase in the SDLC is performed sequentially from planning through maintenance.
EX: Analysis phase cannot commence until plannin phase is complete. After the analysis phase is complete, one can move on to the design phase and so forth. Problems: assumes users can specify all business requirements in advance; vision is limited Solution: the appropriate IT infrastructure should be flexible, scalable and reliable and must meet not only current needs, but future needs as well in terms of time, cost, feasibility and flexibility. |
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2. Rapid application development (RAD)
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Emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the systems development process.
• Focus initially on creating a prototype that looks and acts like the desired system • Actively involves system users in the analysis, design, and developmental phases • Accelerate collecting the business requirements through an interactive and iterative construction approach |
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3. Extreme programming
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: Breaks a project into tiny phases and developers cannot continue on to the next phase until the first phase is complete.
4. Agile Methodology: a form of XP; aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful software components • Sets minimum number f requirements and turns them into a deliverable product • Less focus on team coding and more on limiting project scope |
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5. Joint Application Development (JAD):
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A session where employees meet, sometimes for several days, to define or review the business requirements for the system.
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6. Supply Chain Management (SCM)
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Involves the management of information lows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.
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7. Customer Relationship Manageability (CRM)
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involves managing all aspects of a customer’s relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization’s profitability.
• A business philosophy based on the premise that those organizations that understand the needs of individual customers are best positioned to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the future |
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8. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
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): Integrates all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT system (or integrated set of IT systems) so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprise wide information on all business operations
• Serve as the organization’s backbone in providing fundamental decision-making support • Heart of ERP system is a central database that collects information from and feeds information into all the ERP system’s individual application components, supporting diverse business functions such as accounting, manufacturing, marketing and human resource |
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9. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
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A software package or solution that is purchased to support one or more business functions and information systems; most customer relationship management, supply chain management, and enterprise resourcing planning solutions are COTS
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10. Scope Creep
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Occurs when the scope of the project increases.
to develop software organizations should keep requirements to a minimum, however this means they also must keep an eye on the scope creep, which is one of the major reasons software development fails |
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11. Feature Creep
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Occurs when developers add extra features that were not part of the initial requirements.
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12. Sensitivity Analysis
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: The study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model; users change the value of one variable repeatedly and observe the resulting changes in other variables
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13. What-If Analysis
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checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution.
For example, "What will happen to the supply chain if a hurricane in South Carolina reduces holding inventory from 30% to 10%?" Users repeat this analysis until they understand all the effects of various situations. |
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14. Goal-seeking Analysis
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Finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output.
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15. Drill Down
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Enables users to get details, and details of details, of information.
example: viewing monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly information represents drilldown capability |
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16. Expert Systems
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Computerized advisory programs that imitate the reasoning processes of experts in solving difficult problems.
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17. Case-based Reasoning
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analyze individual cases; look for nearest similar case along many dimensions
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18. Decision Trees and Rule Induction
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decision tree: (or tree diagram) is a decision support tool that uses a graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility.
rule induction: formal rules are extracted from the decision tree & represent local patterns in the data |
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19. Neural networks
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: A category of AI that attempts to emulate the way the human brain works.
• Useful for decisions that involve pattern or image recognition because a neural network can learn from the information it processes • Analyze large quantities of information to establish patterns and characteristics in situations where the logic or rules are unknown |
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20. Genetic Algorithms
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An artificial intelligence system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem.
• Optimizing system; it finds the combination of inputs that give the best outputs |
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21. Cluster Analysis
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A technique used to divide an information set into mutually exclusive groups such that the members of each group are as close together as possible to one another and the different groups are as far apart as possible
• Frequently used to segment customer information for customer relationship management systems to help organizations identify customers with similar behavior traits |
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22. Market Basket Analysis
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Analyzes such items as Websites and checkout scanner information to detect customers’ buying behavior and predict future behavior by identifying affinities among customers’ choices of products and services.
• Used to develop marketing campaigns for cross-selling products and services and for inventory control, shelf-product placement, and other retail and marketing applications • Used for association detection – reveals the degree to which variables are related and the nature and frequency of these relationships |
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23. Virtual Private Network (VPN)
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A way to use the public telecommunication infrastructure (e.g., the internet) to provide secure access to an organization’s network.
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24. Transmission Media
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: refers to the various types of media used to carry the signal between computers
• Wire (guided) – twisted-pair writing; coaxial cable; fiber-optic cable • Wireless (unguided) |
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25. Network Topology - types
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Refers to the geometric arrangement of the actual physical organization of the computers (and other network devices) in a network.
• Vary depending on cost and functionality • Bus – all devices are connected to a central cable, called the bus; relatively inexpensive and easy to install for small network • Star – all devices are connected to one another in the shape of a closed loop, so that each device is connected directly to two other devices, one on either side of it; delays can sometimes occur because all data must pass through the hub • Ring topologies are relatively expensive and difficult to install, but they offer high bandwidth and can span large distances • Hybrid – groups of star-configured workstations are connected to a linear bus backbone cable, combining the characteristics of the bus and star topologies • Wireless – devices are connected by a receiver/transmitter to a special network interface card that transmits signals between a computer and a server, all within an acceptable transmission range |
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26. Data Communications Hardware
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equipment used to send information and receive it from one location to another; physical media require installation of cable.
• Electrical signal • Wire (copper) 1. Twisted pair 2. Coaxial • Optic signal • Fiber optic cable 1. Thin glass fibers surrounded by coating 2. Uses lasers for light source 3. Very fast |
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27. Protocols used in system - TCP/IP; Ethernet
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A standard that specifies the format of data as well as the rules to be followed during transmission.
• For one computer (or computer program) to talk to another computer (or computer program) they must both be talking the same language, which is called protocol • A protocol is based on an agreed-upon and established standard, and this way all manufactures of hardware and software that are using the protocol do so in a similar fashion to allow for interoperability (the capability of two or more computer systems to share data and resources, even though they are made by different manufactures) • Most popular network protocols used are Ethernet and TCP/IP • TCP/IP – provides the technical foundation for the public internet as well as for large number of private network • Protocol suite for the internet • Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) – provides a reliable byte-system transfer service between two endpoints on an internet • Internet Protocol (IP) – defines a delivery mechanism for packets of data sent between all systems on an internet • Ethernet – a physical and data layer technology for LAN networking • A set of rules for construction a message in a local network • Most widely used protocol for transmitting data over LANS • Collisions – high message volume greatly reduces transmission speed • Easy to understand, implement, manage and maintain • Allows low-cost network implementations • Provide extensive flexibility for network installation • Guarantees successful interconnection and operation of standards-complaint products, regardless of manufacturer |
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28. Network Software
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A communications, data exchange, and resource-sharing system created by linking two or more computers and establishing standards, or protocols, so that they can work together.
• Network operating system – built into computer; Microsoft Windows Server 2003 • Network management software – sends out message to different node, no message back = problem • Helps ensure security of network • Monitors performance • Helps administrators reconfigure network • Remote administration via push technology • Network monitoring software • Packet sniffers – see data as it moves over network – to see if someone is doing something illegitimate • Keystroke monitors – see what users are doing |
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29. Telecommunications Services
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Enables the transmission of data over public or private networks.
• Networks is a communications, data exchange, and resource-sharing system created by linking two or more computers and establishing standards, or protocols, so that they can work together |
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30. Bandwidth
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a data transmission rate; the maximum amount of information (bits/second) that can be transmitted along a channel
• Bits per second (bps) • Kilobits per second – modern communications over telephone lines • Megabits per second – most existing local area networks • Gigabits per second – high speed data network, internet backbone transmits data |
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31. Optic Fiber
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refers to the technology associated with the transmission of information as light impulses along a glass wire or fiber
• Can transmit over long distances with little loss of data integrity and not subject to interference • Used to transmit data over extended distances where the hardware required to relay the data signal on less expensive media would exceed the cost of optical fiber installation • Also used where large amounts of data need to be transmitted on a regular basis • Thin glass fibers surrounded by coating; uses lasers for light source; very fast |
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32. Twisted Pair
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copper wire twisted into pairs
• Type of cable composed of four or more copper wires twisted around each other within a plastic sheath • Wires are twisted to reduce outside electrical interference |
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33. Geosynchronous Orbit
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need 60 satellites to cover earth
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34. Closed Switch Network
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Entire circuit from end to end must be open and available; guarantees message and goes through; any one segment along the way goes down, the circuit is disabled
• Guarantees message goes through; always available • Any one segment along the way goes down, the circuit is disables • Very inefficient and expensive but useful when communication is very important |
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35. Packet Switched Network
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message data divided into small pieces called packets, each with destination address and packet id
• Special network hardware routes packets to destination where message is reassembled • More fault tolerant than circuit switched networks • Take a file of data and break it into pieces; send pieces separately; software at end reconstructs it |
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36. Client-server Architecture
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A model for applications in which the bulk of the back-end processing, such as performing a physical search of a database, takes place on a server, while the front-end processing, which involves communicating with the users, is handled by the clients.
• Client software – any software that requests service from another software • Server software – any software that responds to request of software • Middleware – software program that intervenes between client and many possible kinds of servers to provide interoperability • Client/server network is a model for applications in which the bulk of the back-end processing, such as performing a physical search of a database, takes place on a server, while the front-end processing, which involves communicating with the users is handled by the clients • Network operating system is the operating system that runs a network, steering information between computers and managing security and users • Fundamental part of client/server architecture is packet switching • Packet switching occurs when the sending computer divides a message into a number of efficiently sized units called packets, each of which contains the address of the destination computer. Each packet is sent on the network and intercepted by routers • A router is an intelligent connecting device that examines each packet of data it receives and then decides which way to send it onward toward its destination |
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37. Local Area Network
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Computer network that uses cables or radio signals to link two or more computers within a geographically limited area, generally one building or a group of buildings.
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