Introduction to Information Systems Chapter Review Questions

 Introduction to Information Systems Chapter Review Questions

First Review Questions

1. “5.1.” What are the four major categories of information systems that support business processes common to most organisations? Which basic business functions does each provide?
2. The four main categories of information systems that support most organisations’ conventional business processes are finance and asset management, human capital management, supply chain management and customer relations.
3. Functions such as accounts payable, account receivables, general ledgers, inventory and procurement are provided by finance and asset management. The management of human capital is comprised of management of human resources, payroll, benefits, timesheets, talent training and educational programs. The management of the supply chain includes SCM software, warehouse management and logistics management. Management of the relationships with customers or client relationships includes contact management, campaign management, email marketing, management of sales force and customer care and service. (Wallace, 2014).
4. “5.2.” What role does a financial and asset management information system serve in an organisation? Why is financial reporting important? What are exception reporting and compliance reporting? Why is each important?
5. The information system for financial and asset management supports financial processes and activities and analyses/reports on all transaction records and assets of the company. It supports, for example, debt administration, contract management and payment of instalments.
6. Financial reporting is crucial, and the reason is that businesses have full responsibility for their financial records’ reliability and validity. Anomaly evaluations in this case exception reports assist in identifying incidents beyond the acceptable limits. Anomaly findings automatically recognise unusual incidents that require human eyes to be reviewed.
7. Exceptions reports, for example, are used to detect malicious transactions, including those by co-workers.
8. Compliance reports focus on ensuring that monetary transactions comply with local, national and international rules and regulations. Worldwide trade and investment depend solely on confidence/trust, and compliance reports help to prove that financial reports are dependable. (Wallace, 2014).
9. “5.3.” What is human capital management? What are the major components of a human capital management information system? What are examples of metrics used to quantify human capital? How are these metrics used?
10. Human capital management is operations related to the management of people’s capital, that strives to increase the efficiency of human capital.
11. The main elements of human capital management are human resources management, management of employees or workforce, management of talent, networking socially and HCM.
12. Examples of metrics used to measure or evaluate human capital include turnover, costs of turnovers, recruit expenses, expenditure return on human capital and satisfaction of employees.
13. The organisation may use these metrics to assess its tactics, which are usually calculated in dollars. Also, the organisation will equate its own statistics with the overall industry averages. (Wallace, 2014).
14. “5.4.” What is supply chain management? What is the most important metric in supply chain management? What does it measure? What are examples of supply chain management software? How is each used to support supply chain processes?
15. The transfer of products and services from the manufacturer to the consumer is termed as supply chain management.
16. The most crucial metric in the management of the supply chain is the demand Forecast Accuracy (DFA) and the difference between expected and actual demand.
17. The Warehouse Management Software that handles and progresses activities within the warehouse such as shipments, stocks and space is an example of supply chain management software. The program for transportation management software (TMS) improves shipment, forwarding or routing and planning.
18. “5.5.” What is customer relationship management (CRM)? What are the objectives of CRM? How do organisations measure their customer relationship? How do information systems support each objective of CRM? What are three basic categories of CRM technologies? How do information systems support activities in each area?
19. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is aimed at improving and sustaining customer ties.
20. CRM’s goal is to boost customer satisfaction, increase productivity, increase sales and customer engagement.
21. Some businesses quantify their customer interactions through web monitoring, surveys, perception analytics and much more.
22. IT systems enhance customer loyalty by observing closely why clients end up leaving/coming back and the consumer satisfaction graph. It promotes profitability by establishing online self-services and therefore minimises the number of times customers keep calling the company and also providing convenient access to the inventory. It supports increasing revenues through customer knowledge, management of campaigns and the launching of new technology or products. It also supports the customer’s perception of the company/product by using the sentimental analysis.
23. The marketing, sales force automation and customer care, service & support are three basic categories of CRM technology. The information system helps each sector through loyalty initiatives and custom email programs that help sales representatives monitor accounts, addresses, and leads and use web platforms and social networking sites. (Wallace, 2014).
24. “5.6.” Why are ERP systems important to organisations? What are the typical components of an ERP system? What are some of the issues associated with an ERP implementation? What is the success rate for ERP implementation? What is the primary benefit of a successful ERP implementation?
25. ERP systems are useful because they offer and assist basic functional requirements for the management of the financial and human resources of the organisation.
26. Finance, human resource management, CRM, production, product life cycle management and SCM are the common elements of the ERP program.
27. Some of the problems with the execution of an ERP include a significant proportion of the expenditure that takes ages and a 51% probability of failure.
28. The rate of success for the implementation of ERP is 67% but, in this case, it is 49%.
29. A major advantage of successful ERP implementation would be that business transactions can be standardised and wastes and redundancies eliminated. (Wallace, 2014)

Second Review Questions

1. “4-1.”

What are three categories that describe the nature of information resources?  Give an example of each.  How do you characterise the relationships within each category of information?

The three groups are:

• Structured
• Un-structured
• Half or semi-structured.

Information such as an invoice that clearly shows the product ‘s details, the name of the buyer, the sum of money, and the time involved should be regarded as structured information. A website containing a title, subtitle, contents, and some images is assumed to be semi-structured information. Unless the information is ordered and clearly categorised in these three groups, structured and unstructured information will be at the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum and semi-structured information at the centre of the spectrum/scale.

2. “4-2.”

What is metadata? What does metadata describe for structured information? For unstructured information? Give an example of each type of metadata.

Metadata is data about data, and it clarifies the nature of the information. For structured information, metadata describes the definitions of each of the fields, tables, and relationships. For semi-structured and unstructured information, metadata are used to describe properties of a document or other resource, and are especially useful because they layer some structured-on information that is less easily categorised and classified.” (Wallace, 2014). YouTube is an example of metadata for structured information. An example of metadata for unstructured information, in this case, is the most straightforward organisation of word-processed documents if they have the title, author, and subject all included within their properties.

3. “4-3.”

What are the characteristics of information that affect quality?  What are examples of each? (Lawrence Tran)

Examples:

1. Timeliness: “outdated information has less value than up-to-date information and thus is lower quality unless you are looking for historical trends. The actual definition of what is up-to-date varies. Timeliness gets measured in fractions of a second in stock trading.”
2. Completeness: “Omitting the zip code on the customer ‘s address might not be a problem because the address can determine the zip. But leaving off the house number would delay the order.

• Accuracy: “Mistakes in birth dates, spelling, or price reduce the quality of information.”

1. Bias: “Biased information lacks objectivity, which decreases the credibility and accuracy of the information. To increase sales, a manager may decide to include cancelled orders, although the CEO may not be happy.”
2. Precision: “Rounding to the nearest mile might not reduce quality much when you estimate the drive to the mall. Even so, for property reviews or surveys, “about 2 miles” is intolerable.
3. Duplication – “Information can be redundant, which leads to erroneous and exaggerated summaries. For customer reports, if the address changes, individuals will easily appear more than once.”

• Consistency: “Reports that show “total sales by region” may conflict because the people generating the reports are using slightly different definitions. When results are inconsistent, the quality of both reports is in question.” (Wallace, 2014).

4. “4-4.”

What were the early design approaches to managing information resources?

Envelopes, tiny pigeon hole rows lining walls from top to bottom. Then it changed to folders for vertical manila. Computers were used to construct data management storage in the 1960s.

5. “4-5.”

What are the major disadvantages of file processing systems? What are four specific problems associated with file processing systems?

1. Redundancy and incoherence of data
2. Failure to integrate data

• Incompatible data definitions

1. Reliance on data
2. “4-6.”

Following the file processing model of data management, what three architectures emerged for integrated databases?  What are the advantages of each?  Are there disadvantages?

Three architectures that have surfaced or emerged are:

1. The hierarchical database which was well suited for organising information for one-to-many alliances, but it was tough for many when the connections convoluted the charts.
2. The network database provided greater leeway to connect the categories and did work well with many connections/relationships, but it was not well structured and organised.

• The relational database “organises information into a table of records that are related to one another by linking a field in one table to a field in another table with matching data” (Wallace, 2014). This arrangement made the server “less dependent on the hardware and its particular operating system” (Wallace, 2014).  This supports large files and types of XML data.

7. “4-7.”

What are the steps in planning a relational data model?  Are there benefits to the planning stage?

The first steps in preparing for a relational data model is to “develop the data model” to identify “what kind of information they want to track and how it is related” (Wallace, 2014). You begin the process by marking categories, attributes, and relations. The phase of planning is crucial, and the reason is that it will be the company’s foundation and will also save you time for later changes.

8. “4-8.”

What are primary keys and foreign keys?  How are they used to create links between tables in a relational database?

Primary keys are in table fields or categories that “make every record in a table unique” (Wallace, 2014). For example, the principal keys in the text are “EmployeeID,” “LastName,” “FirstName,” and on and on. Foreign keys are distinct types of primary keys that connect to a new table centred from the foreign key. Relational databases get termed as “models that organise information into tables of records that are related to one another by linking a field in one table to a field in another table with matching data.”  The connection between such records is made or done by foreign keys, connecting or binding tables together.

9. “4-9.”

What is the typical strategy to access a database? How do users’ access and Access database? Are there other strategies to access database strategies?

So many individuals use the application interface to access the database with user-friendly web-based forms that they can use to access, modify, and retrieve information safely. The most suitable strategy, despite being an alternative, is to operate against the server directly.

10. “4-10.”

What is the role of the database administrator in managing the database?  What is the career outlook for this job?

The database administrator (DBA) is responsible for operational efficiency in the management of the database. “Monitoring and optimising performance, troubleshooting bottlenecks, setting up new databases, enhancing security, planning capacity requirements, designing backup and disaster recovery plans, and working with department heads and the IT team to resolve problems and build innovative applications” (Wallace, 2014). DBS has the responsibility for “performance surveillance and optimisation, bottlenecks troubleshooting, the creation of new databases, security enhancement, capacity planning requirements, the development of backup and disaster recovery plans, and the collaboration of department heads and IT team to solve problems and develop innovative applications.”

11. “4-11.”

What is SQL? How is it used to query a database?

SQL is the traditional query language and is either dubbed by its letter or “sequel.” SQL is a standard query language, usually used to “manipulate information into relation databases,” as the name suggests. Although simple queries exist, those that are more complex in the form will erase data, plugin, and edit or modify data.

12. “4-12.”

What is IVR? How is it used to query a database?

IVR- A technology used to allow telephone-transmitted signals to access the database to collect information and enter data.

OR

IVR – A technology that makes it easier to access the database from a telephone signal to collect and enter data.

13. “4-13.”

What is a shadow system? Why are shadow systems sometimes used in organisations? How are they managed? What are the advantages of shadow systems? What are the disadvantages?

Alterations, in this case, changes to sustain innovative features for the integrated business database could be prolonged. People want to be active, and it could be frustrating to hang tight, waiting for these changes, which is why there is the development of shadow systems. A system of small databases is a shadow system, always an instant quick fix to this conundrum. They are established by departments or groups and focus on the specific data requirements of their creators. Quickly established via features like Excel or Access; however, the central IT staff is not managed. The positive impacts of a shadow system include the facility to establish one, the lack of central IT management or staff, and the rapid response to delayed changes. Shadow systems are an instant solution, but companies are advised to eliminate shadow systems because the data they generate or hold may not be compatible with corporate databases. Also, since the creator can control it, the business, in this case, the company can be left in limbo if the developer leaves. Therefore, even though shadow systems have their gains, they also have their inconveniences.

14. “4-14.”

What is master data management? What is a data steward? What is the role of master data management in an organisation’s integration strategy?

1. Master data management: A method that explores the fundamental contradictions in employees’ usage of data to create clear and consistent interpretations of organisations and their attributes in all business units.
2. Data steward: A watchdog and bridge builder combination, an individual that ensures that individuals conform to the interpretations for master data within their organisational levels.

• The role of master data management in an organisation’s integration strategy is to support common types of messaging as well as process management, cross reference, and information sharing.

15. “4-15.”

What is data warehouse? What are three steps in building data warehouse?

A data warehouse is “a central data repository containing information drawn from multiple sources that can be used for analysis, intelligence gathering, and strategic planning” (Wallace, 2014). Three phases in the structuring of the central repository, in this case, the data warehouse is extraction, transformation, and loading or processing. These prevalent strategies are employed by extracting data from its home database, morphing and cleansing it to meet commonly used data interpretations and later load it into the database, to obtain information from multiple sources. (Wallace, 2014)

16. “4-16.”

What are examples of internal sources of data for a data warehouse? What are examples of external sources of data for a data warehouse?

Internal sources of data include operational data, customer data, inventory data, manufacturing data, historical data archived, multi-media as well as other sources metadata, and traffic data from websites. (Wallace, 2014). Census data, GPS / Mapping coordinates, and Adversary/competitor details (Wallace, 2014) are examples of external sources of data.

17. “4-17.”

What are four examples of data warehouse architecture? Which approach is suitable to meet today’s growing demand for real-time information?

1. Virtual federated house
2. NoSQL

• Relational database

1. Data Cubes

A virtual federated warehouse would be the best way to satisfy today’s increasing demand for real-time data.

18. “4-18.”

What is big data?  What are the defining features of big data?

Big data apply to data sets that are so immense in their complexity, so vast in content and so easy to accumulate that conventional approaches find it difficult to store and analyse. “The three “Vs” are the defining features for big data which are, volume, velocity, and variety.”  (Wallace, 2014).

19. “4-19”

What is data timing?  What is the difference between data mining and data dredging?  What is the goal of data mining?

Data timing is when you collect information and the reason why you want to collect it during that time, as opposed to a different period.

Data mining is a kind of intelligence collection using statistics to explore large sets of data and ‘foraging’ for concealed relationships and patterns that cannot be detected by regularly scheduled reports or findings.

Data dredging is an analysis of massive volumes of data in search of potential connections between data entities. Also, searching for more information than it actually encompasses from a data set.

The purpose of data mining is to unveil price manipulation efforts and predict future events accurately.

20. “4-20”

What are examples of databases without boundaries?

An example of servers without borders includes ways to access and handle almost all records by individuals outside of the company.

21. “4-21”

How do ownership issues affect information management? How do information management needs differ among stakeholder groups?

Data ownership issues arise as all of the organisational stakeholders must distribute data. Individuals enter numerous records outside of certain companies.

Third Review Questions

1. “6-1.” What are four primary goals an organisation might choose to develop its Web strategy? What is an example of each? Why are clearly defined goals important of the use of social media?

The four primary goals of a Web presence：

1. Inform or entertain the public: for instance consumers reports
2. The audience is influenced. For example, automobile companies offer several tools to design and develop a virtual vehicle.

• Selling products as well as offering services. For instance, iTunes.

1. Enabling offline partnerships or relations. For example, in the case where a retail store provides online purchasing and pick-up services.
2. “6-2.” How is a URL related to a registered Web site name? Why does a URL include a protocol identifier? What are the components of a Web site address? What are typical suffixes that identify top-level domains?

The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a website or other online resource is the only global address. The protocol identifier helps to identify the procedure to be used following the forward slashes to link to the address. .com,.org and.gov are common suffixes.

3. “6-3.” What is Web site architecture? What are examples of Web site architecture?

Designers should find ways to organise the content, include navigational aids and ensure that visitors do not struggle to locate and make a transition to what they are searching for. The hierarchical website architecture is a website framework with links at the top of the home page and links to other relevant pages. Multidimensional Website Architecture is the multi-connected website structure that provides visitors with multiple pages at all levels. The sequential website architecture is a system that guides visitors through a purchase, survey or learning module step by step.

4. “6-4.” What is the difference between usability and accessibility? How do Web site developers test for usability? How can Web site design improve accessibility? How do text and background color combinations relate to Web site accessibility? What are the benefits of designing accessible websites?

Usability is termed as the easiness of a person using a tool such as a website, mobile phone or kiosk to achieve a goal. Web accessibility is how web resource can be used easily by disabled people. The WAI creates online accessibility guidelines that are generally considered to be universal standards.

5. “6-5.” List some software development strategies used for Web sites? What is an advantage to using basic HTML? How does HTML 5 reduce problems for Web developers? What is an advantage to using JavaScript? Why is AJAX used to develop Web sites? What role does a content management system play in Web site development? Why do content management systems use templates?

The original language used for web pages is the hypertext markup language (HTML), which describes the structure of the page and enables it to be reader-friendly. The new form of HTML is HTML 5, which eliminates web developers’ struggles in supporting various browsers operating on so several platforms, from desktop computers and laptops to smartphones, tablets and TVs. HTML 5 offers countless features, for example, the right and ability to access mobile device location information without writing special code, and this is in line with every device. JavaScript is a dialect that has been sued to add web pages interactivity.  AJAX is a mix of JavaScript-based technology which enhances the web, adding instantaneous competence from live data to create augmented reality technology or interactive features.

6. “6-6.” What is e-commerce? What activities does it include? How do online transaction sites use databases and shopping cart software? Why is security critical for e-commerce success? Which protocol supports secure Internet transactions? Why is trust critical for e-commerce success? Aside from having a well-known brand name, how do online sellers signal their trustworthiness to potential customers?

E-commerce is termed as the purchase and selling of products and services via the web or any other network covering money transfers or cash activities between companies, purchasers, government bodies and non-profit entities. Websites whose primary objective is to sell or request donations require e-commerce aptitudes—sites whose primary purpose is to offer databases for use. An e-commerce operation needs to be safe from start to finish, despite having many stages on various servers that can be very distant geographically. Trust is a vital component of e-commerce – consumers ought to ensure that a business that offers goods online is trustworthy and safe.

7. “6-7.” What is m-commerce? What I Near Field Communication, and how does it facilitate mobile payments?

Mobile commerce (M-commerce) is termed as the use of e-commerce wireless, mobile gadgets. NFC is a collection of digital solutions that strengthen in this case support communication between mobile gadgets when the two are close together.      

8. “6-8.” What is search engine optimisation (SEO)? What are two examples? How do organisations improve their position on search result lists?
9. SEO uses techniques to improve the traffic volume in terms of quality and quantity and efficiency of search engines by increasing the position of the web in results lists.
10. The spiders keep updating their servers, and the search engine does use the latest data/information to determine their significance when one enters a keyword search. Web marketers must not only recognise what search engines retrieve and how they use them to determine their pertinence but also how individuals use the internet to find what they want.

• Search terms are key to users. Developers must figure out the kind of people that would be interested in their website and then ensure that their website receives a higher pertinence rating for that term. It is vital to choose the most efficient critical phrases for descriptive terms on your sites.

9. “6-9.” How does Web advertising work to target ads for individuals? How can users avoid targeted ads? How do BLE beacons use mobile advertising?

They rely solely on cookies to monitor or track the items the customer has placed in a shopping cart and then send an ad in case you end up not purchasing it or them. The browser settings can be adjusted by users to control how cookies are handled to avoid specified ads. With an interconnected audience, digital networks provide a huge opportunity to raise brand recognition. Thanks to its unique ability to reach particular groups of individuals using big data and algorithms, social media is the ideal medium for market segmentation to enable marketers to know the ultimate target. BLE beacons are low power consumption gadgets used to transmit a limited amount of data to any listening piece of gadget. It also comes in the form of a mobile handset running an application, like Physical Web, which can read the advertising stream of the phone and show a URL that the user can access.

10. “6-10.” What is Web 2.0? What is crowdsourcing? What is an example of crowdsourcing? How do Web 2.0 capabilities change the way in which people and organisations use the web?

Web 2.0 focuses on interaction, discussion, involvement, collaboration and endless data sources and streams. Crowdsourcing goes on to describe how tasks can be transferred to relatively large, dispersed societies that often voluntarily contribute. For instance, the use of Amazon in the review of products. (Wallace, 2014).

References

Wallace, P. (2014). Introduction to information systems. Prentice Hall.