One Chapter What is a system? A set of interrelated components with a clearly defined boundary. Working together to achieve a common set of objectives by accepting inputs and producing outputs in an organized transformation process. What are the basic functions of a system? Input: capturing and assembling elements that enter the system to be processed. Processing: transformation process that converts input into output. Output: transferring transformed elements to their ultimate destination. What is an Information System? An organized combination of people, hardware and software, communication networks, data resources, policies and procedures. This system stores, retrieves, transforms, and disseminates information in an organization. All the components and resources necessary to deliver information and functions to the organization(could be paper based)(hardware, software, networking, data management). What is a cybernetic system? A self-monitoring, self-regulating system, adds feedback and control. Feedback: data about the performance of a system. Control: Involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to determine whether a system is moving toward the achievement of its goal. What should business professionals know? What is E-Business? Uses internet technologies to empower business processes, electronic commerce, collaboration within a company, collaboration with customers, suppliers, and other business stakeholders. In essence, an online exchange of value.(Use: support communications, coordination and coordination among teams and work groups). What is reengineering? Internal business processes. What is e-commerce? Buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products and services over networks. What is a TPS? A PCS? What are the different types of Management Support Systems? Provides information as reports and displays. Gives direct comuter support to managers during decision-making. How do we measure IT success? Efficiency: minimize cost, time, and use of information resources. Effectiveness: support business strategies, enable business processes, enhance organizational structure and clulture, increase customer and business value. What are typical IS activities? Input of data resources(data entry activities), processing of data into information(calculations, comparisons, sorting, and so on), output of information products(messages, reports, forms, graphic images), storage of data resources(data elements and databases), control of system performances(monitoring and evaluating feedback). Describe intranet vs. extranet Intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols and network connectivity to securely share any part of an organization's information or operational systems with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization's internal website, but often it is a more extensive part of the organization's computer infrastructure and private websites are an important component and focal point of internal communication and collaboration. Extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organization's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners,
customers or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's intranet that is extended to users outside the company (e.g.: normally over the Internet). It has also been described as a "state of mind" in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with a preapproved set of other companies business-to-business (B2B), in isolation from all other Internet users. In contrast, business-to-consumer (B2C) involves known server(s) of one or more companies, communicating with previously unknown consumer users. What is data? Raw facts about physical phenomena or business transactions(names, quantities, and dollar amounts). Information? Data that has been converted into meaningful and useful context for end users(amount of sales by product type, sales territory or salesperson). How does data stay accurate in a computer system? What does IT support in the business environment? Describe the differences between IS and IT why create IT systems? IS function is a major functional area of business. It is an important contributor to operational efficiency, employee productivity, morale, customer service and satisfaction. A major source of information and support for decision making. IT: minimize cost, time, and use of information resources. Support business strategies, enable business processes, enhance organizational structure and culture, increase customer and business value. Competitive advantage, support common business operations, decisionmaking History of IT, from 1950 to now Operations support vs. management support OSS: Efficiently process business transactions, control industrial processes, support communication and collaboration, update corporate databases. MSS: Provide information as reports and displays and give direct computer support to managers during decision-making. What is a process control system? Monitor and control physical processes(example: using sensors to monitor chemical processes in a petroleum refinery.) What happens during the "processing" stage of a system? Transformation process that converts input into output. Open, closed, adaptive systems Chapter Two Does IT matter? NO: Nicholas Carr argues that IT is infrastructure, much like electricity. Too commonplace to offer a competitive advantage. YES: It is not just networks and computers. The important part is the software and information and how IT is used. What is a strategic information system? How do they help a firm? This is any information system that uses IT to help an organization gain a competitive advantage, reduce a competitive disadvantage or meet other strategic enterprise objectives. What are some of the most common competitive forces? Cost leadership, differentiation, innovation, growth, alliance and other strategies. What are the five major competitive strategies? Rivalry of competitors, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of customers, and bargaining power of suppliers. In addition to the five basic competitive strategies, what are some other key strategies implemented with information technology?
What is a transaction database? What does it do for the firm? What are primary business processes? Directly relate to manufacturing or delivering products. What is reengineering? Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes; seeks to achieve improvements in cost, quality, speed, and service. What does it mean to be a customer-focused business? Keep customers loyal, anticipate their future needs, respond to customer concerns and provide topquality customer service.(quality not price) What is an agile company? Agility: the ability to prosper. An Agile company profits in spite of broad product ranges, short model lifetimes, individualized products or arbitrary lot sizes. What is a virtual company? What are some common strategies of virtual companies? Uses IT to link people, organizations, assets and ideas. Basic strategies: share and information risk with alliance partners, link complimentary core competencies, reduce concept-to-cash time through sharing, increase facilities and market coverage, gain access to new markets and share market or customer loyalty, migrate from selling products to selling solutions. What are the two types of knowledge? Explicit Knowledge: data, documents, and things written down or stored in computers. Tacit Knowledge: the how-to knowledge in workers minds; represents some of the most important information with an organization.(a knowledge-creating company makes such tacit knowledge available to others. Chapter Three Who invented the first mechanical adding machine? 1642: Invented by BlaisePascal. Wheels moved counters. Modified in 1674 by Von Leibnitz. What was the name of the first first-generation computer? When was it built? What kind of equipment did they use? 1946: ENIAC: 5000 calculations per second; vacummtubes. Replaced in 1950s by UNIVAC1 then the IBM 704(calculations to 100,000 per second) What is the defining characteristic of the second generation of computing? The third generation of computing? Second generation: transistors replaced vacuum tubes(00,000-250,000 calculations) Third Generation: Integrated circuitry and miniaturization. What are some defining characteristics of a microcomputer? A mainframe computer? A supercomputer? Micro: Supports have mathematical computer and graphics display demands. CAD, investment and portfolio analysis. Coordinate telecommunications and resource charing. Support small networks and Internet or intranet websites. Mainframe: Large primary storage capacity, high transaction processing, handles complex computations. Used as superserversfor large client/server networks. High-volume Internet websites. Supercomputer: Scientific, engineering, and business applications. Include massive numeric computations, government research agencies, large universities and major corporations. What is the primary use for computers for most users? What is a nanosecond? a picosecond? Nano: billionth of a second. Pico: trillionth of a second. What is a megahertz? A gigahertz? Mega: millions of cycles per second. Giga: billions of cycles per second.(clock speed) Define Moore's Law. A doubling in the number of transistors per integrated circuit every 18 to 24 months.
What is continuous speech recognition? Discrete?CSR: recognized continuous, conversationally paced speech. Discrete: required pauses between each word. What does OCR stand for? Optical Character Recognition: software that reads characters and codes. Used to real merchandise tags, sort mail, score tests. What is a bit? A byte? Bit: Short for binary digit, smallest element of data, either zero or one. Byte: Group of eight bits, which operate as a single unit; represents one character or number. The binary number 11111111 + 00101110 translates to what in decimal? What is a kilobyte? A gigabyte? A petabyte? Kilobyte: one thousand bytes. Mega: one million bytes. Giga: one billion bytes. Tera: one trillion bytes. Peta: one quadrillion bytes. Differentiate between direct and sequential access? Which is better?Direct or random: directly store and retrieve data, each storage position has a unique address and can be accessed in the same length of time, semiconductor memory chips, magnetic disks. Sequential: data is stored and retrieved sequentially, must be accessed in sequence by searching through prior data, magnetic tape. Sequential is better. What is RAM? ROM? Random Access Memory: most widely used primary storage medium, volatile memory, read/write memory. Read-Only Memory: permanent storage, can be read but not overwritten, frequently used programs burnt into chips during manufacturing process, called firmware. What is primary storage? Secondary storage? PS: memory. SS: disk drives. What is a RAID array? Why are they used? Redundant arrays of independent disks. Disk arrays of hard disk drives, provides virtually unlimited online storage. For storage and memory. What is firmware? ROM: read-only memory. Permanent storage. What is RFID? Describe some current uses.Radio Frequency Identification: One of the newest and fastest growing storage technologies. System for tagging and identifying mobile objects; used with store merchandise, postal packages, casino chips, pets; special reader allows objects to be tracked as they move from place to place; chips half the size of a grain of sand. Passive derive power from reader; active are self-powered. Chapter Four What is the most important software component of a modern computer? What does COTS stand for? What are some of its advantages? Disadvantages? Commercial Off-the-Shelf: Minimal changes beyond scheduled upgrades; Purchasers have no control over specifications, schedule, or evolution, and no access to source code or internal documentation; Product vendor retains the intellectual property rights of the software. What are some advantages of using a software suite?Advantages: Cost less than buying individual packages; all have similar GUI; work well together. Disadvantages: All features not used; takes a lot of disk space(bloatware). What is the most common use of spreadsheet applications? Analysis, planning, modeling. What is open-source?Developers collaborate on the development of an application using programming standards which allow anyone to contribute to the software. As each developer completes a project, the application code become available and free to anyone who wants it.
What is groupware? Software that helps workgroups collaborate on group assignments. What is an application service provider? Why might a company use one? ASP: Companies that own, operate, and maintain application software and computer system resources; use application for a fee over the Internet; pay-as-yougo; use expected to accelerate in the coming years. What are the four most popular operating systems? Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OS X. What is machine language? Assembly language? Machine: Programming languages. Strings of binary codes unique to each computer. Assembly: Symbols are used to represent operation codes and storage locations. What is a natural language? Close to English or human language. What is object-oriented programming? Combines data elements and the procedures that will be performed upon them into objects.(ex: data about a bank account and the procedures performed on it, such as interest calculations) What is HTML? XML? What's the difference between the two?HTML: a page description language that creates hypertext documents for the web. XML: Describes web page content by applying identifying tags or contextual labels to the data. Java:Object-oriented programming language that is simple, secure, and platform independent. Java applets can be executed on any computer. What is a compiler? An interpreter?Compiler: Translates high-level language statements. Interpreter: a compiler that translates and executes each statement in a program, on at a time. Assembler: Translates assembler language statement. What is a CASE tool? A combination of many programming tools into a single application with a common interface. Used in different stages of the systems development process.