Information Systems: Key Concepts and Technologies
Information Systems Defined
Information systems can be technically defined as a set of interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and distribute information to support decision-making and control in an organization.
Business Processes
The manner in which work is organized, coordinated, and focused to produce a valuable product or service. Business processes are the collection of activities required to produce a product or service.
Transaction Processing Systems
A transaction processing system is a computerized system that performs and records the daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business, such as sales order entry, hotel reservations, payroll, employee record keeping, and shipping.
Systems for Management Groups
Middle management needs systems to help with monitoring, controlling, decision-making, and administrative activities. Decision-support systems (DSS) support more non-routine decision-making. They focus on problems that are unique and rapidly changing, for which the procedure for arriving at a solution may not be fully predefined in advance. They try to answer questions such as: What would be the impact on production schedules if we were to double sales in the month of December? Business intelligence is a contemporary term for data and software tools for organizing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help managers and other enterprise users make more informed decisions (For all kinds of managers). Executive support systems (ESS) help senior management make these decisions. They address non-routine decisions requiring judgment, evaluation, and insight because there is no agreed-on procedure for arriving at a solution. ESS present graphs and data from many sources through an interface that is easy for senior managers to use. Often the information is delivered to senior executives through a portal, which uses a Web interface to present integrated personalized business content. A digital dashboard displays on a single screen graphs and charts of key performance indicators for managing a company.
Value Chain Model
The value chain model highlights specific activities in the business where competitive strategies can best be applied (Porter, 1985) and where information systems are most likely to have a strategic impact. This model identifies specific, critical leverage points where a firm can use information technology most effectively to enhance its competitive position. The value chain model views the firm as a series or chain of basic activities that add a margin of value to a firm’s products or services. These activities can be categorized as either primary activities or support activities.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking involves comparing the efficiency and effectiveness of your business processes against strict standards and then measuring performance against those standards.
Privacy and Informed Consent
The opt-out model of informed consent permits the collection of personal information until the consumer specifically requests that the data not be collected. Privacy advocates would like to see wider use of an opt-in model of informed consent in which a business is prohibited from collecting any personal information unless the consumer specifically takes action to approve information collection and use.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is considered to be intangible property created by individuals or corporations. Information technology has made it difficult to protect intellectual property because computerized information can be so easily copied or distributed on networks. Trade secrets, Copyright, Patents.
Challenges in Protecting Intellectual Property
Challenges include: ease of replication; ease of transmission; ease of alteration; difficulty in classifying a software work as a program, book, or even music; compactness—making theft easy; and difficulties in establishing uniqueness.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 is providing some copyright protection. The DMCA implemented a World Intellectual Property Organization Treaty that makes it illegal to circumvent technology-based protections of copyrighted materials. Internet service providers (ISPs) are required to take down sites of copyright infringers that they are hosting once they are notified of the problem. Microsoft and other major software and information content firms are represented by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), which lobbies for new laws and enforcement of existing laws to protect intellectual property around the world.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing
Open Source Software
Open source software is software produced by a community of several hundred thousand programmers around the world. It’s free and can be modified by users. Works derived from the original code must also be free, and the software can be redistributed by the user without additional licensing. Open source software is by definition not restricted to any specific operating system or hardware technology, although most open source software is currently based on a Linux or Unix operating system.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a service (SaaS)
Service Level Agreements (SLA)
Services for customer relationship management. In order to manage their relationship with an outsourcer or technology service provider, firms need a contract that includes a service level agreement (SLA). The SLA is a formal contract between customers and their service providers that defines the specific responsibilities of the service provider and the level of service expected by the customer.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
The total cost of ownership (TCO) model can be used to analyze these direct and indirect costs to help firms determine the actual cost of specific technology implementations. (3x)
Database Management Systems (DBMS)
A database management system (DBMS) is software that permits an organization to centralize data, manage them efficiently, and provide access to the stored data by application programs. The DBMS acts as an interface between application programs and the physical data files. When the application program calls for a data item, such as gross pay, the DBMS finds this item in the database and presents it to the application program.
Relational Databases
Relational databases represent data as two-dimensional tables (called relations). Tables may be referred to as files. Each table contains data on an entity and its attributes. Microsoft Access is a relational DBMS for desktop systems, whereas DB2, Oracle Database, and Microsoft SQL Server are relational DBMS for large mainframes and midrange computers.
Data Warehouses
A data warehouse is a database that stores current and historical data of potential interest to decision-makers throughout the company.
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Online analytical processing (OLAP). OLAP supports multidimensional data analysis, enabling users to view the same data in different ways using multiple dimensions. Each aspect of information—product, pricing, cost, region, or time period—represents a different dimension.
Data Mining
Data mining is more discovery-driven. Data mining provides insights into corporate data that cannot be obtained with OLAP by finding hidden patterns. The types of information obtainable from data mining include associations, sequences, classifications, clusters, and forecasts.
Networking
A network consists of two or more connected computers. Each computer on the network contains a network interface device called a network interface card (NIC). The network operating system (NOS) routes and manages communications on the network and coordinates network resources.
Packet Switching
Packet switching makes much more efficient use of the communications capacity of a network. In packet-switched networks, messages are first broken down into small fixed bundles of data called packets. The packets include information for directing the packet to the right address and for checking transmission errors along with the data. The packets are transmitted over various communications channels using routers, each packet traveling independently. Packets of data originating at one source will be routed through many different paths and networks before being reassembled into the original message when they reach their destinations. The router connects the LAN to other networks, which could be the Internet or another corporate network, so that the LAN can exchange information with networks external to it.
Network Protocols
A protocol is a set of rules and procedures governing the transmission of information between two points in a network.