School of Computer SciencesWestern Illinois University
IS 340 Amaravadi
FINAL REVIEW – OUTLINE OF TOPICS
Introduction to IS
-Motivation for IS: globalization, transformation of industrial economies, transformation of the enterprise, digital firms [class discussion].
-Information Systems in Organizations: definition of an IS.
-Components of an IS: HW + SW + Networks + business purpose
-Examples of IS (FYI)
-Evolution of IS: Transaction processing, reporting, decision support, office information systems, AI systems, executive information systems, strategic systems ERP/MRP, e-commerce, and knowledge management systems.
-Roles of IS – their purpose in organizations: labor substitution, managerial control, organizational strategy, institutional core activities, organizational re-design and e-commerce.
-IS Development Methods: Conventional, Prototyping (RAD), Object Oriented. [ignore, covered later]
-Current issues: managing global projects, open source software, information privacy, cybercrime/viruses. [ignore]
IS in Organizations – Role I&II
-Definitions of organizations: technical and behavioral
-Types of organizations: hierarchical, flat, bureaucracy, knowledge-based, digital/virtual.
-Defining features of organizations (FYI): structure, strategy, systems, staff, SOPs, politics, environment, management style.
-An overview of the different functional areas: functional information systems.
Marketing activities: market research, estimate demand, develop product specs, segment, pricing
and promotion, distribution and sales.
Production activities: develop production schedule, production planning & control, plan for capacity, order
raw materials, produce product.
Accounting; recording and reporting on financial transactions – uses different type of accounts such as assets, liabilities etc.
Finance: analyzing statements, plan, manage assets, budget, obtain financing, report.
Human resources: evaluate needs, hire personnel, train, maintain records, rewards/benefits.
-Majors types of IS, IS to support operations: TP, ERP/MRP, E-commerce, OIS.
-IS to support decision making: DSS/MSS, ESS/EIS, KM systems.
-Need to be able to know important characteristics of TP, ERP, OIS, MSS and EIS.
- The organization and its environment: reactive/pro-active organizations; adaptation mechanisms
(change strategy, structure, SOPs)
-Strategy – fit with the environment
-The (strategic) role of IS: a) support strategy, b) provide feedback from environment.
-Strategic support can be provided at two levels as given below:
Business level: a) value chain, b) IT products and services, c) Supply chain management
Industry level: a) information partnerships, b) competitive forces (competitors, suppliers, customers substitute products)
-Impact of information systems on the organization: reduction in costs, increase in efficiency etc. [basically strategic impacts ]
-Impact of information systems on IT function: organization of IS, Role of IS
The Internet
-Internet background: research network, public domain, invention of web technology, publicly owned, costs by ISPs, 1.7b users.
-Architecture concepts: packetizing, IP addressing, bridges/routers, root/DNS servers, Hi-speed
backbone.
-Architecture: hosts, use of TCP/IP, packet data, host addressing, routing of packets.
-Website components: browsers, web servers, server software, web content, firewall.
- ISP architecture: backbone, NAP, internet access, local access, last mile.
-Protocol hierarchy: application (http), host (TCP), gateway (IP), network access (CSMA/CD)
-TCP: protocol for data transfer, collection of protocols, hardware independent, data packetized, rules
-Internet Protocol (IP): addresses assigned by IETF, can be domain names or email addresses, dotted quad.
-HTTP: application level protocol, stateless, rules specify request and response format.
-HTML tags: structuring, formatting, hyperlink and examples of each.
-Browser functions: connection & data transfer, display and create web pages.
-Web technologies: Java, Plug-in, Servlet, JSP.
-Search engines: purpose and organization (keywords, indexing).
- Internet security, firewalls principles: dedicated routers/switches, user monitoring/logging, packet screening, protected host (bastion host).
- Types of ecommerce: Cust to business (B2C, C2B), Business to Business (B2B, B2G) and Intra-organizational.
-ecommerce segments: retail, content, auctions, gateways
- ecommerce model: product search, comparison shopping, order placement, payment information, payment authorization, receipt of merchandise, service & support. [ignore]
-E-commerce architecture: web server layer, middle tier layer (application), backend layer.
-E-commerce issues : advertising, security, volatility of information, legal issues, ethical usage. [ignore]
Introduction to Database Management Systems (I)
-Basic concepts: Entities, Entity Classes, Attributes
-Basic organization concepts: database, DBMS, files/tables, records, attributes/fields, primary key, schema/structure.
-Database approach: find eclasses & relationships, draw data model, design.
-Data models: entity classes, entities, attributes
-Cardinality/types of relationships: 1:1, 1:M, M:N.
-Activities that can be performed with a database (DBMS Activities): Define structure/schema , enter data, modify data, query data using QBE or SQL (SQL format, multi-table), get reports.
-Components of a database management system: Data definition, SQL/query language, programming language interface, data dictionary, screen/report generation, application generation.
-Importance of DBMSs – operational and strategic uses.
Introduction to Database Management Systems (II)
-Evolution of DBMS: file processing, hierarchical and relational systems
-File processing and problems: uncontrolled redundancy, poor data quality (data integrity), lack of data sharing.
-Hierarchical model: hierarchical structure consists of parent – child segments, difficult to write queries but executes fast.
-ER Models: entities, entity classes and attributes (symbols for entity classes and attributes)
-Relational model: data organized into tables, retrieval via SQL
-Centralized vs Distributed databases – disadvantages of centralized databases, distributed databases (replication and partitioning).
-multi-media databases – definition, issues (storage space, retrieval and modification) and applications.
-Data warehouses, data mining and OLAP (ignore data mart).
Artificial Intelligence in Business
-Ignore the history & milestones of AI.
-Early work in AI: Logic, Perceptrons, Chess & Blocks World.
-Search strategies/Generate and Test strategies: breadth-first, depth-first, heuristic, hill-climbing
-The definition of AI
-The different branches of AI
natural language, robotics, machine vision/perceptive systems, expert systems and neural networks.
[Need to know what each branch is]
-Nature of intelligence: knowledge + reasoning power = Intelligence
-Approaches to intelligence: top down vs bottom up.
-The test for intelligence: the Turing test.
-The nature of knowledge: facts, procedures, relationships – declarative and procedural approaches.
-Knowledge representation: semantic nets, rules, logic and frames.
-Neural nets: what is a neural net
-Business and Industrial Applications of AI
IS Development
-System definition,
-System characteristics (open vs closed systems, inputs, processes, outputs, life cycle, boundary and sub systems);
-Characteristics of a good system (viz. longevity, meet needs, functionality and low maintenance).
-Approaches to system development: prototyping and conventional/traditional approaches.
-The system development life cycle: planning, analysis, design, implementation & maintenance
-Analysis techniques: DFDs (process, data store, external entity, information flow), EA(identify functions/processes/activities, identify information classes, draw process vs information class matrices), KPI’s (key resources, goals, processes, profit and loss items) – also called CSFs.
-Design techniques: transform analysis – structure charts,
-Design principles: coupling and cohesion