CS507 Midterm Subjective Questions bundle

| Sunday, 2 September 2012 |

CS507 - Information System - Subjective Questions from Midterm Papers

Paper 1
1- How data driven support system works? (2)
Data Driven DSS
As opposed to model driven DSS, these systems use large pools of data found in major organizational systems. They help to extract information from the large quantities of data stored. These systems rely on Data Warehouses created from Transaction Processing systems.
2- Why we need system analyst? (2)
Systems analysts work as a link between Business people, & Computer Programmers. Business People may define the business to be computerized, i.e. establish scope of computerization. However, they may not fully understand the capabilities and limitations of modern information technology.
3- What are strengths and weaknesses of rational man model? (3)

4- What is Spiral Model? (3)
SPIRAL is an iterative approach to system development. The spiral lifecycle model is a combination of the classic waterfall model and aspects of risk analysis. This model is very appropriate for large and complex Information Systems. The spiral model emphasizes the need to go back and reiterate earlier steps a number of times as the project progresses
5- What is the basic issue of CRM? (3)
Customer Privacy
Customer privacy is an important issue in CRM. CRM deals with large amounts of customer data through various touch points and communication channels. The individual firm is thus caught in an ethical dilemma – collecting as much information as possible but still respecting limits for personal privacy.
• Software issues
There is little standardized technologies and protocols for CRM implementation in the market. Vendors publish new versions of CRM software as frequently as they can thus adding to client’s expenses. CRM software requires highly integrated environment for high productivity, which is rarely available.
6- Why Intelligent Systems are developed? (5)
The set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather, store, maintain and apply the firm’s knowledge is called Knowledge Management. Hence the systems that aid in the creation and integration of new knowledge in the organization are called knowledge systems.
7- What are the duties of system analyst? (5)
Systems analysts work as a link between Business people, & Computer
Programmers. Functions of system analysis: At least one person should have a detailed knowledge of
1-The organization
2. How current system operates
3. Information needs of the system
4. Defects in the existing system
Mark 3=DSS are used to make Semi structured decisions.
What does DSS use as support to make Semi Structured Decisions?
VU Teacher Answer
Ans 1)Decision support systems use the following to support the making of semi-structured business decisions:
• Analytical models
• Specialized databases
• A decision-maker’s own insights and judgments
• An interactive, computer-based modeling process
Marke 2=What is sale force automation
Sales Force Automation
It automates some of the company's critical sales and sales force management functions, for example,
• Customer account management,
• Forecasting sales,
• Sales administration,
• Keeping track of customer preferences,
• Sales staff performance

Marke 2 =what factor important for efficient performance of information system
Interrelated components working together to collect, process, store and disseminate information to support decision making, coordination control, analysis and visualization in an organization

mark 2 =differentiate incremental and iterative models with help of suitable example
Incremental vs. Iterative
These sound similar, and sometimes are equated but there is a subtle difference:
• Incremental: add to the product at each phase
• Iterative: re-do the product at each phase
Example: Building a House
• Incremental: Starts with a modest house, keep adding rooms and upgrades to it.
• Iterative: The design/construction map of the house is amended and improved and repeated until all the requirements are fulfilled.

marke=? Info requirements for manufacturing information system at each level
Management Levels in Manufacturing Information System
Strategic level
1. Locating new plant which can save cost
2. Investment in new manufacturing technology
Knowledge Level
1. Distribute knowledge to drive the production process
2. Innovating new forms of manufacturing processes
Management level
1. Monitoring production costs and resources
Operational Level
  1. Status of production tasks
Question No: 32 ( M a r k s: 2 )
Identify any two reasons to use Incremental Models
Instructor's Reply:
Ans 2)Following are the reasons to use incremental model:
Reasons to use incremental mode:
• Early increments can be implemented with fewer people
• System is developed and delivered in increments after establishing an overall architecture.
• It is used when there is no time bondage
• Maintenance cost is reduced as system is tested in every increment

3 Situation in which Spiral Model should be used? (5 Marks)
The spiral model is called a meta model since it encompasses all other life cycle models. Risk handling is inherently built into this model. The spiral model is suitable for development of technically challenging software products that are prone to several kinds of risks. However, this model is much more complex than the other models – this is probably a factor deterring its use in ordinary projects.
A newly created organization will face unstructured problems. Why or why not. Justify? (5 Marks)
A newly formed organization may be taken as an unstructured organization due to lack of defined organizational structure, operating procedures. The question that a problem is structured or unstructured is not dependant on the organization being structured or unstructured. Even a highly structured organization can face novel and unprecedented problems.

Documents of the software developed step by step procedure. (3 Marks)
Software is constructed step by step in the same way a building is constructed. The products is designed, implemented, integrated and tested as a series of incremental builds, where a build consists of code pieces from various modules interacting together to provide a specific functional capability and testable as a whole.

What are the factors manufacturing information system included in manufacturing? (3 Marks)
Manufacturing Information Systems
It is an information system which deals with the
o Planning, development and maintenance of production facilities
o Establishment of Production goals
o Availability of production materials
o Scheduling
What is the logic system of the organization? (2 Marks)
Logic Systems is a rapidly growing organization, in terms of both people and customers. To keep up with this rapid pace of growth, Logic Systems is continuously seeking talented and focused individuals who can contribute significantly and be a part of this growth process.
http://www.logicsystems.co.in/careers.php
What does mean of this phrase “The investment in IT is costly and inflexible?” (2 Marks)
The investment in IT is costly and inflexible. Such investment is also monitored and controlled by the IT strategy. Hence any investment not supporting the business strategy would be futile.

Q1: Structured and unstructured problems in decision making?(2)
Unstructured decisions are those in which the decision maker must provide judgment, evaluation, and insights into the problem definition. 
Structure decisions, by contrast, are repetitive and routine and involve a definite procedure for handling them so that they do not have to be treated each time as if they were new.

Q3:Types of Organizational Structure?(3)
hierarchical organization structured
           A hierarchical organization is organization structured in a way such that every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity.
Flat organization structured
               Flat organization refers to an organizational structure with few or no levels of intervening management between staff and managers.
Q4:What leads to scope creep....also tell the name of the model?(3)
Iterative Model can lead to "scope creep," since user feedback following each phase may lead to increased customer demands. As users see the system develop, they may realize the potential of other system capabilities which would enhance their work.
Q5:How quality can be maintained in Education distance library?(2)

Q6:IN Manufacturing Information System of manufacturing, What factors should be considered?(2) 
Manufacturing Information Systems
It is an information system which deals with the
o Planning, development and maintenance of production facilities
o Establishment of Production goals
o Availability of production materials
o Scheduling
Question #1 (marks 5)
Draw the DFD for a distance learning university,
The enrollment process work as follows:
Student sends an application form containing their personal detail, & their desire course  The university checks the course is available and that the student has the necessary academic qualifications:
If the course is available the student will be enrolled in source, and university confirm the enrollment by sending a confirmation letter to the student.
If the course is unavailable the student will be sent a rejection letter.
The following steps are as follows in making a DFD:
1) All processes must have at least one data flow in and one data flow out.
2) All processes should modify the incoming data, producing new forms of outgoing data.
3) Each data store must be involved with at least one data flow.
4) Each external entity must be involved with at least one data flow.
5) A data flow must be attached to at least one process.

Question # 5 (marks 2)
Write down the main differences between systematic and intuitive cognitive types?
Systematic – problem is approached in a structured way in terms of some formal method.
• Intuitive – problem is approached with multiple methods using trial and error to find a
solution.
Question # 6(marks 2)
Give some example of transaction processing system?
This system is used to record transactions of routine and repetitive nature.
For Instance
• Defining eh transaction recording structure
• Placing customer orders
• Billing customers
• Other basic business transactions
Q17)discuss types of MIS?(2)

·         Transaction-Processing Systems

·         Operations Information Systems

·         Decision Support Systems (DSS)

·         Expert Systems and Artificial Intelligence

·         Considerations

Q18) why do we need system analyst?(2)
Systems analysts work as a link between Business people, & Computer Programmers. Business People may define the business to be computerized, i.e. establish scope of computerization. However, they may not fully understand the capabilities and limitations of modern information technology.
Computer programmers apply information technology to build information systems which solves these problems but need not fully understand the business usages they are computerizing or supporting.
Systems Analysts due to their expertise in development, knowledge of business processes, awareness of industry best practices, bridge the gap by translating the scope of computerization into how the systems will handle the transactional flows and the relationship between the various aspects of the business for the programmers whilst keeping the overall objectives and requirements, both corporate and IT related in perspective.
Q19) what do you understand by TQM? identify tools that can be used to promote and implement TQM?(3)
TQM is a set of management and control activities which focus on quality assurance
There are certain Graphical tools used to implement and promote TQM. For instance
o Histogram
o Pareto Analysis
o Cause & Effect Diagram page#61
20)what would be the document of software project which is developed under the procedural development phase?(3)

21)discuss the second phase of spiral model along with the steps it involved(5)
Evaluate alternatives, identify and resolve risks – This involves.
1. Risk analysis – it includes addressing any factors which may risk the successful completion of the entire project of IS development including alternative strategies and constraints. Issues pertaining to the possibility of the IS development not meeting, for example, user requirements, reporting requirements or the capability of the IS development team or the compatibility and functionality of the hardware with software. The Risk analysis and suggested solutions to mitigate and eliminate the Risks would thus become a part of the finalized strategy to undertake IS development.
2. Prototyping – Based upon the finalized strategy and the preliminary design, the first prototype of the new system is then developed. This is usually a scaled-down version of the system, and represents an approximation of the characteristics of the final product.

22)why does a business need social CRM? (5)
Reasons for adopting CRM
• Customers now prefer to execute transaction in an electronic environment through online-trading.
Also the establishment of customer services centers has also removed the inconvenience to access vendor’s physical locations.
• Due to absence of physical contact, companies are curious to keep a soft touch in an efficient manner.
This requires keeping a customer-wise online track of past correspondence and transactions.
• CRM reduces cost of sales and distribution by
• Targeting advertising to customers to increase the probability that an offer is accepted.
• Using web applications to decrease the number of direct sales people and distribution channels needed
• Managing customer relationships rather than manage products (a change in marketing)
• CRM minimize customer support costs by
• Making information available to customer service representatives so they can answer any query
• Automating the call centre so that representatives have direct access to customer history and preferences and therefore can cross-sell
1)Define data and information and give example... 2 marks
Data represents facts of any kind. In the process of recording important particulars of any event, it is the discretion of the management, what should be recorded and how it should be presented.
Example
Students fill an admission form when they get admission in college. The form consists of raw facts about the students. These raw facts are student's name, father name, address etc. The purpose of collecting this data is to maintain the records of the students during their study period in the college

Information should be relevant so that it is valuable for the recipient. Although the processed form of information is more valuable than the raw form of data, still all information is not of value for every one.
Example
Data collected from census is used to generate different type of information. The government can use it to determine the literacy rate in the country. Government can use the information in important decision to improve literacy rate.
2.) Why expert system is the most popular type of intelligence system? 2 marks
Expert System
Because expert system is a computer program that attempts to represent the knowledge of human experts in the form of Heuristics. It simulates the judgment and behavior of a human or an organization that has expert knowledge and experience in a particular field.
Examples are
• Medical diagnosis,
• Equipment repair,
• Investment analysis,
• Financial, estate and insurance planning,
• Vehicle routing,
• Contract bidding
3) Deference b/w operational feasibility and behavioral feasibility? 3 marks
Operational Feasibility – compliance and adjustability with the way organization works with attitude to change or chains of command.
• Can the input data be collected for the system?
• Is the output usable?
Behavioral feasibility – What impact will the system have on the user’s quality of working life?
• Reduction is job stress
• Job satisfaction
• Quality of output by employees
4) List any three benefits of CRM? 3 marks
Benefits of CRM
• Maintains and enhances customer base
• Encourages customer loyalty
• Gaining more customers’ wallet-share
   Habits,
• Tastes and preferences
5) why prototype is used? Also explain its advantages.5 marks
A prototype is built to test the function of the new design before starting production of a product. Building the full design is often expensive and can be time-consuming. A prototype allows manufacturers to rapidly and inexpensively test the parts of the design that are most likely to have problems, solve those problems, and then build the full design.
Advantages
Prototypes may be easily changed or even discarded.
• Prototyping may improve communication between and among developers and customers
• Users may be more satisfied with systems developed using prototyping.
• A prototype may provide the proof of concept necessary to attract funding.
• Early visibility of the prototype may help management assess progress.
• Prototypes may demonstrate progress at an early stage of development
Prototypes may provide early training for future users of the system
Systems produced through prototyping may be judged easier to learn and easier to use.
6) Discuss incremental Models with an example? 5 marks
The incremental model is a method of software or Information System development where the model is designed, implemented and tested incrementally until the product is finished. It involves both development and maintenance. This model combines the elements of the waterfall model with the philosophy of prototyping.
Example of an Incremental Model:
An example of this incremental approach is observed in the development of word processing applications where the following services are provided on subsequent modules:
• Advanced editing and document production functions
• Basic file management, editing and document production functions
• Spell and grammar checking
• Advance page layout
1. What is the difference between open and closed systems? M a r k s:2
Open Systems
• A system that is connected to its environment by means of resource flows is called an open system.
Closed Systems
• A system that is not connected with its environment
2. What is milestone of Waterfall model ? M a r k s:2
It also provides easily mark able "milestones" in the development process. It is perhaps for this reason that the waterfall model is used as a beginning example of a development model in many software engineering texts and courses.
3. Identify the phases Decision Making process. M a r k s:3
Intelligence – searching for conditions in the environment that call for decisions
• Design – inventing, developing, and analyzing possible courses of action
• Choice – selecting a course of action from those available
• Implementation – implementing the selected course of action
• Monitoring – checking the consequences of the decision made after implementation
4. Describe if Beurocratic structure has any Drawback? M a r k s:2
The main demerit of bureaucratic organizations includes lack of innovation. All the processes and tasks are so much fixed that the innovation process is almost eliminated in bureaucratic organizations. Employees get demotivated because of lesser employee participation and involvement. HR can't be utilized in the fullest manner by optimizing creativity which is the prime disadvantage in bureaucratic structure of the organizations.

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Waterfall model? M a r k s:5
Advantages

  1. Waterfall model places emphasis on documentation (such as requirements documents and design documents) as well as source code.
  2. Waterfall model is preferred for its simple and arguably more disciplined approach.
  3. It also provides easily mark able "milestones" in the development process
Disadvantages
  1. It is argued that it is impossible to get one phase of a software product's lifecycle "perfected" before moving on to the next phases and learning from them.
  2. Waterfall model advocates more reliance on fixed, static requirements. Designers may not be fully aware of future implementation difficulties when writing a design for an unimplemented software product.
  3. Another problem is that the waterfall model assumes that the only role for users is in specifying requirements, and that all requirements can be specified in advance.

Another answer
Easy to Understand and Coding, identifies deliverables and milestones, works well on mature products and weak teams Disadvantages: Requirements be completely
specified before the rest of the development.
6. What are the phases of Spiral model? M a r k s:5
There are usually four distinct phases of the spiral model software development approach.
  1. Determine objectives, alternatives, constraints
  2. Evaluate alternatives, identify and resolve risks – This involves.
  • Risk analysis
  • Prototyping
  1. Develop, verify next-level product
  2. Plan next phase
7. If a company face problems in decision making, what you will recommend to help it? M a r k s:5
Types of Problems
Nature of problem determines the approach to decision making to be followed to solve it. There are three broad categories.
• Structured: Well-structured problems are constrained problems with convergent solutions that engage the application of a limited number of rules and principles within well-defined parameters.
• Unstructured: Problems possess multiple solutions, solution paths, fewer parameters which are less manipulate able, and contain uncertainty about which concepts, rules, and principles are necessary for the solution or how they are organized and which solution is best.
• Semi-structured – a gray area lies between the structured and unstructured range. Here part of the
decision can be specified allowing for certain factors out of control.

Type of Decisions
Structured decisions
Where problem is recurring and repetitive, the common factors can be identified in order to identify a particular course of action. Due to which defined set of procedure can be devised for their solution.
Hence,
o Procedures for obtaining the best solution are standardized
o Objectives are clearly defined
o Clearly specified inputs and outputs

Un-structured decisions
When problems are non routine, critical and novel in nature, they require individual judgment, evaluation and insight varying on case-to-case basis. There is no well understood or agreed upon procedure for handling these problems. For such situations, predefined policy cannot be devised. However, once the problem has been figured out, a policy may be devised to handle the problem in future. This can make the problem look like as structured one giving regard to the role of individual judgment.
Semi-structured Decisions
The term is used to refer to the grey area of decisions which lie between the two extremes. Some (but
not all) structured phases and often solved using standardized solution procedures and human judgment
Q: Write down the list of techniques use in data warehouse
* Following are the common techniques through which a data warehouse can be used
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Data Mining
Q: What do you understand by ERD? Define briefly
"The entity-relationship diagram (ERD) is a data model or diagram for high-level descriptions of conceptual data model, and it provides a graphical notation for representing such data models in the form of entity-relationship diagrams."

E-R Diagram (E-R model) facilitates database design by allowing the specification of an “enterprise schema” which represents the overall logical structure of a database. The E-R Diagram (E-R model) is extremely useful in mapping the meanings and interactions of real-world enterprises onto a conceptual schema.
Q1, Define TQM
TQM is a set of management and control activities which focus on quality assurance. The quality of the products and services is enhanced and then offered to consumers. An organizational undertaking to improve the quality of manufacturing and service, it focuses on obtaining continuous feedback for making improvements and refining existing processes over the long term.
Q2.enlist the category of support system
Support systems can be classified into two categories
  1. Office Automation Systems
  2. Decision Support Systems
Q: What is MRP
MRP helps in getting the right material and physical resources together at the right place and at the right time to meet the customer’s requirements. This helps in achieving on time delivery, High Quality, at the best price.
Another ans
Material procurement needs to be planned in compliance with the production Schedule. Initially companies used to do plan it manually through a document termed as “Material Requirement Plan”. Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is software based production planning and inventory control system for material procurement and scheduling.

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