12 IT Roles, Systems, and Processing

Question 1

What is a database administrator (DBAs)?

Answer 1

DBAs are responsible for developing and maintaining the organization’s databases and for establishing controls to protect their integrity. Thus only the DBA should be able to update data dictionaries. In small systems, the DBA may perform some functions of a database management system (DBMS). In larger applications, the DBA uses DBMS as a primary tool.

Question 2

What is a Data Administrator (DAs)?

Answer 2

DAs are responsible for maintaining the data within the databases.

Question 3

What is a network administrator?

Answer 3

A network administrator manages data and network communication, which includes, but is not limited to, managing local area networks (LANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), wide area networks (WANs), internet systems or other forms of data, and network communication. Network administrator responsibilities include installing network systems (switched networks, routed networks, and wireless networks), maintaining and upgrading network systems, and resolving network problems.

Question 4

What is a network technician?

Answer 4

Network technicians maintain the bridges, hubs, routers, switches, cabling, and other devices that interconnect the organization’s computers. They are also responsible for maintaining the organization’s connection to other networks, such as the internet.

Question 5

What is a webmaster?

Answer 5

A webmaster is responsible for the content of the organization’s website. They work closely with programmers and network technicians to ensure that the appropriate content is displayed and that the site is reliably available to users.

Question 6

What is a computer operator?

Answer 6

Computer operators are responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the data center, whether the organization runs a mainframe, servers, or anything in between. Operators load data, mount storage devices, and operate the equipment. Operators should not be assigned programming duties or responsibility for systems design. Accordingly, they should also have no opportunity to make changes in programs and systems as they operate the equipment. Ideally, computer operators should have no opportunity to make changes in programs and systems as they operate the equipment.

Question 7

What is a librarian?

Answer 7

Librarians maintain control over accountability for documentation, programs, and data storage media.

Question 8

What is a system programmer?

Answer 8

System programmers maintain and fine-tune the operating systems on the organization’s medium and large-scale computers. The operating system is the core software that performs three of a computer’s four basic tasks (input, output and storage). Programmers, as well as analysts, may be able to modify programs, data files, and controls. Thus, they should have no access to data center operations or to production programs or data.

Question 9

What is an application programmer?

Answer 9

Application programmers design, write, test, and document computer programs according to specifications provided by the end users. Like systems programmers, they should not have access to data center operations or data.

Question 10

What is a systems analyst?

Answer 10

A systems analyst uses their detailed knowledge of an organization’s databases and applications programs to determine how an application system should be designed to best serve the users’ needs. These duties are often combined with those of applications programmers. Systems analysts should not have access to data center operations, production programs, or data files.

Question 11

What is help desk personnel?

Answer 11

Help desk personnel log problems reported by users, resolve minor difficulties, and forward more difficult programs to the appropriate person, such as a database administrator or the webmaster. Help desk personnel are often called on to resolve such issues as desktop computers crashing or problems with email.

Question 12

What is an information security officer?

Answer 12

Information security officers are typically in charge of developing information security policies, commenting on security controls in new applications, and monitoring and investigating unsuccessful login attempts.

Question 13

What are end users?

Answer 13

End users must be able to change production data but not programs. The include users who input data or access data from a system, as opposed to persons who install, develop, or program applications.

Question 14

What is information technology?

Answer 14

IT is an all-encompassing term that refers to the electronic storage, retrieval, and manipulation of data. It’s conversion into human-usable form (information); and its transmission from one point to another.

Question 15

What is hardware?

Answer 15

Hardware is any physical item that comprises a computer system. This could refer to the monitor, keyboard, mouse, microchips, disk drives, etc. In other words, hardware is anything in IT than can be touched.

Question 16

What is software?

Answer 16

Software is a combination of computer programs that manipulate data and instruct the hardware on what to do. Software provides instructions to the computer hardware and may also serve as input to other pieces of software. Software is intangible and is anything in the computer system that is not hardware.

Question 17

What is a network?

Answer 17

A network is a collection of hardware devices that are interconnected so they can communicate among themselves. This allows different hardware to share software and communicate data. The internet is an example of a network, but offices have intranets where office computers can communicate with other office computers.

Question 18

What is data?

Answer 18

Data are information, not instructions, that are stored in hardware. Data may be financial sales data or could be calculations provided by a software program.

Question 19

What is a business information system (BIS)?

Answer 19

A business information system is any combination of hardware, software, data, people, and procedures employed to pursue an organizational objective.

Question 20

What are the three strategic roles of business information systems?

Answer 20

1. support business processes and operations, such as creating purchase orders.
2. support decision making, such as creating an accounts receivable aging report so a manager can ascertain if a customer’s credit is still acceptable.
3. support managers in planning for the future, such as the development of long-range planning and strategies.

Question 21

What are the four major tasks performed by any information system?

Answer 21

1. input - the system must acquire (capture) date from within or outside of the entity.
2. processing/transformation - raw materials (data) are converted into knowledge useful for decision making (information).
3. output - the ultimate purpose of the system is communication of results to internal or external users.
4. storage - before, during, and after processing, data must be temporarily or permanently stored, for example, in files or databases.

Question 22

Who are the stakeholders in business information systems?

Answer 22

Stakeholders in business information systems are those who affect, or are affected by, the output of the information system. They have an interest in the system’s effective and efficient functioning. Hence, they include users such as managers, employees, suppliers, and customers.

Question 23

What is RSS?

Answer 23

Rich site summary (RSS) allows the content of a website that changes often to be downloaded and stored automatically to a user’s computer. This saves the user the need to constantly revisit the site to get the latest information.

Question 24

What is cloud computing?

Answer 24

Cloud computing, the newest stage of evolution, through which organizations are relieved of the need to manage the storage of both applications and data since all the software and data they need are maintained in the service providers’ facilities (the cloud).

Question 25

What are the advantages of cloud computing?

Answer 25

• lower infrastructure investments and maintenance costs
• increased mobility
• lower personnel and utility costs

Question 26

What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?

Answer 26

• less control than there would be over an internal IT department
• more difficulty ensuring data security and privacy
• less compatibility with existing tools and software

Question 27

How is cloud computing defined?

Answer 27

As a standardized IT capability (services, software, infrastructure) delivered via the internet in a pay-per-use, self-service way.

Question 28

What are the three levels of IT strategies?

Answer 28

• corporate-level strategy
• business-level strategy
• functional-level strategy

Question 29

What is customer relationship management (CRM)?

Answer 29

CRM is a term that refers to practices, strategies, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.

Question 30

What is SWOT analysis?

Answer 30

A structured planning method that evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a project or business venture.

Question 31

What is Porter’s five forces analysis?

Answer 31

Porter’s five forces analysis is a framework that analyzes the level of competition within an industry and business strategy development.

Question 32

What are the five forces of Porter’s five forces analysis that determine competitive intensity and attractiveness of an industry?

Answer 32

3 forces are from horizontal competition:

1. the threat of substitute products or services
2. the threat of established rivals
3. the threat of new entrants

2 are from vertical competition:

1. the bargaining power of suppliers
2. the bargaining power of customers

Question 33

What is environmental scanning with the use of the internet?

Answer 33

It is a process that systematically surveys and interprets relevant data to identify external opportunities and threats. An organization gathers information about the external world, its competitors, and itself.

Question 34

What are some examples of environmental scanning with the use of the internet?

Answer 34

• innovative blogs, which can be a good source for early discussion of emerging trends and cutting-edge ideas
• web-crawlers or text mining software systems that scan the internet automatically in search of emerging innovations and trends.

Question 35

What is big data?

Answer 35

Big data is an evolving term that describes a voluminous amount of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data that can be mined to reveal relationships and dependencies or to predict outcomes and behaviors.

Question 36

What is a control framework?

Answer 36

A model for establishing a system of internal control. Although the framework does not prescribe the actual controls themselves, it does influence management to focus on risk areas and design controls accordingly.

Question 37

What is the most common type of system used in the business information systems environment?

Answer 37

transaction processing system (TPS)

Question 38

What is a transaction?

Answer 38

A single discrete event that can be stored in an information system. Ex - movement of raw materials from storage to production, issuance of a purchase order, the recording of a new employee’s personal data, or sale of merchandise.

Question 39

What does “transaction procession modes” refer to?

Answer 39

The way in which a system is updated with new data. The methods in use can be classified into one of two categories: batch or online.

Question 40

What is batch processing?

Answer 40

A mode of transaction processing in which transactions are accumulated and submitted to the computer as a single “batch”. Inherent in batch processing is a time delay between the batching of the transactions and the updating of records. Sometimes this delay can be as long as overnight. Thus, errors in a batch processing system caused by incorrect programs or data may not be detected immediately.

Question 41

What is online processing or interactive processing?

Answer 41

A mode of transaction processing in which the computer processes each transaction individually as the user enters it. The user is in direct communication with the computer and gets immediate processing/feedback on whether the transaction was accepted. Ex - an accounts payable system in which a payables clerk can enter each individual invoice as he/she verifies the paperwork.

Question 42

What is crucial in online systems?

Answer 42

Having the latest information available at all times so that users can make immediate decisions. These are called real-time systems.

Question 43

What is distributed processing?

Answer 43

Distributed processing involves the decentralization of processing tasks and data storage and the assignment of these functions to multiple computers, often in separate locations.

Question 44

What is cooperative processing?

Answer 44

Cooperative processing involves the splitting of an application into tasks performed on separate computers. Physical connectivity can occur via a direct channel connection, a local-area network (LAN), a peer-to-peer communication link, or a master/slave link. The application software can exist in a distributed processing environment, but this is not a requirement.

Question 45

What are the advantages of distributed processing?

Answer 45

• data are dispersed to match business requirements
• data access is much faster because users use only a subset of company data
• data processing speed improves because processing occurs at multiple sites
• new sites can be added to the network without affecting operations at other sites
• communications become easier to manage because local sites are smaller and closer to customer operations
• it is easier and more cost-effective to add workstations to a network than to upgrade or add another mainframe to the network
• the chance of a single-point failure is minimized because processing and/or data storage is distributed. For example, if a workstation goes down, its processing and data storage can be picked up by other workstations with minimal disruption.

Question 46

What are the disadvantages of distributed processing?

Answer 46

• database management activities become more complex to manage because data and processing are dispersed over different computers at different locations
• control and data anomalies, as well as security, backup and recovery procedures, must be coordinated and issues resolved with minimal disruption. For example, employee working remotely using their personal computers are subject to higher security risks.

Question 47

What is data capture?

Answer 47

Data capture is the process of entering data into an information system.

Question 48

What are POS transaction systems?

Answer 48

Point-of-sale transaction systems use online entry by using optical scanners which update accounting inventory records instantly.

Question 49

How do POS transactions help management?

Answer 49

1. identify and respond to trends
2. make sales forecasts
3. determine which products are or are not in demand
4. improve customer service
5. target products and promotions to customers with different demographic traits
6. evaluate the effects of promotions, including coupons

Question 50

What is a data type?

Answer 50

A data type stipulates the value of a variable and defines the relational or non-relational operations that can be incorporated into a program with the expectation of a valid outcome. The data type defines the method of storage that can be used.

Question 51

What are examples of data types?

Answer 51

• a string - used to classify text
• a float - a number containing a decimal point
• an integer - classifies whole numbers
• boolean - represents logical outcomes (yes or no)
• an array - is a collection of objects of the same data type

Question 52

What are the two types of computer data files?

Answer 52

master files and transaction files

Question 53

What is a fairly static master file?

Answer 53

A fairly static master file holds information that may be changed but doesn’t change often - Ex - an authorized vendor file containing each vendor’s number, name and address.

Question 54

What is a volatile master file?

Answer 54

A volatile master file holds information that is updated regularly - Ex - a general leger file that, at any given moment, holds the balances of all accounts in the ledger

Question 55

What is volatility?

Answer 55

The relative frequency with which the records in a file are added, deleted, or changed during a period.

Question 56

What is a transaction file?

Answer 56

A transaction file contains the data that reflect ongoing business activity, such as individual purchases from vendors or general journal entries.

Question 57

What is REA (resources, events, agents) processing?

Answer 57

REA contrasts with the traditional TPS that uses double entry (debit and credit) by using a single entry. It uses a relational database to store and process transactions. Each transaction (event) is stored in a table chronologically and linked to other tables with the details of the transaction (resources, agents, or other attributes). Ex - a sales event would be recorded in the sales table and linked to a customer table, inventory table, salesperson table, etc.

Question 58

What are the advantages of REA processing?

Answer 58

• debits and credits are not considered
• no general ledger is maintained since all balances are calculated through queries
• ad hoc reports are easily produced

Question 59

What are the disadvantages of REA processing?

Answer 59

• implementation cost, because it’s usually so high that it is prohibitive due to considerable computer storage and processing power needed.
• many accountants and auditors are not familiar with REA, so training costs are high and acceptance may be low

Question 60

What are periodic routine reports?

Answer 60

Certain reports are required at regular intervals. Ex - monthly trial balances and ledger summaries to assist in closing the books.

Question 61

What are on-demand and ad hoc reports?

Answer 61

Reports that users generate at times they specify. An on-demand report is one whose design is programmed into the system. The user specifies the date and time the report is run. Ad hoc (sometimes called “quick-and-dirty”) reports can be designed to the user’s own specifications without the involvement of IT personnel. Database queries are a common example.

Question 62

What are exception reports?

Answer 62

Also called error listing. It is common practice after daily processing to generate reports of transactions or activities that lie outside predefined boundaries. The appropriate personnel can then follow up and determine the reason for these exceptions. Ex - batches whose debits and credits do not match and instances of multiple unsuccessful attempts to access the network (which may indicate hacking).

Question 63

What is push reporting?

Answer 63

When reports are automatically generated and sent digitally to the appropriate personnel.

Question 64

What is an audit trail?

Answer 64

An audit trail of activities is a crucial part of monitoring security over a system. The audit trail includes not only the reports described above, but also such reports as logs of system sign-in and sign-out times to monitor who was doing what on the system.

Question 65

What is a management information system (MIS)?

Answer 65

An MIS typically received input from a transaction processing system, aggregates it, then reports it in a format useful to middle management in running the business. For this reason, MISs are often classified by function or activity.

Question 66

What is a data warehouse?

Answer 66

A data warehouse is a central database for transaction-level data from more than one of the organization’s transaction processing systems. A data warehouse is strictly a query-and-reporting system. It is not used to carry the enterprise’s routine operations. Rather, a data warehouse gets its input from the various TPSs in the organization. A data warehouse enables data mining, the search for unexpected relationships among data.

Question 67

What is online analytical processing?

Answer 67

Online analytical processing (OLAP) is when the data warehouse can be accessed using analytical and graphics tools. It is a drill-down analysis, in which the user is first presented with the data at an aggregate level and then can display successive levels of detail for a given date, region, product, etc., until finally reaching the original transactions.

Question 68

What technologies are replacing OLAP?

Answer 68

In-memory analytics and search engine technology

Question 69

What is in-memory analytics?

Answer 69

An approach that queries data when it resides in a computer’s random access memory (RAM), as opposed to querying data that is stored on physical disks. This results in shortened query response times and allows business intelligence and analytic applications to support faster business decisions.

Question 70

What is search engine technology?

Answer 70

Search engine technology stores data at a document/transaction level, and data is not pre-aggregated like it would be when contained in an OLAP or in-memory technology application. Users are able to have full access to their raw data and create the aggregations themselves.

Question 71

What is a decision support system (DSS)?

Answer 71

A DSS is an interactive system that is useful in solving semi structured problems, that is, those with a structured portion (which the computer can solve) and an unstructured portion (which requires the manager’s insight and judgement). A DSS does not automate a decision. It examines the relevant data and presents a manager with choices between alternative courses of action. Similar to an AIS, a DSS is a subsystem of a MIS.

Question 72

What is robotic process automation (RPA)?

Answer 72

RPA is a form of machine learning technology that enables a computer, through software, to acquire knowledge and mimic the actions of the person(s) using it to perform a task. The software, referred to as a robot, can perform a set of instructions predefined by humans. RPA robots utilize the same user interface as humans to conduct a process. However, robots are faster, process more data, and eliminate the potential for human error.

Question 73

What are some benefits of RPA?

Answer 73

• robots can perform continuously without needing to take time off
• RPA eliminates the element of human error and improves efficiency (subsequent to successful programming and implementation)
• although the initial implementation requires a capital investment, long-term costs associated with RPA are considerably lower than labor costs.

Question 74

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Answer 74

AI is a computer software designed to perceive, reason, and understand. AI attempts to imitate human decision making, which hinges on the combination of knowledge and intuition (remembering relationships between variables based on experience).

Question 75

What are types of AI?

Answer 75

• neural networks
• case-based reasoning systems
• rule-based expert systems
• intelligent agents
• expert systems

Question 76

What are neural networks?

Answer 76

A collection of processing elements working together to process information much like the human brain, including learning from previous situations and generalizing concepts.

Question 77

What is case-based reasoning?

Answer 77

Case-based reasoning systems use a process similar to that used by humans to learn from previous, similar experiences.

Question 78

What are rule-based expert systems?

Answer 78

Rule-based expert systems function on the basis of set rules to arrive at an answer. These cannot be changed by the system itself. They must be changed by an outside source.

Question 79

What are intelligent agents?

Answer 79

Intelligent agents are programs that apply a built-in or learned knowledge base to execute a specific, repetitive, and predictable task, for example, showing a computer user how to perform a task or searching websites for particular financial information.

Question 80

What is an expert system?

Answer 80

An expert system is an interactive system that attempts to imitate the reasoning of a human expert in a given field. It is useful for addressing unstructured problems where there is a local storage of human experts.

Question 81

What is Executive Support System (ESS)?

Answer 81

At the strategic level, high-level decision makers get the information they need to set, and monitor progress toward, the organization’s long-term objectives from an ESS, also called an executive information system (EIS). An ESS assists senior management in making nonroutine decisions, such as identifying problems and opportunities. The information in an ESS comes from sources both within and outside the organization, including information from nontraditional computer sources.