burgeois chapter 4

Question 1

data

Answer 1

pieces of information with no context, which is not useful. they are raw facts and devoid of context or intent. to be useful, data needs to be given context.

Question 2

quantitative data

Answer 2

numeric, the result of a measurement, count, or some other mathematical calculation.

Question 3

qualitative data

Answer 3

descriptive

Question 4

information

Answer 4

processed data that possesses context, relevance, and purpose.

Question 5

knowledge

Answer 5

a certain area uses human beliefs or perceptions about relationships among facts or concepts relevant to that area. if we put data intro context, aggregate and analyse it, it can be used to make decisions for an organisation. this produces knowledge.

Question 6

explicit knowledge

Answer 6

typically refers to knowledge that can be expressed into words or numbers.

Question 7

tacit knowledge

Answer 7

includes insights and intuitions and is difficult to transfer to another person by means of simple communication.

Question 8

wisdom

Answer 8

when a person can combine their knowledge and experience to produce a deeper understanding of a topic.

Question 9

database

Answer 9

an organised collection of related information. it is organised because all data is described and associated with other data. all info. should be related so separate databases should be created to manage unrelated information.

Question 10

relational database

Answer 10

a database in which data is organised into one or more tables. each table has a set of fields, which define the nature of the data stored in the table.

Question 11

record

Answer 11

one instance of a set of fields in a table, which can also be thought of as the rows in a table.

Question 12

data integrity

Answer 12

consistency among stored data.

Question 13

primary key

Answer 13

a unique identifier for each record in the table. a primary key cannot change.

Question 14

normalisation of the database

Answer 14

1. reducing duplication of data between tables
2. giving the table as much flexibility as possible

Question 15

text (data type)

Answer 15

for storing non-numeric data that is brief, generally under 256 characters. the database designer can identify the maximum length of the text.

Question 16

number (data type)

Answer 16

for storing numbers. there are usually a few different number types that can be selected, depending on how large the largest number will be.

Question 17

yes/no (data type)

Answer 17

a special form of the number data type that is (usually) one byte long, with 0 for “No” or “False” and a 1 for “Yes” or “True”.

Question 18

date/time (data type)

Answer 18

a special form of the number data type that can be interpreted as a number or a time.

Question 19

currency (data type)

Answer 19

a special form of the number data type that forms all values with a currency indicator and two decimal places.

Question 20

paragraph text (data type)

Answer 20

this data type allows for text longer than 256 characters.

Question 21

object (data type)

Answer 21

this data type allows for the storage of data that cannot be entered via keyboard, such as an image or a music file.

Question 22

Structured Query Language (SQL)

Answer 22

the primary way to work with a relational database. it can be used to analyse and manipulate relational data.

Question 23

NoSQL

Answer 23

arose from the need to solve the problem of large-scale databases spread over several servers or even across the world.

Question 24

record-locking

Answer 24

only one person can manipulate a piece of data at a time. this is not possible with large-scale databases, which is where the more unstructured environment of NoSQL comes in handy.

Question 25

Database Management Systems (DBMS)

Answer 25

a category of software applications meant to create a database, change its structure, or simply do an analysis. DBMS packages generally provide an interface to view and change the design of the database, create queries, and develop reports.

Question 26

relational enterprise database packages

Answer 26

when databases are installed over several servers worldwide, mean to be accessed by millions. they are built and supported by companies such as Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM.

Question 27

scale

Answer 27

refers to a database getting larger and larger, being distributed on a larger number of computers connected via a network.

Question 28

App Engine Datastore

Answer 28

can be used by developers to develop applications that access data from anywhere in the world.

Question 29

big data

Answer 29

refers to such massively large data sets that conventional database tools do not have the processing power to analyse them. understanding the best tools and techniques to manage and analyse these large data sets is a problem that government and businesses are trying to solve.

Question 30

metadata

Answer 30

can be understood as “data about data”. eg. looking at values of ‘year of birth’ the data may be “1992”. the metadata about the value would be the field name Year of Birth, the time it was last updated, and the data type (integer).

Question 31

“data dictionary”

Answer 31

created to hold the metadata, defining the fields and structure of the database. it is created when the database is designed.

Question 32

data warehouse

Answer 32

concept is extract data from one or more of the organisation’s databases and load it into the datawarehouse for storage and analysis.

Question 33

non-operational data

Answer 33

the data warehouse uses a copy of data from the active databases that the company uses in its day-to-day operations, so the data warehouse must pull data from the existing databases on a regular, scheduled basis.

Question 34

time variant data

Answer 34

means that whenever data is loaded into the data warehouse, it receives a time stamp, which allows for comparisons between different time periods.

Question 35

standardised data

Answer 35

data in a data warehouse usually comes from several different sources, so it may not use the same definitions or units. this can be done through ETL.

Question 36

extraction-transformation-load (ETL)

Answer 36

the process of agreeing upon a standard date format and converting all data loaded into the warehouse to use this standard format.

Question 37

bottom-up data warehouse design

Answer 37

start by creating data marts to solve specific business problems. they can be combined to a larger data warehouse.

Question 38

data marts

Answer 38

small data warehouses.

Question 39

top-down data warehouse design

Answer 39

start by creating an enterprise-wide data warehouse and then, as specific business needs are identified, create smaller data marts from the data warehouse.

Question 40

data mining

Answer 40

the process of analysing data to find previously unknown trends, patterns, and associations in order to make decisions. it is generally accomplished through automated means against extremely large data sets, eg. data warehouse. sometimes the project is begun with a hypothetical result in mind.

Question 41

data brokers

Answer 41

firms that combine publicly accessible data with information obtained from the government and other sources to create vast warehouses of data about people and companies that they then can sell. it causes privacy concerns.

Question 42

business intelligence

Answer 42

used to describe the process that organisations use to take data that they are collecting and analyse it in the hopes of obtaining a competitive advantage.

Question 43

business analytics

Answer 43

term used to describe the use of internal company data to improve business processes and practices.

Question 44

knowledge management (KM)

Answer 44

the process of formalising the capture, indexing, and storing of the company’s knowledge in order to benefit from the experiences and insights that the company has captured during its existence. otherwise, knowledge would only be stored in the heads of employees.