Ch2 - Information Systems and Databases Flashcards
What are the seven Information Processes?
Collecting Organising Analysing Storing and Retrieving Processing Transmitting and Receiving Displaying
What are the five elements of an Information System?
Input Output Storage Processing Control
What are the two characteristics of Information Systems?
Organisation of data into information.
Analysis of information to give knowledge.
What is data?
Raw facts
What is information?
Data which has been organised in some way to give it meaning.
What is knowledge?
Insights derived from information which are of value.
What are the five types of information systems?
Transaction processing systems Decision support systems Expert systems Management information systems Office automation systems
What is a transaction processing system?
A system which collects, stores, modifies and retrieves the details about certain activities.
What is a Decision Support System?
A system which provides information, models and analysis tools to help people make better decisions.
What is an Expert System?
A system which takes in pieces of data and uses it to come to a decision on your behalf.
What is a Management information system?
Presents information about the performance of an organisation to assist managers in managing the organisation effectively.
What is an Office automation system?
Technology which streamlines and automates common tasks which need to be performed.
What is the difference between a Database Information System and a Database Management System (DBMS)?
A Database Information System is an Information system which uses the data in a database.
A DBMS is management software which is used to access the data in a database.
What is the relationship between a database and a database management system (DBMS)?
A database is the file which holds the actual data. A DBMS is the software that you use to access the data in the database.
What is hypermedia?
A combination of media whose locations are linked electronically to provide an easy way to navigate.
What is hypertext?
A system which allows documents to be cross linked by way of clicking on links.
What does URL stand for?
Uniform Resource Locator
What are the sections of a URL?
- Protocol
- Domain name
- File path
What is meta data in HTML?
Data which is not displayed but helps to put the content in context.
List the tasks of a DBMS
- Organise data by way of a data dictionary
- Show relationships between entities by way of a schematic diagram
- check for errors in data entry
- facilitate changing of the database structure
- restrict access to authorised people onle
- provide information about performance of the database
What are the two methods of accessing data?
- Sequential access
- Direct access (also called relative access)
Describe sequential access
Records are of varying length so you have to read each record one after the other to locate a particular record. Efficient disk space usage but slow access.
Describe direct (relative) access
Records are of fixed length so you can jump to any record directly. Fast access but can be poor use of disk space.
What is an index with respect to direct access?
A table which is at the beginning of the set of records with information to help you locate where data is.
What is a distributed database?
A database which is distributed over several geographic locations to facilitate more effective access to the data.
