16: Information and technology Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is the purpose of information systems in an organisation?
To hold, process, and analyse information to support strategy and decision-making.
What are the three types of information needed at different organisational levels?
Strategic (long-term), Tactical (medium-term), Operational (day-to-day).
What qualities of information are required at the strategic level of an organisation?
Audience: Senior executives and board members.
Detail: High-level, summarised “big picture” information.
Timeframe: Long-term (years).
Frequency: Infrequently (quarterly or annually).
Qualities: Future-focused, aggregated with both internal and external context, supporting long-term decision-making.
What qualities of information are required at the tactical level of an organisation?
Audience: Middle management.
Detail: Moderate level with sufficient detail to bridge strategy with operations.
Timeframe: Medium-term (months to a year).
Frequency: Regularly (monthly or quarterly).
Qualities: Focused on planning and resource allocation; translates strategic goals into actionable items.
What qualities of information are required at the operational level of an organisation?
Audience: Operational staff and supervisors.
Detail: Highly detailed and specific transactional data.
Timeframe: Short-term (daily, weekly).
Frequency: Continuously or very frequently.
Qualities: Real-time, detailed, supports immediate actions and precise monitoring.
What are the four key reasons for investing in information systems?
Revenue opportunities, cost reduction, enhanced service, improved decision-making.
What are Earl’s system grid quadrants for evaluating IT systems?
Reassess, Divest, Maintain & Enhance, Renew (based on technical quality vs business value).
What are the main risks associated with IT and IS?
Inadequacy (not used effectively), breakdown (failure of system), excess expense (botched projects, expensive contracts etc)
What are the stages of an IT project?
Analysis, design, programming, testing, conversion, implementation
What are the problems with the analysis stage
- Misunderstanding project
- Miscalculating time frame
- Inadequate planning time
Problems with design/programming/testing/conversion stage
Insufficient time/money/quality
Insufficient user input
what are significant cyber risks
– Human threats: hackers, dishonest staff.
– Fraud: theft of funds.
– Deliberate sabotage: malicious damage, commercial espionage, industrial action.
– Viruses and other corruptions
– Denial of Service (DoS) attacks: an orchestrated attempt to overload a server by making multiple connections to it at once.
what are general IT risks
– Natural threats: fire, flood, electrical storms.
– Integrity: incorrect entry of data, multiple versions of or out-of-date files, loss of data.
– Non-compliance: data held is subject to data protection rules.
– Accidents: human error that causes damage.
How can IT risks be countered
Prevention: cost-effective methods to avoid threats in the first place such as the use of passwords and locks on doors. Staff should be vetted and sufficiently trained before being allowed access to systems. Due diligence should be carried out on outsourcers.
Detection: monitoring systems to trap and contain adverse events as they arise. Logs kept by systems can help analyse the situation after the event.
Deterrence: the enforcement of policies that could include dismissal for abuse of computer systems.
Recovery: restoring the system once the threat has been contained.
Correction: preventing any discovered vulnerability from becoming a future threat. To do this, an event has to trigger a review process.
Avoidance: changing the system design to eliminate the threat.
What is big data and what are the 4 Vs?
Large complex data sets; Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity.
What is the difference between structured and unstructured data?
Structured: organised/tabular (e.g., ledgers). Unstructured: visul and audio e.g. images, texts, video.
define data analytics, data mining and data warehouse
Data analytics: the process of collecting, organising and analysing large sets of data to discover patterns and other information for use in business decisions.
Data warehouse: essentially, a single database into which data is loaded in a standardised format for the purpose of data mining.
Data mining: the process of identifying patterns and relationships within and between different sets of data. In essence, it turns raw data into useful information.
what do organisations need to consider when introducing big data strategy
Access to skills capable of analysing large datasets.
Sufficiently robust security measures to safeguard the data.
The financial resources to invest in such a programme.
Satisfaction as to who owns the data in the datasets (the organisation or the customer?).
Give criticisms of big data
Correlation and causation: whilst it may be possible to spot trends, big data analysis doesn’t tell you why something is happening.
Data overload: just capturing information doesn’t necessarily mean it is valuable.
Sustainable competitive advantage: if everyone is doing it, long-term advantage will be eroded.
Representative data: only data that can be captured can be analysed and a proportion of the population may not be present in the data. Additionally, if organisations focus on fewer data feeds, the views formed may not be representative of the whole.
Name three technologies used to reduce operational costs.
Automation, intelligent systems (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning), cloud technologies.
Explain automation
automation has been applied to computer systems that can undertake ever more complex tasks. For example, in finance departments, many systems can connect to a company’s bankers, import a bank statement and post it to the ledgers.
Explain Intelligent systems
AI - Systems that can truly think for themselves in a similar fashion to humans. Such systems can perceive, reason, learn and interact with the environment. They can problem solve and even exercise creativity.
Machine learning - Systems that learn how to act without specifically being programmed to do so. Such algorithms detect patterns and learn how to make predictions and recommendations.
What are cloud technologies?
Benefits?
Systems using the internet for storage or processing, accessible from anywhere.
- Investment is lower as cloud hired based on usage vs physical
- Data can be accessed from any location
What are digital assets and how are they managed?
Non-physical assets like images and files; managed via Digital Asset Management Systems.
