Chapter 17 - Terms

Question 1

Moore’s law

Answer 1

the prediction that about every two years, computer processing power would double and its cost would drop by 50 percent

Question 2

Raw data

Answer 2

facts and figures

Question 3

Information

Answer 3

useful data that can influence people’s choices and behavior

Question 4

First-mover advantage

Answer 4

the strategic advantage that companies earn by being the first to use new information technology to substantially lower costs or to make a product or service different from that of competitors

Question 5

Acquisition cost

Answer 5

the cost of obtaining data that you don’t have

Question 6

Processing cost

Answer 6

the cost of turning raw data into usable information

Question 7

data silo

Answer 7

is an isolated data set that is difficult to obtain, combine or use with other company data.

Question 8

data variety

Answer 8

that is, data that are formatted or structured in different ways.

Question 9

Storage cost

Answer 9

the cost of physically or electronically archiving information for later retrieval and use

Question 10

Retrieval cost

Answer 10

the cost of accessing already-stored and processed information

Question 11

Communication cost

Answer 11

the cost of transmitting information from one place to another

Question 12

Bar code

Answer 12

a visual pattern that represents numerical data by varying the thickness and pattern of vertical bars

Question 13

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags

Answer 13

tags containing minuscule microchips that transmit information via radio waves and can be used to track the number and location of the objects into which the tags have been inserted

Question 14

Electronic scanner

Answer 14

an electronic device that converts printed text and pictures into digital images

Question 15

Optical character recognition

Answer 15

the ability of software to convert digitized documents into ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text that can be searched, read, and edited by word processing and other kinds of software

Question 16

Processing information

Answer 16

transforming raw data into meaningful information

Question 17

Data mining

Answer 17

the process of discovering unknown patterns and relationships in large amounts of data

Question 18

Data warehouse

Answer 18

a database that stores huge amounts of data that have been prepared for data mining analysis by being cleaned of errors and redundancy

Question 19

Supervised data mining

Answer 19

the process when the user tells the data mining software to look and test for specific patterns and relationships in a data set

Question 20

Unsupervised data mining

Answer 20

the process when the user simply tells the data mining software to uncover whatever patterns and relationships it can find in a data set

Question 21

Association or affinity patterns

Answer 21

when two or more database elements tend to occur together in a significant way

Question 22

Sequence patterns

Answer 22

when two or more database elements occur together in a significant pattern in which one of the elements precedes the other

Question 23

Predictive patterns

Answer 23

patterns that help identify database elements that are different

Question 24

Data clusters

Answer 24

when three or more database elements occur together (that is, cluster) in a significant way

Question 25

Protecting information

Answer 25

the process of ensuring that data are reliably and consistently retrievable in a usable format for authorized users but no one else

Question 26

Authentication

Answer 26

making sure potential users are who they claim to be

Question 27

Authorization

Answer 27

granting authenticated users approved access to data, software, and systems

Question 28

Two-factor authentication

Answer 28

authentication based on what users know, such as a password and what they have in their possession, such as a secure ID card or key

Question 29

Firewall

Answer 29

a protective hardware or software device that sits between the computers in an internal organizational network and outside networks, such as the Internet

Question 30

Virus

Answer 30

a program or piece of code that, without your knowledge, attaches itself to other programs on your computer and can trigger anything from a harmless flashing message to the reformatting of your hard drive to a system-wide network shutdown

Question 31

Data encryption

Answer 31

the transformation of data into complex, scrambled digital codes that can be decrypted only by authorized users who possess unique decryption keys

Question 32

Virtual private network (VPN)

Answer 32

software that securely encrypts data sent by employees outside the company network, decrypts the data when they arrive within the company computer network, and does the same when data are sent back to employees outside the network

Question 33

Secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption

Answer 33

Internet browser–based encryption that provides secure off-site web access to some data and programs

Question 34

Executive information system (EIS)

Answer 34

a data processing system that uses internal and external data sources to provide the information needed to monitor and analyze organizational performance

Question 35

Intranets

Answer 35

private company networks that allow employees to easily access, share, and publish information using Internet software

Question 36

Corporate portal

Answer 36

a hybrid of executive information systems and intranets that allows managers and employees to use a web browser to gain access to customized company information and to complete specialized transactions

Question 37

Electronic data interchange (EDI)

Answer 37

when two companies convert their purchase and ordering information to a standardized format to enable the direct electronic transmission of that information from one company’s computer system to the other company’s computer system

Question 38

Web services

Answer 38

software that uses standardized protocols to describe data from one company in such a way that those data can automatically be read, understood, transcribed, and processed by different computer systems in another company

Question 39

Extranets

Answer 39

networks that allow companies to exchange information and conduct transactions with outsiders by providing them direct, web-based access to authorized parts of a company’s intranet or information system

Question 40

Knowledge

Answer 40

the understanding that one gains from information

Question 41

Decision support system (DSS)

Answer 41

an information system that helps managers understand specific kinds of problems and potential solutions

Question 42

Expert system

Answer 42

an information system that contains the specialized knowledge and decision rules used by experts and experienced decision makers so that nonexperts can draw on this knowledge base to make decisions

Question 43

Artificial intelligence, or AI

Answer 43

the capability of computerized systems to learn and adapt through experience