WGU C724 Questions with 100% accurate answers (PASS GUARANTEED)

Data

Symbols or signals that are input, stored, and processed by a computer for output as usable information.

Hardware

the physical equipment and devices that make up a computer system and are connected by networks. Includes input, output, and storage devices.

People

are the information system professionals and users who use computers

Software

Made up of programs and instructions to run your computer and network.

Network

a system of computers joined together so they can communicate and share resources.

Processes

Processes and procedures provide a structured sequence of activities to govern the use, operation, and maintenance of IS.

Executive Information System (EIS)

This system supports senior executives by providing important data in the form of graphs and charts to analyze and identify long-term trends.

Decision-Support Systems (DSS)

focus on supporting all phases of specific decision-making processes and procedures for arriving at a solution.

The Four Components of Decision-Support Systems (DSS)

data, model, knowledge, and user interface management.

Management Information Systems (MIS)

represent a category of information systems that serve low or first level managers and are usually focused on short- to medium-term business decisions.

The Five Components of Management Information Systems (MIS)

hardware, software, database, network, and people.

Transaction processing systems (TPS)

collect, store, update, and retrieve transaction data within an organization and is used by middle management.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

are used by executive and upper management to see how the organization is performing in certain areas.

Executive Support Systems (ESS)

use internal and external data to help executives make unstructured decisions.

The Four Components of the Executive Support Systems (ESS)

hardware, software, user interface, and telecommunications.

Information Systems

an integrated network of components that provide managerial and operational support to businesses by collecting and processing data into useful information as well as providing for storage, retrieval, and security of data and the information it's transformed into.

Information Technology

refers to the hardware and software required to manage and deliver information.

Information

is the meaningful organization of data so that statements can be made about them.

Major Reasons Firms Invest in Information Systems

1. achieve operational excellence

2. develop new products and services

3. attain customer intimacy and service

4. improve decision making

5. promote competitive advantage

6. ensure long-term survival

7. develop strong relationships with suppliers

An information system can provide solutions to problems and economic value to a business.

Information Management

is concerned with collecting, managing, manipulating, organizing and reorganizing, and distributing information from a variety of sources to a variety of audiences in an organization.

Data Cleansing

ensuring data accuracy and integrity by correcting inaccurate information and deleting erroneous or duplicate data.

Information Technology Management

is concerned with the management of resources that facilitate access to information.

Major Business Functions Provided by Information Systems

accounting and finance

Human Resources

Production and Operations

Sales and Marketing

Strategic Information Systems

provide tools used by an organization to accomplish specific tasks in order to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Porter's 5 Forces Model

that helps companies develop competitive strategies using Information Systems. Includes new entrants, substitute products or services, bargaining power of customers and suppliers, and competitive rivalry.

Value Chain

a set of inputs used by a strategic information system and put into meaningful outputs to help a company gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace

Network Economics

the cost of adding another business participant to a business venture is small, the potential gain is great.

Virtual Company Model

Networks of people and resources join together to provide a service or create a product without the traditional storefront boundaries.

Business Ecosystems

A network of businesses, such as suppliers and distributors, that are involved in providing delivery of a service or product through cooperation.

Network-Based Strategies

create mutually beneficial partnerships between businesses.

Product Differentiation Strategy

this strategy can include offering a higher quality product or service.

a) A core competency is an activity for which a business is a marketplace leader.

b) Synergy is the cooperation between several businesses to produce a better product or service than would be possible if each business worked independently. Companies must clearly understand their strengths and weaknesses and join forces with other companies to create positive synergy.

Growth Strategy

can include adding new products or new enhancements to existing products and can also include acquisition, where one business purchases another.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

systems tightly integrate functional areas such as accounting, finance, project management, inventory control, purchasing, human resources, customer retention, sales, and marketing into one single, comprehensive IT system to allow for more focused system wide decisions.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

uses technology to merge marketing with business processes to strengthen customer relationships and organize customer information (likes, dislikes, and previous purchase history).

Supply Chain

is the sequence of processes involved in getting raw materials for a product all the way to the production and distribution of a product into the hands of the customer.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) System

works to increase the efficiency of the process of getting materials developed into the products and pushed out to the customer.

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)

uses technology such as the Internet, collaboration software tools, and databases, to facilitate the capturing of corporate data and helps companies deal with personnel turnovers and rapid changes.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

is responsible for the success or failure of the company, creating the company culture, and setting strategy and vision.

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

oversees the daily operations in a business and communicates the organization's mission statement to employees.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

manages the company finances.

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

is the company's top technology leader and focuses on the people and technology needed to run a company and serves as the technology infrastructure manager for the company and oversees information systems matters.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

has the responsibility for implementing technology strategies.

Chief Security Officer (CSO)

is concerned with overall security functions for a business.

Network and Computer System Administrators

install and repair computer systems, as well as identify and fix network issues.

Information Security Analysts

are responsible for the security of a company's network, data, and information.

Database Administrators (DBA)

build databases to store data to meet business needs and are responsible for all three functions including focusing on security and access requirements, designing, and performing testing to ensure performance.

Database Technical Specialist

must know how to capture and use the company's data.

Web Developers

are responsible for creating and maintaining a company's website.

Computer Programmers

Someone who writes code to instruct computers to perform certain tasks.

Software Engineer

is a higher level computer programmer. Someone in this position not only writes the code but is responsible for designing a new application, developing specifications, overseeing the implementation, and supporting users after implementation.

Computer Support Specialist

provides technical support to customers and employees through direct interaction or telecommunications. The support could be through training or troubleshooting technical issues.

Computer Systems Analyst

their job is to analyze a user's needs and determine the most efficient and effective solution and they combine their business knowledge with technical expertise.

IT Managers, Project Managers, and Architects

organize, direct, coordinate, and plan IT-related activities, people, and projects within an organization.

Internet of Things (IoT)

is the network of products (or things) that can be connected through the internet, communicate with each other and with the environment, and transfer data over a network.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

is the capability provided to the consumer to deploy onto the infrastructure consumer-related or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

is the capability provided to the consumer to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

is the capability provided to the consumer to use the provider's applications running on this kind of infrastructure.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

is a common set of best practices widely used by businesses to give guidance to companies on how to use IT as a tool for implementing change.

Agile Software Development Methodology

is an operational method by which software developers iteratively gather requirements, plan, design, develop, test, and implement software.

Relationship with Business Strategy

The adoption or construction of an information system must be aligned with the organization's goals.

Value Creation Through Technology Use

Today's computer technologies, such as wireless sensor networks and cloud computing, allow organizations to create added value in nearly every industry and profession. As a result, several industries have been created, along with many professions, jobs, and fortunes. Technology tools have evolved over the years to create value for business by facilitating calculations, documents creation, and graphs.

Political and Legal Pressures

response is to enact policies, complying to standards, and allying with experienced partners.

Cultural Pressures

response is by using ethical business practices, building strong cultural ties with stake holders, socially responsible, enacting sustainable business policies and practices.

Technological Pressures

response to these pressures by planning for improvements to reduce or manage complexity, creating faster and more accurate models to make better decisions, and innovating to sustain competitive advantages, to keep up with competitors, or to enter new markets.

Economic Pressures

response to these pressures by realizing the need to plan for or react to a changing workforce, powerful suppliers, customers, and/or competitors.

Project Management

is the application of planning, organizing, time management, leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills to accomplish an objective and deliverable on time and on budget.

Major Components of a Project

Time, Scope, Resources (cost), and Quality

Risk Management

involves determining the vulnerability, assessing the impact that risk would have if event occurred, evaluating cost/benefit analysis to avoid or transfer the risk, and implementing the plan.

Analyze Risk

first determine the impact to the business should that risk occur and the likelihood that this risk will actually occur.

Acceptance Testing Process

involves end user evaluation and review of the system in order to demonstrate that the system is ready to be rolled out.

Risk Mitigation Planning

where these are planned to be avoided, reduced, accepted, or transferred.

Strategies for Managing Project Risk

1. Risk Acceptance - Accepting that a risk will occur and doing nothing to avoid or prevent it.

2. Risk Avoidance - Developing an alternative plan for achieving objectives by avoiding a specific risk or risk category.

3. Risk Sharing - partnering with groups of individuals who have more experience and who will accept or absorb some of all of the risk involved.

4. Risk Reduction - Acting to reduce the potential for a risk to occur or affect damage to the project.

5. Risk Transference - Shifting risk to another party.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Information Management

1. failures and problems can be spotted before they become too expensive to handle

2. more information can be sorted, summarized, analyzed, and digested for decision making by fewer people.

3. the use of accurate reports and analytical data, both time and money can be saved by better selecting or reworking projects so that they have the best chance for success.

4. organizations must rely on experienced and expensive human and technological resources to create them or on the companies that supply them.

5. integrations into the various sources of data, as well as the data themselves, must be accurate, reliable, and be able to be maintained.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Information Technology Management

1. Brings order to chaos by providing structure, standards, policies, and protocols.

2. an organization can do a better job at competing within its markets, and effectively communicating with its stakeholders.

3. Once information technology (computers, peripherals, etc.) is implemented, support for these must be managed to minimize the risk of failure or obsolescence and to ensure that they are being properly used, managed, secured, and maintained by the people that know them.

Global Exporting

all services from the organization's home location means not changing the centralized structure and requiring all but production to stem from the centralized domestic location, including systems and data storage.

Multinational Organization

means that organizational divisions would be headquartered in different locations, whether partially with an international organization or completely with a transnational organization.

Multinational franchising, licensing, joint venture, or foreign direct investment, or similarly branded, semi-independent organizations

are controlled locally but coordinated (perhaps loosely) through the centralized organizations' structure. Information systems and data storage in this model is typically decentralized at each foreign location, or at strategic location(s) in the local region.

Challenges to Global Information Systems

1. Laws that limit information transfer, including trans border privacy and data transfer laws and other regulations.

2. Social and cultural norms.

3. Cultural particularism, which are societal norms instilled in populations that tie them emotionally to local brands or habits.

In developing information systems, organizations generally accommodate non-domestic developers by changing the structure of operations in these different ways

1. Decentralized development, where developers in different locations develop their own solutions independently.

2. Duplicated systems development, where developers in the centralized location develop information systems and tools, which are then intended to be operated on similar systems at each of the international locations (Laudon & Laudon, 2012).

3. Networked development, where development and operations are planned, combined, and coordinated between international locations

Global Information Systems Business Strategies

Is any information system which attempts to deliver the totality of measurable data worldwide within a defined context.

ENIAC

30-ton 1,800 ft2 (sometimes called the "Great Brain"), the first general-purpose electronic, digital computer used to calculate artillery ranges

UNIVAC

(room sized) and lighter (15-ton) derivative descendent of ENIAC, this is the first commercially available mainframe

Evolution of Computers (Hardware)

The earliest commercially available electronic, digital computer occupied a 20 foot by 40 foot room and consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors that were replaced by integrated circuits.

a) First Generation: Vacuum tubes (1940 - 1956)

b) Second Generation Transistors (1956-1963)

c) Third Generation Integrated Circuits (1964 - 1971)

d) Fourth Generation: Microprocessor (1971-Present)

e) Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence (Present and Beyond) are bringing us capabilities such as voice recognition

Floating Operations Per Second (FLOPS)

Computing power is increasing as clock speeds get faster and more operations can be performed per second.

Evolution of Software

Before the late 1940s, reprogramming a computer with different instructions consisted of changing manual switches (as in on or off switches), wiring, or using punched cards to reconfigure mechanical components within them.

a) From the first numerically based computer languages, such as FORTRAN in the 1940s and 1950s. FORTRAN stands for Formula Translation/Translator and is used for math, engineering, and scientific calculations

b) English-like programming languages, such as COBOL in the 1960s. COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language and was the first computer software language for business applications.

c) Java and C++ are examples of contemporary programming languages, with Java enabling online game development.

d) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a programming environment that provides tools, like compilers and debuggers, for developers to write code.

e) Pseudocode is an informal high-level description of the operating principle of a computer program or other algorithm. It uses the structural conventions of a normal programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading. Pseudocode typically omits details that are essential for machine understanding of the algorithm, such as variable declarations, system-specific code and some subroutines.

Input Components

include devices that provide input into the processing unit. These include peripherals, such as the keyboard, mouse, microphone (audio input), sensors, and document or visual scanners.

Processing Components

include the central processing unit (CPU), which is the brain of the computer. Historically this unit included several components, such as a control unit, a processor, an arithmetic or logic unit, and memory components. Modern CPUs have merged these components into an integrated design. Today, multiple-core processors can be used in tandem for a single computer, tablet, or smartphone. Supercomputers exist today that have the equivalent of millions of processors.

Storage Components

include primary temporary storage and secondary long-term storage devices. Random access memory (RAM) is temporary or short-term storage used by the processor. A hard drive is long-term storage that acts as a reserve aide for short-term storage or to store output data. Other storage includes peripheral devices such as external hard drives and removable media (floppy disks, optical discs, and flash drives).

Output Components

include internal storage devices or processes, as well as external peripherals such as monitor screens (visual output), speakers (audio output), and printers (physical output).

System Bus

which is the medium through which communications between the input, processor, storage, and output occur.

Motherboard

is the device that contains the system bus and connects the various input and output devices that compose any given computer system.

Network Interface Cards

allow computers to connect to networks.

Server

manages network resources and services

Handheld Scanner

is one that is moved by hand over the material being captured (barcode scanner).

Input Devices

included now-archaic punch cards or magnetic readers and contemporary input, such as analog audio (e.g., voice recognition), keyboard input, touch sensitive screens, biometric scanners (e.g., fingerprint, hand, or eye scanners), motion detection, optical character recognition (OCR) (e.g., from a document scanner), and image capture (e.g. from cameras or other imaging equipment).

Output Devices

includes document printers, audio output devices (i.e., speakers), visual output (e.g., monitors and televisions), and computer-aided design equipment.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

contains the circuitry necessary to interpret and execute program instructions that allow a computer to function.

Primary Storage

are typically referred to as volatile flash memory, meaning that information storage is temporary and can only be stored until power is removed. Includes RAM, Cache Memory, and ROM, that is directly accessible to the CPU.

DRAM

the most common type of RAM and is used as system memory, when large amounts of RAM are needed.

SRAM

is used as cache memory, to access the most frequently used instructions and data more quickly.