Comprehensive Information Systems and Data Management Glossary

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering basic Information Systems concepts, Database management from Chapter 6, and modern AI/Analytics topics.

Big Data (General)

Extremely large quantities of structured and unstructured data that are too vast or complex to process using traditional methods; generated by IoT devices, websites, social media, and other sources.

Business Model

Describes how a company produces, delivers, and sells a product or service to create wealth.

Business Processes

Logically related tasks and behaviors for accomplishing work within an organization (e.g., developing a new product, fulfilling an order, hiring a new employee).

Change Management

The many techniques used to bring about successful change in a business, including redesigning processes, training employees, and providing incentives for adoption.

Cloud Computing

A centralized system for storing, managing, and processing data across the Internet using a network of remote computing centers; allows access from any Internet-connected device.

Computer Hardware

Physical equipment used for input, processing, and output in an IS — computers, input/output/storage devices, and networking devices.

Computer Literacy

Knowledge of information technology (hardware and software) only; a narrower concept than information systems literacy.

Computer Software

Detailed, preprogrammed instructions that control and coordinate computer hardware components in an IS.

Cobot

Short for 'collaborative robot'; works alongside humans in shared workspaces.

Data

Streams of raw facts representing events in organizations or the physical environment before being organized into meaningful form.

Data Management Technology

Software governing the organization of data on physical storage media.

ESG

Environmental, Social, and Governance — the three criteria used to assess a firm's leadership in responsible business conduct; now a strategic business imperative.

Extranet

A private intranet extended to authorized users OUTSIDE the organization to coordinate activities with other firms.

Feedback

Output returned to appropriate members of an organization to evaluate or correct the input stage of an IS.

Information

Data that have been shaped into a meaningful and useful form for human beings.

Information System (IS)

A set of interrelated components that collect, process, store, and distribute information to support decision making, coordinating, and control in an organization.

Information Systems Literacy

A broad understanding of IS encompassing people, organizational, and technical dimensions — including behavioral as well as technical awareness.

Information Technology (IT)

All hardware and software a firm needs to achieve its business objectives.

Input

The activity that captures or collects raw data from within an organization or from its external environment.

Internet

The world's largest and most widely used network; a global network of networks using universal standards, connecting millions of networks in $230+$ countries.

Internet of Things (IoT)

A network of physical objects ('things') embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for connecting and exchanging data with other devices over the Internet.

Intranet

Internal corporate networks based on Internet technology.

IT Infrastructure

All technologies — hardware, software, data management, networking — plus the people required to run them; the platform on which specific IS are built.

Management Information Systems (MIS)

The study and application of IS that managers and employees use, dealing with both behavioral and technical issues surrounding IS development, use, and impact.

Network

A system that links two or more computers to share data or resources such as a printer.

Networking & Telecommunications Technology

Physical devices and software that link hardware components and transfer data between locations.

Output

The activity that transfers processed information to people who will use it or to activities for which it will be used.

Processing

The conversion of raw input into a meaningful form by classifying, arranging, and performing calculations.

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

Software bots that emulate human actions in interacting with digital systems — faster and more consistent than humans.

World Wide Web (WWW / the Web)

A service provided by the Internet using universal standards for storing, retrieving, formatting, and displaying information in a page format; pages are linked to each other.

Analytic Platform

Specialized preconfigured hardware-software system designed for query processing and analytics, using both relational and nonrelational technologies; can be $10$-$100\times$ faster than traditional systems.

Apache Spark

A Big Data processing engine that uses RAM (rather than a file system like Hadoop) to cache and process data; includes built-in machine learning algorithm libraries.

Attribute

A specific characteristic of an entity. Each attribute becomes a field (column) in the entity's database table.

Big Data (Chapter 6)

Data sets with volumes so huge they are beyond the ability of typical relational DBMS to capture, store, and analyze. Characterized by three 'Vs': extreme Volume, wide Variety, and high Velocity.

Bit

Short for binary digit; the smallest unit of data a computer can handle — a value of $0$ or $1$.

Blockchain

A distributed database technology enabling organizations to create and verify transactions on a P2P network without a central authority; stored as an unalterable chain of blocks.

Byte

A group of bits representing a single character — a letter, number, or symbol.

Data Cleansing / Scrubbing

Processes for detecting and correcting database data that are incorrect, incomplete, improperly formatted, or redundant.

Data Definition

A DBMS capability for specifying the structure and content of a database — creating tables and defining each field's characteristics.

Data Dictionary

A file that stores definitions and characteristics of every data element.

Data Governance

Policies and procedures through which data can be managed as an organizational resource; establishes rules for sharing, acquiring, and securing data.

Data Lake

A repository for raw, unstructured or structured data stored in native formats until needed; often stored using HDFS.

Data Manipulation Language (DML)

A specialized language for adding, changing, deleting, and retrieving data from a database (e.g., SQL).

Data Mart

A subset of a data warehouse containing a summarized or highly focused portion of the organization's data for a specific user population.

Data Mining

Discovery-driven analysis that finds hidden patterns and relationships in large databases to predict future behavior (e.g., associations, sequences, classification, clustering, forecasting).

Data Quality Audit

A structured survey of the accuracy and completeness of data in an information system.

Data Warehouse

A database storing current and historical data from multiple operational systems for management reporting; data can be accessed but NOT altered.

Database

A group of related files organized together — the highest level of the data hierarchy.

Database Management System (DBMS)

Software for creating, storing, organizing, and accessing data from a database; separates logical view from physical view.

Database Server

A dedicated computer on which the DBMS resides in a client/server environment.

Distributed Database

A database stored in multiple physical locations simultaneously — parts or copies maintained in different sites while operating as a single unified database.

Entity

A generalized category representing a person, place, or thing about which information is stored (e.g., CUSTOMER, SUPPLIER).

Entity-Relationship Diagram

A schematic diagram showing database entities as boxes, their relationships as connecting lines, and the type of relationship (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many).

Field

A grouping of characters forming a word, name, or number; also called a column in a relational database.

File

A group of records of the same type.

Foreign Key

A field in one table that refers to the primary key of another table, creating a link between the two.

Hadoop

Open-source framework for distributed, parallel Big Data processing across clusters of inexpensive computers; includes HDFS, MapReduce, and HBase.

In-Memory Computing

Data processing that relies primarily on RAM for data storage rather than disk storage to shorten query response times.

Join

A relational DBMS operation combining two or more tables into one result set using a shared common data element.

Key Field

A field that uniquely identifies each record in a table, allowing records to be retrieved, updated, or sorted.

MapReduce

Hadoop's data processing component; breaks down huge data processing jobs and distributes work to various nodes in a cluster.

NoSQL (Nonrelational) Database

DBMS using a flexible data model instead of traditional row/column tables; designed for large distributed and unstructured Big Data.

Normalization

The process of streamlining data groups to minimize redundant data elements and complications, increasing stability and flexibility.

OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)

A tool supporting multidimensional data analysis, enabling users to view data through multiple dimensions using cube-based data models.

Primary Key

The unique identifier field designated for each table in a relational database; cannot be duplicated.

Project

A relational DBMS operation creating a subset of specific COLUMNS — a vertical filter.

Query

A request for data from a database.

Record

A group of related fields — one complete set of information about a single entity instance; also called a row.

Referential Integrity

DBMS-enforced rules ensuring consistency between coupled tables by preventing records with foreign keys that have no corresponding primary key.

Relational Database

Organizes data into two-dimensional tables (relations) with columns and rows, linked through shared data elements.

Select

A relational DBMS operation creating a subset of all ROWS that meet stated criteria — a horizontal filter.

Sentiment Analysis

Software that mines text in emails, blogs, or social media to determine favorable and unfavorable opinions about specific subjects.

Smart Contract

A computer program embedded in blockchain that implements rules governing transactions among firms (price, timing, shipping).

SQL (Structured Query Language)

The standard data manipulation language for querying and manipulating relational databases.

Text Mining

Tools that analyze unstructured text data to extract key elements, reveal patterns, and summarize information.

Web Mining

Discovery and analysis of useful patterns from the web, encompassing content, structure, and usage mining.

Unstructured Decision

A novel, non-routine decision requiring judgment and insight where no agreed-on procedure exists; common at senior management level.

Structured Decision

A repetitive, routine decision with a well-defined procedure; typically made at operational levels.

Semistructured Decision

A decision where only part of the problem has a clear-cut procedure; common at middle management.

Decision-Making Process

Simon's four-stage model: Intelligence, Design, Choice, and Implementation.

High-Velocity Automated Decision Making

Decisions made entirely by computer algorithms in milliseconds or nanoseconds without human involvement.

Business Intelligence (BI)

Infrastructure for warehousing, integrating, reporting, and analyzing data from the business environment to support decision making.

Business Analytics (BA)

Tools and techniques for analyzing and understanding data (OLAP, statistics, data mining) to derive insight from BI infrastructure.

Predictive Analytics

Use of statistical analysis and historical data to forecast future trends and behavior patterns.

Operational Intelligence

Real-time monitoring and analysis of data streams from IoT devices and sensors to support day-to-day operational decisions.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Software tools that tie location data to points, lines, and areas on a map to help visualize and solve problems.

Balanced Scorecard

A management methodology measuring performance across four dimensions: Financial, Business Process, Customer, and Learning & Growth.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Specific measures proposed by senior management to understand firm performance along balanced scorecard dimensions.

Sensitivity Analysis

A modeling technique that repeatedly asks what-if questions, changing variables to predict a range of outcomes.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Technology that overlays digital data and images onto a real-world environment to enhance user perception.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Computer systems that take environmental data as input and process it using specialized techniques to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence.

Expert Systems

AI systems that capture expert knowledge as IF-THEN rules in a knowledge base and use an inference engine to reach conclusions.

Machine Learning (ML)

An AI paradigm that finds patterns in large datasets through statistical inference without explicit rule programming.

Supervised Learning

ML where the system is trained on a labeled dataset (human-identified inputs and desired outputs).

Unsupervised Learning

ML where the system discovers patterns and clusters on its own without human-labeled examples.

Neural Network

An AI system of interconnected units (neurons) loosely modeled on the brain, using a Learning Rule algorithm for pattern recognition.

Deep Learning

A complex neural network with many layers of transformation used for pattern detection on unlabeled data; basis of modern image and speech AI.

Genetic Algorithm

A machine learning technique that finds optimal solutions by simulating evolutionary processes (selection, crossover, mutation).

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

AI that enables computers to analyze, understand, and generate human language.

Intelligent Agent

A software program that works in the background to carry out specific tasks for a user or process (e.g., Siri, Alexa).