Information Systems Development Concepts

A set of flashcards covering key concepts in information systems development, including definitions and important processes.

What is a recurring cost in information systems development?

A cost resulting from the ongoing evolution and use of a system.

What is Third Normal Form (3NF)?

A relation that is in second normal form and that has no functional (transitive) dependencies between two (or more) non-primary key attributes.

What is a foreign key?

An attribute that appears as a non-primary key attribute in one relation and as a primary key attribute (or part of a primary key) in another relation.

What defines a tangible benefit from an information system?

A benefit derived from the creation of an information system that can be measured in dollars and with certainty.

What is functional decomposition?

Break high-level abstract information into smaller units for more detailed planning.

What is a walkthrough in systems development?

A peer group review of any product created during the systems development process.

What is normalization in the context of databases?

The process of converting complex data structures into simple, stable data structures.

What does economic feasibility analyze?

The process of identifying the financial benefits and costs associated with a development project.

What is denormalization?

The process of splitting or combining normalized relations into physical tables based on the affinity of use of rows and fields.

What does top-down planning involve?

A generic ISP methodology that attempts to gain a broad understanding of the information system needs of the entire organization.

What is value chain analysis?

Analyzing an organization’s activities to determine where value is added to products and/or services and the costs incurred for doing so.

What is referential integrity in databases?

An integrity constraint specifying that the value (or existence) of an attribute in one relation depends on the value (or existence) of the same attribute in another relation.

What is a Baseline Project Plan (BPP)?

This plan is the major outcome and deliverable from the project initiation and planning phase and contains the best estimate of the project’s scope, benefits, costs, risks, and resource requirements.

What is a break-even analysis?

A type of cost–benefit analysis to identify at what point (if ever) benefits equal costs.

What is incremental commitment in systems development?

A strategy in systems analysis and design in which the project is reviewed after each phase and continuation of the project is rejustified.