Management Information Systems - Chapter 11

Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)

A set of specifications for interactive three-dimensional modeling on the World Wide Web.

Backward Chaining

A strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that acts like a problem solver by beginning with a hypothesis and seeking out more information until the hypothesis is either proved or disproved.

Forward Chaining

A strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with the information entered by the user and searches the rule base to arrive at a conclusion.

Augmented Reality

A technology for enhancing visualization. Provides a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR)

Artificial intelligence technology that represents knowledge as a database of cases and solutions.

Social Bookmarking

Capability for users to save their bookmarks to Web pages on a public Web sites and tag these bookmarks with keywords to organize documents and share information with others.

Digital Asset Management Systems

Classify, store, and distribute digital objects such as photographs, graphic images, video, and audio content.

Knowledge

Concepts, experience, and insight that provide a framework for creating, evaluating, and using information.

Organizational Learning

Creation of new standard operating procedures and business processes that reflect organization's experience.

Tacit Knowledge

Expertise and experience of organizational members that has not been formally documented.

Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems

General-purpose, firmwide systems that collect, store, distribute, and apply digital content and knowledge.

Neural Network

Hardware or software that attempts to emulate the processing patterns of the biological brain.

Enterprise Content Management Systems

Help organizations manage structured and semistructured knowledge, providing corporate repositories of documents, reports, presentations, and best practices and capabilities for collecting and organizing e-mail and graphic objects.

Knowledge Discovery

Identification of novel and valuable patterns in large databases.

Communities of Practice (COPs)

Informal social networks of professionals and employees within and outside the firm who have similar work-related activities and interests and share their knowledge.

Computer-Aided Design (CAD)

Information system that automates the creation and revision of designs using sophisticated graphics software.

Knowledge Work Systems

Information systems that aid knowledge workers in the creation and integration of new knowledge into the organization.

Hybrid AI Systems

Integration of multiple AI technologies into a single application to take advantage of the best features of these technologies.

Virtual Reality Systems

Interactive graphics software and hardware that create computer-generated simulations that provide sensations that emulate real-world activities.

Structured Knowledge

Knowledge in the form of structured documents and reports.

Explicit Knowledge

Knowledge that has been documented.

Expert System

Knowledge-intensive computer program that captures the expertise of a human in limited domains of knowledge.

Taxonomy

Method of classifying things according to a predetermined system.

Knowledge Base

Model of human knowledge that is used by expert systems.

Agent-Based Modeling

Modeling complex phenomena as systems of autonomous agents that follow relatively simple rules for interaction.

Knowledge Network System

Online directory for locating corporate experts in well-defined knowledge domains.

Investment Workstation

Powerful desktop computer for financial specialists which is optimized to access and manipulate massive amounts of financial data.

Genetic Algorithms

Problem-solving methods that promote the evoluting of solutions to specified problems using the model of living organisms adapting to their environment.

Fuzzy Logic

Rule-based AI that tolerates imprecision by using nonspecific terms called membership functions to solve problems.

Intelligent Agent

Software program that uses a built-in or learned knowledge base to carry out specific, repetitive, and predictable tasks for an individual user, business process, or software application.

Data

Streams of raw facts representing events occurring in organizations or the physical environment before they have been organized and arranged into a form that people can understand and use.

Machine Learning

Study of how computer programs can improve their performance without explicit programming.

Intelligent Techniques

Technologies that aid human decision makers by capturing individual and collective knowledge, discovering patterns and behaviors in large quantities of data, and generating solutions to problems that are too large and complex for human beings to solve on their own.

Wisdom

The collective and individual experience of applying knowledge to the solution of problems.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The effort to develop computer-based systems that can behave like humans, with the ability to learn languages, accomplish physical tasks, use a perceptual apparatus, and emulate human expertise and decision making.

Knowledge Management

The set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather, store, maintain, and disseminate the firm's knowledge.

Inference Engine

The strategy used to search through the rule base in an expert system; can be forward or backward chaining.

Learning Management System (LMS)

Tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning.

Folksonomies

User-created taxonomies for classifying and sharing information.

3-D Printing

Uses machines to make solid objects, layer by layer, from specifications in a digital file. Also known as additive manufacturing.