ISDS415 Ch1

The use of dashboards and data visualizations is seldom effective in finding efficiencies in organizations, as demonstrated by the Seattle Children's Hospital Case Study. (T/F)

False

One of the four components of BI systems, business performance management, is a collection of source data in the data warehouse. (T/F)

False A BI system has four components: (1) a data warehouse, with its source data; (2) business analytics, a collection of tools for maipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the DW; (3) business performance management (BPM) for monitoring and analyzing performance; (4) and a user interface (e.g. a dashboard)

Information systems that support such transactions as ATM withdrawals, bank deposits, and cash register scans at the grocery store represent transaction processing, one of the critical components of BI. (T/F)

False BI is not transaction processing. Those transaction processing systems are involved in handling updates to operational databases. OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) systems handle a company's routine business.

The term intelligence in a BI context is used to describe clandestine operations dedicated to stealing corporate secrets, in the manner of the government's CIA and other covert agencies. (T/F)

False That's espionage. BI intelligence refers to how modern companies ethically and legally organize themselves to glean as much as they can from customers, their business environment, their stakeholders, their business processes, their competitors, and other such sources.

Computerized support is only used for organizational decisions that are responses to external pressures, not for taking advantage of opportunities. (T/F)

False The Business Pressures-Response-Support Model has three components: business pressures that result from today's business climate; responses (actions taken) by companies to counter the pressures or to take advantage of the opportunities available; and computerized support that facilitates the monitoring of the environment and enhances the response actions taken by the organizations.

The success of BI is assured not because of which personnel would be the most likely to use it, but as a result of pervasive adoption across the organization. (T/F)

False The success of BI depends, in part, on which personnel in the organization would be the most likely to make use of BI. One of the most important aspects of a successful BI is that it must be of benefit to the enterprise as a whole.

The two critical partnerships required for BI governance are (a) a partnership between functional area users and/or product/service area employees, and (b) a partnership between representatives of the marketing and vendor sides. (T/F)

False The two critical partnerships required for BI governance are (a) a partnership between functional area HEADS and/or product/service area LEADERS (middles), and (b) a partnership between potential customers and providers (representatives of the business and IT sides).

Data warehouses are subsets of data marts. (T/F)

False: A data mart is a subset of a data warehouse, typically consisting of a single subject area (e.g., marketing, operations).

Which of the following is a common way of visualizing the frequency distribution of data points over a range of possible values?

Histogram

Actionable intelligence is the primary goal of modern-day Business Intelligence (BI) systems vs. historical reporting that characterized Management Information Systems (MIS). (T/F)

True

In addition to deploying business intelligence (BI) systems, companies may also perform other actions to counter business pressures, such as improving customer service and entering business alliances. (T/F)

True

One way an operational data store differs from a data warehouse is the recency of their data. (T/F)

True

The access to data and ability to manipulate data (frequently including real-time data) are key elements of business intelligence (BI) systems. (T/F)

True

The use of statistics in baseball by the Oakland Athletics, as described in the Moneyball case study, is an example of the effectiveness of predictive analytics. (T/F)

True

Traditional BI systems use a large volume of static data that has been extracted, cleansed, and loaded into a data warehouse to produce reports and analyses. (T/F)

True

How are descriptive analytics methods different from the other two types? a) They answer "what-is?" queries, not "what will be?" queries. b) They answer "what to do?" queries, not "what-if?" queries. c) They answer "what will be?" queries, not "what to do?" queries. d) They answer "what-if?" queries, not "how many?" queries.

a) They answer "what-is?" queries, not "what will be?" queries.

Statistical Data Variable Type: A variable that contains the values of either Yes or No would best be categorized as which of the following variable types?

binary

Business intelligence (BI) can be characterized as a transformation of

data to information to decisions to actions

Statistical Data Variable Type: A variable that contains a countable number of distinct values would best be categorized as which of the following variable types?

discrete

The very design that makes an OLTP system efficient for transaction processing makes it inefficient for what? a) end-user ad hoc reports, queries, and analysis b) transaction processing systems that constantly update operational databases c) the collection of reputable sources of intelligence d) transactions such as ATM withdrawals, where we need to reduce a bank balance accordingly

end-user ad hoc reports, queries, and analysis

Subject oriented databases for data warehousing are organized by detailed subjects such as disk drives, computers, and networks (T/F)

false

Which of the following is NOT an example that falls within the four major categories of business environment factors for today's organizations? a) increased competition b) increased pool of customers c) fewer government regulations d) globalization

fewer government regulations

In answering the question "Which customers are likely to be using fake credit cards?" you are most likely to use which of the following analytic applications? a) customer segmentation b) channel optimization c) customer profitability d) fraud detection

fraud detection

What can the BI users in an organization help guide and direct? a) how to implement and deploy a BI initiative that can be lengthy, expensive, and failure prone b) how the DW is structured and the types of BI tools and other supporting software that are needed c) how to decompose the planning and execution into business, organization, functionality, and infrastructure components d) how the DW is structured and the costs and the appreciation for different classes of potential users

how the DW is structured and the types of BI tools and other supporting software that are needed

Once a data warehouse is in place, the general process of intelligence creation begins with

identifying and prioritizing specific BI projects

If a company's strategy is properly aligned with DW and BI initiatives, and if the company's IS organization can be made capable of playing its role in such a project, and if the requisite user community is in place and has the proper motivation, then: a) it is no longer necessary to start BI within the company. b) it is wise to start BI and establish a BI Competency Center (BICC) within the company. c) the organization is ready for the introduction of new data-generating technologies, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID). d) business leaders are required to document their business processes and to sign off on the legitimacy of the information they rely on.

it is wise to start BI and establish a BI Competency Center (BICC) within the company

Statistical Data Variable Type: A variable that contains the values of United States Zip Codes (aka Postal Codes) would best be categorized as which of the following variable types?

nominal

In the Magpie Sensing case study, the automated collection of temperature and humidity data on shipped goods helped with various types of analytics. Which of the following is an example of prescriptive analytics? a) optimal temperature setting b) real time reports of the shipment's temperature c) warning of an open shipment seal d) location of the shipment

optimal temperature setting

Statistical Data Variable Type: There is a web-based survey that asks you, "On a rating of 1(hated it) to 5(loved it), how much did you like the movie." This value is stored in your database and you need to categorize the statistical variable type. Which of the following variable types would be best?

ordinal

Organizations counter the pressures they experience in their business environments in multiple ways. Which of the following is NOT an effective way to counter these pressures? a) reactive actions b) anticipative actions c) adaptive actions d) retroactive actions

retroactive actions

Active data warehousing can be used to support the highest level of decision making sophistication and power. The major feature that enables this in relation to handling the data is

speed of data transfer

Big Data often involves a form of distributed storage and processing using Hadoop and MapReduce. One reason for this is: a) the "Big" in Big Data necessitates over 10,000 processing nodes. b) the processing power needed for the centralized model would overload a single computer. c) Big Data system have to match the geographical spread of social media. d) centralized storage creates too many vulnerabilities.

the processing power needed for the centralized model would overload a single computer.