Management Information Systems Chapter 11

Group decision support systems (GDSS)

Are interactive computer based systems that facilitate the solution of unstructured problems by set of decision makers working together as a group in the same location or in different locations.

Structured decisions

Are repetitive and routine, and they involve a definite procedure for handling them so that they do not have to be treated each time as if they were new. Ex: operational management, individual employees, and teams.

Intelligent agents

Are software programs that work in the background without direct human intervention to carry out specific, repetitive, and predictable tasks for an individual user, business process, or software application.

Key performance indicators

Are the measures proposed by senior management for understanding how well the firm is performing along any given dimension.

Unstructured decisions

Are those in which the decision maker must provide judgment, evaluation, and insight to solve the problem. Ex: senior management makes these decisions.

Neural networks

Are used for solving complex, poorly understood problems for which large amounts of data have been collected.

Expert system

Captures human expertise in a limited domain of knowledge as a set of rules in a software system that can be used by others in the organization.

Intelligent techniques

Consist of expert systems, case-based reasoning, genetic algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy logic, and intelligent agents.

Choice

Consists of choosing among solution alternatives.

Intelligence

Consists of discovering, identifying, and understanding the problems occurring in the organization, why the problem exists, where, and what effect it is having on the firm.

Knowledge base

Expert systems model human knowledge as a set of rules that collectively are called this.

Design

Identifying and exploring various solutions to the problem.

Case-based reasoning (CBR)

In this, knowledge and past experiences of human specialist are represented as cases and stored in a database for later retrieval when the user encounters a new case with similar parameters.

Implementation

Involves making the chosen alternative work and continuing to monitor how well the solution is working.

Balanced scorecard Method

Is a framework for operationalizing a firms strategic plan by focusing on measurable outcomes of four dimensions of firm performance: financial, business process, customer, learning and growth.

Operational intelligence

Is a type of business activity monitoring that deals with how to run the business on a day-to-day basis.

Geographic information systems (GIS)

Provides tools that help decision makers visualize problems that benefit from mapping.

Knowledge management

Refers to a set of business processes develop in an organization to create, store, transfer, and apply knowledge.

Data visualization tools

Such as rich graphs, charts, dashboards, and maps.

Artificial intelligence

Technology which consist of computer based systems both hardware and software that attempts to emulate human behavior and thought process.

Location analytics

The ability to gain business insight from the location (geographic) component of data, including location data from mobile phones, output from sensors or scanning devices, and data from maps.

Drill down

The ability to move from a high-level summary to a more detailed view.

Investment workstations

The financial industry uses specialized _______ to leverage the knowledge and time of its brokers, trailers, and portfolio managers.

Tacit knowledge

The knowledge that resides in the heads of the employees

Inference engine

The strategy used to search through the collection of rules and formulate conclusions is called this.

Knowledge work systems (KWS)

These are specialized systems for engineers, scientist, and other knowledge workers that are designed to promote the creation of knowledge and ensure that new knowledge and technical expertise are properly integrated into the business.

Digital asset management systems

These help classify, store, and distribute digital objects like photographs, graphic images, video, audio content.

Enterprise connect management systems

These help organizations manage both types of information. They have capabilities for knowledge capture, storage, and retrieval, distribution, and preservation to help firms move their business processes and decisions.

Sensitivity analysis

These models ask what if questions repeatedly to predict a range of outcomes when one or more variables can change multiple times.

Learning management system (LMS)

These provide tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning and training.

Virtual reality systems

These use interactive graphic software to create computer generated simulations that are so close to reality that users almost believe they are participating in a real-world situation.

Business performance management (BPM)

This attempts to translate a firms strategies systematically into operational targets.

Enterprisewide knowledge management systems

This deals with all three types of knowledge. They are general purpose, firmwide systems that collect, store, distribute, and apply digital content and knowledge.

Augmented reality

This is a related technology for enhancing visualization. AR provides a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are argument by virtual computer-generated imagery.

Virtual reality modeling language (VRML)

This is a set of specifications for interactive, three dimensional modeling on the World Wide Web that organizes multiple media types, including animation, images, and audio, to put users in a simulated real world environment.

Pivot table

This is a spreadsheet feature for multidimensional analysis. This is also what super-user managers and analysis employ to identify and understand patterns in business information that can be useful for semi structured decision making.

Massive open online course (MOOC)

This is an online course made available via the web to very large numbers of participants.

Structured knowledge

This is explicit knowledge that exist in formal documents as well as formal rules that organizations derive by observing experts and their decision making behaviors.

Genetic algorithms

This is useful for finding the optimal solution for a specific problem by examining a very large number of alternative solutions for that problem.

Predictive analytics

Use statistical analysis, data mining techniques, historical data, and assumptions about future conditions to predict future trends and behavior patterns.

Fuzzy logic

is a rule-based technology that represents such imprecision by creating rules that use approximate or subjective values.

Semistructured decisions

when only part of the problem has a clear-cut answer provided by an excepted procedure. Ex: middle management