MGMT Midterm Review

Info Labs Inc., a marketing communications company, launches a project at a fixed cost of $180,000. What is the amount of savings earned from the project per month if it returns the investment in 3 years?

$5,000

Which of the following statements is true of information technology (IT)?

Anything capable of collecting, processing, storing, or displaying electronic data is potentially part of an information system.

Which of the following technologies is better equipped than relational databases to handle big data?

Hadoop

T'/F: Speech input devices have overtaken all other input devices.

False

T/F: A black swan refers to those favorable, external events which contribute to an organization's growth.

False

T/F: A confirmation bias is a rare human tendency to believe that an event was predictable even if it was not.

False

T/F: A database is an example of system software.

False

T/F: A difference between projects and processes is that processes are unique, whereas projects are recurring.

False

T/F: A drawback of the waterfall method is the inability to make changes to previous stages once they are complete.

False

T/F: A feasibility study is an important part of the analysis stage of the SDLC.

False

T/F: A good retention management strategy does not promise a fast return on investment.

False

T/F: A low-cost leadership strategy means offering a highly differentiated product at a price that is lower than the market price.

False

T/F: A marketing representative who wants to put a positive spin on a tally of recent orders chooses to include orders that have been canceled in his report. This report exemplifies high-quality data.

False

T/F: A phased implementation is an expensive process that launches a new system while the old one is still running.

False

T/F: A use case diagram will show the series of steps involved in the implementation process of a system.

False

T/F: According to Porter's model, cost of transportation is one of the five forces that influence industry competition.

False

T/F: Agile software development methods use a highly structured approach in which tasks are sequenced according to the SDLC.

False

T/F: All valuable supply chain metrics stay visible even when no one collects them.

False

T/F: Application software includes operating system software and utilities

False

T/F: As a result of the rising demand for wireless bandwidth, there is not a single part of the wireless spectrum that is left unlicensed.

False

T/F: Binary code for SOS is an example of knowledge.

False

T/F: Business continuity refers to the willingness of an organization to pull the plug on a project in which huge sums and resources need to be invested.

False

T/F: Business process reengineering was criticized because it overemphasized the importance of the human element in managing business processes.

False

T/F: COBOL programming language is neither used in present systems nor in legacy business applications.

False

T/F: Commercial off-the-shelf software requires permission from the software developers before it can be installed and used.

False

T/F: Commercially produced information systems are inept at handling back-office information needs.

False

T/F: Companies have replaced sharing information through sensing technologies with electronic data interchange.

False

T/F: Companies often use different relational DBMS for their data warehouse and operational database.

False

T/F: Compliance reports can help identify events that fall outside accepted ranges.

False

T/F: Creative destruction refers to an innovation that fails miserably and leads to huge losses within the industry.

False

T/F: Database developers should use meaningful information for primary keys.

False

T/F: Differentiating the product or service for a particular market niche is called product differentiation strategy.

False

T/F: Engineered suites offer solid integration on the back-end and consistent user interfaces throughout.

False

T/F: Escalation of commitment refers to the tendency of people to increase features in a project in order to accommodate excess resources.

False

T/F: Human capital management systems avoid using social networks due to the unregulated nature of media.

False

T/F: In a table, a field can contain either numeric data or text but not a combination of both.

False

T/F: In acceptance testing, tests are conducted by an organization's IT staff to assess how well a system performs under peak loads.

False

T/F: In an organization, each employee might work for one or more projects, as well as for different managers. In such a case, the best approach by a database manager would be to create multiple records for the employee.

False

T/F: In certain situations, such as fund-raising for an NGO, information systems are not of any use.

False

T/F: Joystick is an example of an output device.

False

T/F: Locations communicated through GPS are accurate within no less than a few kilometers.

False

T/F: Long supply chains are less susceptible to disruption than are short supply chains.

False

T/F: Master data management has more to do with technology than people, processes, and governance.

False

T/F: Network effects refer to the ability of a product to fit into a new system.

False

T/F: One of the disadvantages of interactive voice response (IVR) is that it cannot handle massive call volumes.

False

T/F: Optical disks are considered high cost primary storage devices.

False

T/F: Organizations implement information systems to support and streamline business processes, but never to eliminate them.

False

T/F: Procurement and technology support are primary activities of a value chain.

False

T/F: Project charters are drafted in kickoff meetings.

False

T/F: SaaS ERP solutions are "instant on" products, which require minimal training and reengineering of workflows compared to on-premise versions.

False

T/F: Scope creep refers to a strategy in which everyone in a project team agrees upon what features the project will involve.

False

T/F: Screen attractiveness is an example of a performance requirement in a system.

False

T/F: Shards or slices of a database should be accessed from the same computer for improved performance.

False

T/F: Since the operational requirements for nonprofits are completely different from businesses, information systems do not offer any strategic uses to nonprofits.

False

T/F: Sustaining technologies are radical and unexpected breakthroughs that replace lower-end products and rapidly overtake high-end products of the market.

False

T/F: The critical path in a Gantt chart is the shortest path through the project and identifies those tasks that can be delayed without affecting the finish date.

False

T/F: The data collected by online pop-up surveys can be considered to be high-quality data.

False

T/F: The development and application of innovative information systems improve the operations of an organization; however, they do not lead to any competitive advantage.

False

T/F: The drive to rebrand some familiar services as "cloud computing" is solely about building a brand new architecture rather than about the marketing hype created.

False

T/F: The planning processes lay the groundwork for the project by clarifying the value it will bring to the organization, setting its objectives, and estimating the project's length, scope, and cost.

False

T/F: The power of suppliers is high when there are many suppliers in a market.

False

T/F: The presence of loyalty programs reduces the switching costs of a product or service.

False

T/F: The process of sequentially executing operations on each record in a large batch is called data integration.

False

T/F: The psychology of group dynamics invariably shifts positively when team members use online tools to communicate.

False

T/F: The thin, flexible shape of coaxial cables allows them to wind easily through ceilings, walls, and cubicles.

False

T/F: Timelines add value to information as a means of avoiding bias.

False

T/F: Voice calls that require circuit-switching cannot be configured to a packet-switching network.

False

T/F: While creating a relational database for an organization, "Employees" would constitute one attribute with employee ID number, last name, first name, birth date, email address, and phone number as entities.

False

________ is an important part of the planning stage of the systems development life cycle and examines whether an initiative is viable from technical, financial, and legal standpoints.

Feasibility study

________ help drivers navigate while transporting materials and keep managers in touch with their transportation fleets.

GPS devices

Which of the following is a cloud computing-based service?

Google Docs

Which of the following is the best example of an attempt to create network effects?

A telecom service provider introduces a family plan that provides free calls within the family.

Which of the following is a fundamental characteristic of an ecosystem?

It includes the related industries making complementary products and services, the competitors themselves, the suppliers, and the consumers.

Which of the following is a valid observation on price-based rivalry among existing competitors?

It is damaging for the competitors and the industry in which they operate.

Which of the following is a shortcoming of the extended value chain?

It is difficult to allocate responsibility in the event of a mishap.

Why is it a challenging task to calculate a project's return on investment (ROI)?

It is difficult to estimate ROI for projects where costs rise unexpectedly and revenue increases are hard to predict.

________ refers to technology that manages all the office phone lines, voice mail, internal billing, call transfers, forwarding, conferencing, and other voice services.

Private branch exchange (PBX)

Which of the following is a difference between projects and processes?

Projects are unique and one of a kind, whereas processes are recurring.

Which of the following is an important reason why the United States adopted computing much earlier than countries such as China and Japan?

The English alphabet is easier to accommodate on the ASCII keyboard than the Chinese or Japanese alphabets.

Which of the following governmental actions will increase the threat of new entrants in a market?

The Federal Reserve reduces the interest rates on credit for small businesses

Which of the following is an accurate justification for the view that the Internet is the most important disruptive innovation of the twentieth century?

The Internet reduced entry barriers for newcomers and empowered buyers with more information.

The type of testing that involves end users performing final testing to determine whether a project is complete as specified is known as ________.

acceptance testing

A quantitative analyst working in an investment bank will be able to ________.

access some information on the bank's servers

Which of the following statements describes the product differentiation strategy?

adding special features to a product for which customers are willing to pay more

Service-oriented architecture is especially useful in ________ companies.

agile

Which of the following is a part of a company's supply chain management?

aligning supply with demand

Which of the following functions does the version control software perform?

allowing developers to track versions of the source code during development

Which of the following techniques helps IT staff collaborate with people in other functional areas?

avoiding using technical terms while speaking to internal customers

The maximum amount of information measured in bits per second which a particular channel can transmit is called its ________.

bandwidth

Scanners combined with optical character recognition (OCR) software were first used by ________.

banks for processing checks

An IT company uses industry average as a standard for measuring its financial performance. Here, the industry standard is used as a(n) ________.

benchmark

The ________ procures the finest systems for each application, regardless of the vendor.

best-of-breed approach

________ refers to collections of data that are so enormous in size, so varied in content, and so fast to accumulate that they are difficult to store and analyze using traditional approaches.

big data

The term ________ is used to describe an extremely rare event that is difficult or nearly impossible to predict, but which can have an immense impact in areas such as technology, finance, and science

black swan

Laid-off workers, who are hired back owing to their positive attitude and networking capabilities when businesses recover, are called ________.

boomerangs

The success of web-based shopping hinges on ________.

building stronger customer relationships and identifying the unique needs of each customer

Play-e-ball, a company that creates games for gaming consoles, gathers data from the information systems of its partners, suppliers, and distributors. It uses this data along with internal data to develop different games for different consumer demographics, and it targets the most profitable segments. Which of the following is illustrated in this scenario?

business intelligence

________ refers to the information that managers draw from the company's own information systems and external sources to make decisions.

business intelligence

Which of the following is a factor that directly affects a company's choice of suppliers?

business strategy

If a supplier has a limited number of buyers, then the ________.

buyers will have more power

How can a company avoid the trap of competing only on price?

by differentiating the products or services that it offers

Which of the following is referred to as the brain of a computer?

central processing unit

The ________ refers to a process organizations put into place to manage and prioritize requests to add new features to an information system.

change control process

Mary connects to the Internet and types the address of a web page on her browser. The browser sends a request to the system hosting the web page, which then sends back the instructions to display the page requested. Which network is being used in this process?

client-server network

Which of the following types of networks has one or more high-performance hosts running programs and storing data that different users can access?

client-server network

The ________ phase ideally involves wrapping up a project in an orderly way and a sponsor signing off that all deliverables have been received and accepted.

closing

________ refers to ICT architecture in which users access software applications and information systems remotely over the Internet, rather than locally on an individual PC or from servers in the organization's data center.

cloud computing

Single inner conductor wires (typically copper) surrounded by insulation, which are then surrounded by a mesh-like conductor are called ________.

coaxial cables

Which of the following wired media is typically used to carry television signals?

coaxial cables

Which among the following is the hardest task for an organization's program management office?

collecting consistent data from projects

Software products such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Premiere, and Quicken are also called ________.

commercial off-the-shelf software

Which of the following should a project manager ideally do to efficiently manage a project?

communicate the time, cost, and scope constraints clearly as the project unfolds

Rivalry in an industry is high when the ________.

companies mainly compete on price

IT acts as a strategic enabler when ________.

it focuses on the growth of an organization

What is the main drawback of using unstructured information?

it makes retrieving information very difficult

Which of the following is a disadvantage of prepackaged software?

it requires an organization to change its business processes

Making changes to an integrated database is considered a challenge because ________.

it takes less time from IT but more from the end user

The ________ compresses the time horizon for software development and focuses on the time available until the next release while the development team determines how many of the requirements it can deliver in that time frame.

iterative method

Which of the following should be undertaken during the design phase of the SDLC?

keeping in mind end users with disabilities

A company tried implementing an ERP system and failed. Which of the following is the most likely reason for its failure?

lack of preparatory training

Which of the following is a feature of nonprofit organizations that differentiates them from for-profit organizations?

lack of shareholders

Optical fiber cables are ideal for long distance transmission because ________.

light signals do not degrade

Which of the following is commonly used by organizations to influence the operation of Porter's five forces?

lobbying for governmental action

Demand forecast accuracy is important because underestimating demand leads to ________.

lost sales

Southwest Airlines offers better fares compared to most of its competitors. This helps the company attract customers. Which of the following strategies is being used by Southwest Airlines?

low-cost leadership strategy

Vendors are providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) products because of the need to ________.

lower implementation costs

Which of the following is a change brought about by virtualization?

lowered electricity consumption and hardware expenses

Which of the following classes of computers is still used for massive bulk processing tasks and financial transactions that require high reliability?

mainframe computers

Which of the following is a function of operating systems?

maintaining file structure

One goal of normalization is to ________.

make data functionally dependent

Early integrated application suites evolved from systems that supported ________.

manufacturing resource planning

Kris, an IT manager at Park Infosystems, is handling four projects simultaneously. Each project has loaned and shared resources from other teams. The relationship between Kris and the project that he is working on represents a ________.

many-to-many relationship

An approach that attempts to achieve consistent and uniform definitions for entities and their attributes across all business units is called ________.

master data management

In Aster Limited, the HR department did not include interns as employees in their database, while the finance department included them. Such inconsistencies can be avoided through ________.

master data management

While using a word processor to create a project report, Ashley includes the subject, title, and the author's name in the report's properties. What type of information is Ashley adding to her report?

metadata

Which of the following is true of black swan events?

The invention of the personal computer is an example of a black swan.

T/F: An organization's data warehouse contains information drawn from multiple sources that can be used for analysis, intelligence gathering, and strategic planning.

True

T/F: Analysts can use software to simulate business processes and conduct "what if" experiments to find innovative approaches that leverage the power of information systems.

True

T/F: Attracting new customers is often more difficult and expensive than retaining existing ones.

True

T/F: Binding, formal agreements with vendors and consultants are essential to the success of a project.

True

T/F: Business intelligence refers to all the information available to managers from many sources beyond the organization's own information systems.

True

T/F: Change management refers to a structured approach to the transition employees must make as they switch from their existing work processes to new ones.

True

T/F: Changes to an integrated database take less time from IT but more from the end users.

True

T/F: Companies are embedded in a complex ecosystem where events in one arena affect the whole community.

True

T/F: Data stewards ensure that people adhere to the definitions for the master data in their organizational units.

True

T/F: Deliverables refer to the products, documents, or services that will be delivered to the sponsor during the course of the project.

True

T/F: Digital subscriber lines significantly improve transmission speed over twisted pair wires.

True

T/F: Disaster recovery refers to all the procedures, documentation, and resources the organization puts into place to prepare for a disaster and recover the technical infrastructure.

True

T/F: Disconnects in communication between IT staff and others in the organization often arise because of the jargon barrier.

True

T/F: During mergers, integration of multiple databases becomes a major challenge.

True

T/F: E-discovery is one of the methods used to uncover corporate scandals.

True

T/F: E-government involves efforts to make unclassified information available to citizens via the Internet.

True

T/F: End-users with disabilities should be considered in the design phase of the SDLC.

True

T/F: Every project is constrained by three fundamental, interrelated forces: time, cost, and scope.

True

T/F: Executing processes involve coordinating efforts that ensure the tasks on the work breakdown structure are carried out properly.

True

T/F: Fuel prices affect supply chains.

True

T/F: Government action can influence how Porter's five forces operate in industries.

True

T/F: Identifying high-cost points along the supply chain is the first step toward reducing operational costs.

True

T/F: Implementing ERPs very often results in dismal success rates and runaway costs.

True

T/F: In a computer, the central processing unit handles information processing, calculations, and control tasks.

True

T/F: In the United States, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandates many aspects of compliance.

True

T/F: In the context of telecommunications, a network is a group of interconnected devices.

True

T/F: Information systems should meet compliance standards set by governments and other regulatory agencies, which may change from time to time and also vary by country or state.

True

T/F: Information systems support data-driven decision making which draws on a large amount of data to reveal important trends and patterns.

True

T/F: Java is often used to provide instructions for set-top cable boxes and webcams.

True

T/F: Nonprofit and government agencies need additional modules for their financial systems.

True

T/F: Often, the only logical choice for the implementation of small systems is a direct implementation strategy.

True

T/F: Orange fiber-optic cables, the coaxial cables used by cable TV companies, and the slender copper telephone wiring common in homes are an important part of the infrastructure of information systems.

True

T/F: Peer-to-peer networks support file sharing on the Internet.

True

T/F: Prepackaged software is a good option for business functions that do not need to offer competitive advantage.

True

T/F: Proactive live chats on websites in the customer support context offer considerable savings.

True

T/F: Rivalry within an industry will be high if firms compete mainly on price.

True

T/F: Shadow systems are managed by individuals or departments and not by the central IT staff in an organization.

True

T/F: Spammers use "web beacons" routinely to verify that email addresses are valid.

True

T/F: The ASCII code determines how characters are encoded into digital strings.

True

T/F: The binary code for SOS is information and the word "HELP!!!" is knowledge.

True

T/F: The chief information officer heads the IT department in most organizations.

True

T/F: The choice of software development environments and hardware architecture is affected by the experience and capabilities of an organization's IT staff.

True

T/F: The close integration of information technology and strategy with every aspect of business means that every employee is really an "information officer."

True

T/F: The closing phase of a project should also include a process that documents the lessons learned from the project.

True

T/F: The corporate responsibility objectives of a company affect its decisions regarding sources and suppliers.

True

T/F: The goal of the planning phase of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) is to define the business need for a project.

True

T/F: The person who leads a requirements analysis needs to have a solid background in business management and information systems.

True

T/F: The study of information systems-how people, technology, processes, and data work together-is referred to as management information systems.

True

T/F: The threat of new entrants in an industry is very high when startups can open a business with little capital and few employees.

True

T/F: The threat of substitutes is high when alternative products are available.

True

T/F: To balance the information needs of multiple stakeholders, top-level managers need clear, consistent, and accurate reports that summarize information from across the enterprise.

True

T/F: Twitter is growing as a way to provide customer support, largely because it can reach customers in near real-time.

True

T/F: Virtualization is an important element in the drive toward eco-friendly information systems.

True

T/F: When a user clicks "SUBMIT" on a web-based survey, the record is inserted into the database through an SQL command.

True

T/F: While IT consumes a significant amount of the funds required for running a business, the funds for growing an organization are closely tied to strategy, innovation, and competitive advantage.

True

T/F: Workforce management modules draw on the information stored in sales records that shows when peak demand occurs.

True

A foreign key is ________.

a primary key which appears as an attribute in a different table

Which of the following best describes project portfolio management?

a process that oversees all projects and selects which projects to pursue

Identify the project for which governmental funding is most critical.

a research project on hybrid oil

Competition is not severe in the telecommunication industry in Brazil. More than ninety percent of the market is dominated by four large players. Which of the following will increase the rivalry among these four players?

a significant slowdown in market growth

Which of the following best describes a transistor?

a small electrical circuit made from a semiconductor material such as silicon

Which of the following uses databases without boundaries?

a social networking website

The ________ encompasses services each employee will be provided, whether and how much they can utilize company resources for personal use, the kinds of surveillance that are in place, and reinforce legal requirements, such as prohibitions against unauthorized copying.

acceptable-use policy

Which of the following is a function of the human capital management system?

optimizing labor schedules

Which of the following is a key attribute of the low-cost leadership strategy?

optimizing the value chain by eliminating unwanted expenditures

As a result of people editing, cutting and pasting, and making copies of electronic documents, ________.

organizations find it difficult to manage the retention process

A company resorts to discount blowouts to get rid of excess merchandise. Which of the following scenarios is most likely to have triggered this action?

overestimation of demand

Which of the following disasters is most likely to cause massive absenteeism in organizations?

pandemics

A ________ of an information system launches the new system while the old one is still running and employees either do their jobs twice or two separate teams handle the same processes.

parallel implementation

Which of the following includes a high-level description of a system that an organization is on the lookout for?

request for information

________ is a driver of information systems development that touches on security, privacy, safety, and regulatory compliance.

risk management

Which of the following is a function of the telecommunications component?

routing traffic to different locations

Which of the following is a function of a requirements definition document (RDD)?

specifying the features that an information system should have

Exception reports that are generated by financial information systems help organizations primarily in ________.

spotting fraudulent transactions and mistakes that require a manual review

Which of the following best describes confirmation bias?

the tendency to choose information that supports our existing position

Which of the following best defines escalation of commitment?

the tendency to continue to invest in a project despite mounting evidence that it is not succeeding

Which of the following best describes an availability bias?

the tendency to judge the probability of an event based on how easily examples come to mind

Which of the following best describes a planning fallacy?

the tendency to underestimate the time it will take to complete a task

Videoconferencing has evolved as an alternative for business travel. This best illustrates ________.

the threat of substitutes in a market

People pay a monthly subscription fee to financial service companies to get current stock prices. Which of the following characteristics of information does this highlight?

timeliness

Purple Stones, an interior decorator, has an online store to enable quicker purchase of its products. The website allows users to post reviews of products. This helps other customers evaluate the quality of a product before buying it. Which of the following is illustrated in this scenario?

user-generated content

An online retail website has a low rate of customer retention. Which of the following would be the most effective way to help the company increase its retention rate?

using a CRM system to track customer behavior when they visit the site

Which of the following is a method employed by some organizations to prevent access to USB ports in order to keep employees from copying data?

using epoxy glue

SQL links tables together by ________.

using primary keys and foreign keys

Which of the following factors makes VoIP technology preferable to customers over circuit-switched network?

greater range of supplementary services

An operational database is not a good candidate for high-level management reporting because it is not equipped to ________.

handle complex queries for strategic planning

In an information system department, the operations department is responsible for ________.

handling backups and archiving

One of the uses of databases without boundaries is in ________.

handling unstructured data during emergency disaster relief situations

In an ERP suite that includes modules specialized for higher education, which of the following would be used to track donations, pledges, and gifts, and manage contacts and donor relationships?

institutional advancement

Which of the following is Microsoft's proprietary language used in its development environment?

.NET

Which of the following families of standards is widely used for wifi connections?

802.11

Steve, an entrepreneur, is setting up his Internet startup company on a small farm in a rural area to take advantage of the low power costs. The office building is a rectangular area that diagonally measures 60 meters. Steve plans to install a central wireless router that can provide Internet access from any point inside the office. The business operation requires high Internet speeds in the range of 100-150 Mb/s. Which of the following wireless standards would best serve Steve's requirements?

802.11n

Which of the following strategies is devised to raise switching costs?

A chain of supermarkets offers higher discounts to its regular customers

CopyIT, a copy machine manufacturing company, sustains its investment in technological innovation, particularly in areas such as color science, digital imaging, and nanotechnology. These strategic investments, made only in specific areas, keep the company ahead of the competition. Which of the following messages does this example convey?

Although many technologies are commodities, the ability to extract their value requires human imagination.

Which of the following statements is true of the value chain?

As the extended value chain lengthens, responsibility for harmful consequences becomes more diffuse.

"Low-cost leaders must automate their processes." Which of the following is the most compelling reason to support this argument?

Automation will help them eliminate human labor in certain activities.

Which of the following is an example of peer-to-peer network?

BitTorrent

________ focuses on designing, optimizing, and streamlining business processes throughout the organization, taking into account the human element.

Business process management

________ an information system is typically the best choice for a business when the available systems support common business functions, such as financial or human resource management.

Buying

Which of the following illustrates a low-cost leadership strategy?

CGlass sells inexpensive, fashionable eyewear in comparison with its competitors.

Which of the following illustrates a sustaining technology?

Car manufacturers invented airbags to improve safety of passengers

________ encompasses the strategies, processes, and information systems that an organization uses to build and maintain relationships with the current and prospective users of its products or services.

Customer relationship management

Which of the following is true of the triple constraint in projects?

Changes in one fundamental constraint affect the other constraints as well.

Harry, an employee of Bennett-Techno Inc., is responsible for ensuring that the technological setup in the organization supports the organization goals. He is also responsible for setting the organization goals. Which of the following positions does Harry hold in the organization?

Chief Information Officer

________ is the person who heads the department responsible for managing and maintaining information systems, and ensuring they support the organization's strategic goals.

Chief Information Officer

________ plays a leading role in managing efforts to improve an organization's ability to capture, nurture, and disseminate expertise.

Chief Knowledge Officer

________ is a peer review process in which programmers familiar with the project and the development environment check over one another's work to ensure it is well documented and properly written.

Code review

"The information and communications technology (ICT) component is at the very heart of the company's competitive advantage." Which of the following statements is the most accurate justification of this claim?

Companies benefit from the cost savings made possible through information systems.

Which of the following is true of compliance reporting?

Compliance reports relying on XBRL are more advanced than electronic PDFs.

________ refers to the processes by which electronic data that might be used as legal evidence are requested, secured, and searched.

E-discovery

Which of the following is true of an ecosystem?

Events in one arena of an ecosystem can affect all players involved.

________ in project management include all the coordinating efforts that ensure that tasks on the work breakdown structure are carried out properly.

Executing processes

"IT resources have become a commodity." Which of the following statements best supports this claim?

IT resources are available to all the players in a market.

New information systems will enable the creation of electric meters that run "backwards." Which of the following best explains this statement?

IT will allow customers to see their patterns of daily energy use

Which of the following reasons explains why waterfall methods are still widely in use?

It has a logical and familiar structure which is comfortable to use.

How is metadata related to information?

It helps clarify the nature of the information.

Which of the following is true of a byte?

It holds eight zeros and ones and represents a single character

Which of the following is an example of amplification effect of information systems?

Information on a person's social networking account can easily be distributed to an unintended audience.

Which of the following statements is true of information systems?

Information systems are involved in tracking employee payroll, taxes, benefits, and timesheets.

Which of the following is a characteristic of structured information?

It can be broken down into component parts and organized in hierarchies.

Which of the following is an advantage of cloud computing?

It enables better accessibility to data in terms of place and time.

How did online markets affect the dynamics between buyers and suppliers?

It granted more power to the buyers.

Chloe's, a chain of supermarkets, is conducting a customer survey in its largest store, which is in California. Customers are asked to fill out questionnaires as they enter the store. The questionnaire is divided into sections that polls customers on the store's products and the e-commerce website. Which of the following is a drawback of the data collected through this poll?

It is incomplete.

Which of the following is an advantage of custom system development?

It is tailored closely to an organization's needs.

Which of the following is a drawback of the waterfall method?

It is unable to adapt to changes in the business landscape.

Which of the following statements is true about in-memory computing

It is used for applications that benefit from high speed, real-time access

How does virtualization impact businesses?

It lowers hardware expenses.

Which of the following is true of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)?

It makes data computer-readable

Which of the following is true of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)?

It makes data computer-readable.

Which of the following statements is true about user-generated content?

It makes up most of the information in systems such as eBay, Craigslist, and Wikipedia.

Which of the following is a drawback of using circuit-switched network?

It often wastes capacity.

Which of the following is true of creative destruction?

It presents newcomers with an opportunity to succeed against incumbents in an industry.

Which of the following best describes support activities?

It refers to processes including administration and management, human resources, procurement, and technology assistance.

Which of the following is an advantage of prepackaged software?

It requires a short implementation time.

Which of the following is a drawback of cloud computing?

It requires an extremely reliable Internet connection.

Which of the following is a disadvantage of custom system development?

It requires long periods of time before going live

Which of the following statements is true of e-government?

It saves people the time spent in commuting to and waiting at government offices.

Which of the following statements is true of a project charter?

It shows that the senior management support the project

Which of the following is the main benefit offered by IPv6 compared to the previous protocol?

It supports a greater number of IP addresses

Which of the following is a disadvantage of using consulting services?

It tends to make employees feel less ownership of a project and less committed to changes.

Which of the following statements is true of a strategic enabler?

It transforms a business or helps build a new business model.

Navi-devices Inc., a manufacturer of portable navigation devices, provides free traffic updates and identifies the nearest parking spaces available with its latest device. It accomplishes this by using GPS coordinates of subscribers and traffic data from radio stations. Which of the following is the most likely impact of this strategy?

It will provide the company with a competitive advantage

Which of the following statements is true of the information technology team in an organization?

It works closely with the staff from other functional areas of the organization.

Which of the following is an example of an operating system?

Linux

Which of the following statements is true of ICT architectures in the 1960s?

Mainframe computers formed the foundation of the ICT architecture.

How are policies enforced in information systems?

Managers develop policies that are enforced by the information systems.

Melloc is one of many suppliers selling milk to retail customers. Since there are many sellers, price is a major determinant of market success. Which of the following statements about Melloc is true?

Melloc faces powerful buyers in the retail market.

________ track progress from start to finish, pinpointing any deviations from the plan.

Monitoring and controlling processes

Which of the following is an open source software product?

Mozilla Firefox

What is the drawback of using Social Security Numbers (SSN) as the primary key for tables of employees, hospital patients, students, or cable TV customers?

Non-U.S. citizens may not have an SSN

Which of the following statements is true about the use of IT in nonprofit organizations?

Nonprofit organizations need IT support and strategy to achieve their objectives.

Sam, the CEO of a product development company, is planning to implement an ERP system in his company. However, most of his colleagues advise him against implementing such a system saying that such systems have more weaknesses than strengths. Why should Sam still go ahead with the implementation?

Once in place, the ERP can dramatically enhance operational efficiencies and reduce costs.

Which of the following is a strong reason to believe that IT is essential to manage nonprofits?

Operational requirements for nonprofits are similar to for-profit businesses.

Why are the operational requirements to run nonprofits considered similar to businesses?

Operations such as payroll, accounting and finance, and human resources are essential for nonprofits.

________ capture text or images and convert them to digital format in thousands of settings.

Optical scanners

In the context of Porter's five forces, what impact will patents have on a business?

Patents will reduce the threat of new entrants in an industry.

Which of the following statements is true about the ethical issues surrounding information systems?

People tend to judge the severity of ethical violations in information systems partly on the basis of the number of people affected.

Which of the following companies has a focused niche strategy?

Playball, a merchandise company, customizes T-shirts based on customer requests.

________ is a technology placed on tags that consist of small chips equipped with a microprocessor, a tiny antenna to receive and transmit data, and sometimes a battery that stores information on the tagged object's history.

RFID

________ are attached to packages or crates and can transmit data as they pass by readers at seaports, railway stations, or warehouses.

RFID chips

________ refers to the creation of software prototypes that can be shared with users for receiving feedback, so that developers can make improvements before a lot of effort is spent building a fully functioning version.

Rapid application development

________ is a process in which stakeholders identify the features that a project will need and then prioritize them as mandatory, preferred, or nonessential.

Requirements analysis

________ helps organizations classify user-generated content as pro, con, or neutral toward the company or product.

Sentiment analysis

Which of the following questions pertains to maintaining security in an information system?

Should an employee be allowed to delete or access data that another employee inputs into the information system?

Which product allows voice commands, sequenced like a natural conversation, as a means to access a database?

Siri

T/F: A wireless router has a wired connection to the network and sends radio signals from the antennae.

True

Which of the following situations is representative of the last mile issue in telecommunications?

Subscribers of an Internet service provider that uses optical fiber for Internet connectivity complain of poor Internet speeds as DSL lines have been used as wiring to their homes.

________ are the costs that customers incur when they change suppliers.

Switching costs

Which of the following is the reason why privacy breaches present major risks in this era of information system computing?

The amount of information that is stored in information systems is vast and very private.

Which of the following is the reason why speech data is gaining importance in call centers?

The analysis of the tone of voice and tempo reveals valuable information.

Which of the following actions of a sugar manufacturing company is an extension of its value chain beyond its own primary and support activities?

The company buys a large sugarcane plantation in another country.

Alduro Plastics, a utensils manufacturing company, decides to extend its value chain by acquiring a manufacturer of raw materials. Which of the following, if true, would most support Alduro's decision?

The company's major supplier displays a sloppy attitude while supplying materials.

Which of the following is true of IT spending in an organization?

The funds used to run a business are mainly for the kinds of IT resources that now fall into the commodity category

Which of the following statements is true about information and communications technology?

The main role of the telecommunications component involves moving electronic signals from one place to another.

Why do nonprofit organizations stand to gain from using information systems, just like business?

The operational requirements to run nonprofits are similar to the operational requirements for businesses.

Carbon Automotive manufactures engines for different cars. The company supplies its products to leading car manufacturers in Europe and America. Which of the following statements indicates that Carbon has high bargaining power?

The selling point of many cars is that they contain Carbon engines

Which of the following statements is true of the IT department areas?

The systems administration department installs, manages, and updates servers

________ is high in an industry when alternative products that offer attractive savings are available.

The threat of substitutes

Which of the following statements is true of the value chain?

The value chain includes primary and support activities used to produce a product.

Which of the following is an advantage of using twisted pair wires for transmission?

Their thin, flexible shape lets them wind easily through ceilings, walls, and cubicles.

Which of the following is an advantage of a parallel implementation of an information system?

There are two systems processing the same case, both of which should have the same output.

Which of the following reasons led to the popularity of social networking sites?

These sites enabled the sharing of news, photos, videos, and tidbits easily.

Which of the following statements is true of information systems that support collaborative human activities?

These systems, being in their early stages, offer a framework for more improvements and features to be included.

Which of the following is a feature of the devices that form the physical basis of information and systems?

They are considered computers or computer components.

Which of the following statements is true about netbooks?

They are smaller laptops that provide a cost-effective means to wirelessly connect to the Internet.

Which of the following statements is true of data, information, and knowledge?

They blend together and form a continuum.

How do web-based online self-service applications transform an organization's relationships with its customers?

They free customers from time-consuming and routine forms of direct contact.

Which of the following is a constraint on crisis management teams?

They have very little time to react and take action.

Which of the following statements is true of web-based shopping and online self-service applications?

They increase the amount of time spent in face-to-face interactions with the customer.

Which of the following best defines agile methods?

They involve characteristics of cohesiveness and trust.

Which of the following is a characteristic of best-of-breed suites?

They match user requirements closely.

Which of the following statements is true of microwave transmissions?

They send signals in the gigahertz range to relays in the line of sight.

Which of the following statements is true of management information systems?

They support tactical decision making at the managerial level.

T/F: All types of organizational strategies leverage information systems to succeed.

True

Which of the following is a part of the suite of protocols used for Internet communications that connect Ethernet and other networks together?

Transmission Control Protocol

T/F: A benchmark is a baseline measurement considered as optimal, though it is sometimes simply an industry average.

True

T/F: A blog with a title, subtitle, content with date of creation, and a few images exemplifies semi-structured information

True

T/F: A code review is a peer review process in which programmers familiar with a project check over one another's work to ensure it is well documented and properly written.

True

T/F: A disadvantage of custom system development is that it involves high overall cost and requires more time before going live.

True

T/F: A drawback of cloud computing is that an extremely reliable Internet connection is a must.

True

T/F: A key document that authorizes the project is the project charter which shows that the project has the commitment and support of senior management.

True

T/F: A network database supports many-to-many relationships.

True

T/F: A news agency requires an immediate account of the casualties in an airplane accident for a news alert. In this situation, a quick, approximate report would be preferred rather than a detailed, accurate report that requires considerable time to prepare.

True

T/F: A process diagram traces how each process operates from beginning to end in a way that is clear to all the stakeholders.

True

T/F: A project- and issue-tracking software offers customizable dashboards to developers that help them see at a glance how a project is coming along.

True

T/F: A reason why the waterfall method is still in use is because business managers are comfortable with its logical and familiar structure.

True

T/F: A relational database is less dependent on the hardware and its particular operating system.

True

T/F: A systems integrator is a special kind of consultant who has expertise in making the different hardware and software components of an information system work together.

True

T/F: A value chain can be extended by incorporating feedback from customers.

True

Which of the following sets of processes is carried out first in project management?

initiating process

Voice communications can be integrated with data communication through ________.

VolP

Which of the following input devices is capable of transmitting motion and location information?

a mouse

Which of the following is a major ethical issue arising out of value chain extension?

Who is responsible when there is damage?

A disruptive innovation is ________.

a new product or service that has the potential to reshape an industry

Shadow systems focus on ________.

specific information requirements of an individual or department

________ is a mobile broadband technology that relies on microwave transmissions to blanket large metropolitan areas from microwave towers, usually on buildings.

WiMax

Which of the following is a computer network in which connections rely on radio waves at frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz for transmission?

Wifi

________ help commercial shippers to read the barcodes on packages during transit and upload tracking number, date, time, and place to servers.

Wireless scanners

________ is a reference point used as a baseline measurement.

a benchmark

The advantage of using a suite with synchronized modules is that ________.

a common architecture overlays the systems to improve consistency across the modules

Which of the following illustrates a practice that can dramatically reduce supply chain costs?

a company supplying products directly to customers by omitting all middlemen

Which of the following companies will have the highest buying power?

a company that sells agricultural products procured from numerous farmers

InfoTech Horizons, an IT company, is seeking to hire an experienced IT professional to assist the Chief Information Officer in his role. The new hire will be groomed to take on the role of the Chief Information Officer. Which of the following candidates, all of whom have good technical skills, will prove to be the best choice?

a computer professional with good knowledge of business

Which of the following organizations requires the most number of modules for their financial systems?

a federal government agency

In order to safeguard individuals' sensitive information, which of the following organizations would typically restrict its employees' Internet usage?

a hospital

Which of the following best describes a project charter?

a key document that authorizes a project

Which of the following computer components accepts signals and converts them to a digital format that matches the signal's meaning?

a keyboard

Which process assigns incremental numbers to records as they are created to ensure that each record has a unique primary key?

autonumbering

Which of the following best defines change management?

an approach to the transition employees make as they switch from existing work to new processes

Which of the following is based on the cloud computing concept?

an information system shared by two or more businesses and accessed via the Internet

Which of the following best describes software as a service (SaaS)?

an information system that is owned, hosted, and managed remotely by a vendor

Which of the following organizations faces higher switching costs?

an organization that buys an information system to manage its own records

The ________ phase of the waterfall method involves nailing down requirements, at which point the developers estimate the time and resources needed to complete a project.

analysis

Anything that gives a firm a lead over its rivals is called ________.

competitive advantage

Which of the following tasks is performed by utility software?

compressing and backing up files

Which of the following pairs of products are complementary to each other?

computer and software

The use of live chats as a CRM strategy in the context of customer support will most likely result in ________.

considerable savings

When using databases without boundaries ________.

contributors feel strong ownership over their records

Which of the following is the primary goal of the development phase of the SDLC?

converting a design into a fully operational information system

Which of the following typically is the biggest cost component in an organization's IT spending?

cost of keeping the IT services running

Which of the following is calculated by adding the average advertising costs for job postings, agency fees, recruiter's salary and benefits, and relocation expenses for new employees?

cost per hire

Consistency in a company's financial management system is maintained by ________.

creating bridges and interfaces to other information systems

The ________ refers to the longest course through the project, which identifies those tasks that cannot be delayed without affecting the finish date.

critical path

Which of the following is a function of warehouse management software?

cross-docking

Which of the following is a CRM strategy used to earn more revenue from existing customers?

cross-selling

Which of the following is a metric that is commonly used in CRM?

customer satisfaction index

Structured query language is a standard query language ________.

used to manipulate information in relational databases

In an organization that is open to ideas from all employees, ________.

innovative concepts for information systems can come from any level

A single high-temperature reading of a patient at Patient First, a 24-hour walk-in clinic in Florida, is a piece of ________.

data

Raw facts that are available in different formats and sizes are called ________.

data

Which of the following refers to individual facts or pieces of information?

data

Retrieval is very fast through data cubes because ________.

data cubes group data in logical dimensions, such as sales by product, city, region, and country

________ specifies the characteristics of a field, such as the type of data it will hold.

data definition

The early file processing systems were very difficult to maintain because of ________.

data dependency between the programs and files

Documentation that contains the details of each field in every table, including user-friendly descriptions of the field's meaning, is known as ________.

data dictionary

Trekking blindly into terabytes of data to sniff out meaningless relationships that occur just by accident is called ________.

data drudging

A credit card company wants to spot elusive patterns in credit card transaction records to be able to block fraudulent transactions. This company should use ________.

data mining

_______ uses statistical techniques to explore a data warehouse and hunt for hidden patterns and relationships that are undetectable in routine reports.

data mining

A model used for planning the organization's database that identifies what kind of information is needed, what entities will be created, and how they are related to one another is called a(n) ________.

data model

A company maintains a centralized repository of information from internal sources, competitor information, census reports, and metadata from documents and multimedia. This is known as a ________.

data warehouse

Which of the following is used to spot trends, identify patterns, generate reports for compliance purposes, do research, and plan strategies?

data warehouse

________ is a prepackaged data warehouse solution offered by vendors that includes the hardware and software, maintenance, and support.

data warehouse appliance

Walking Together, an NGO, uses historical trends to determine in which month the amount given as donations is the highest, and then it sets the dates for its donation drives based on the trends. This is an example of ________.

data-driven decision making

An integrated collection of information that is logically related and stored in such a way as to minimize duplication and facilitate rapid retrieval is called a ________.

database

Databases are created and handled using ________.

database management software

A data model that graphically shows the tables, attributes, keys, and logical relationships for a database is called a ________.

database schema

Optical scanners are used to ________.

decipher barcodes and other symbols

The term ________ refers to products, documents, or services that will be handed over to the sponsor during the course of the project.

deliverables

Johanna Taylor, a creative developer at Leo Technologies Inc., is developing a website for the company. To address the usability needs of website visitors, she ensures that visitors would be able to easily locate what they need on the website. She avoids flashy graphics and chooses a font with high readability. Joanna is most likely in the ________ stage of the SDLP.

design

The ________ phase is a technical blueprint for a whole system which captures all aspects of how the system's components will function together to accomplish goals, using descriptions, diagrams and models.

design

The goal of using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBLR) in compliance reporting is to ________.

develop a common language for all accounting and business reports

Which of the following is the primary function of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)?

developing and promoting a single worldwide set of financial reporting standards

In an information systems department, the enterprise systems subunit is responsible for ________.

developing, installing, maintaining, and overseeing the organization's mission-critical software applications

Testing is a part of the ________ phase of the SDLC.

development

Which of the following was one of the factors that opened the path for development of the client-server architecture?

development of PC operating systems

Joshua Lee, an engineer at Footprints Inc., is provided with a design by the creative team in his company for creating a software that would help travel agents answer and track traveler requests efficiently. He is now converting the design into an operational information system. Which of the following phases of the SDLC is the software currently in?

development phase

A ________ is often the only logical implementation strategy for smaller systems.

direct implementation

A ________ switches off the old system and launches all the modules of the new one on a single, very hectic go-live date, sometimes called the "big bang."

direct implementation

A major advantage of a ________ is that people whose roles span modules do not have to switch back and forth between old and new modules.

direct implementation

________ refers to all the procedures, documentation, and resources an organization puts into place to prepare for a crisis situation and recover technical infrastructure.

disaster recovery

Demand forecast accuracy is important because overestimating demand leads to ________.

discount blowouts

Creative destruction occurs when ________.

disruptive innovations threaten established players

Which of the following challenges is typically a feature of the closing phase of a project?

documenting lessons learned

A separate file processing system leads to the creation of redundant information because ________.

each set of computer programs operates on its own records

The ecosystem in which a company is embedded is a(n) ________.

economic community that includes related industries

E-government involves ________.

efforts to make unclassified information available to citizens online

An electronic bridge between partner companies in a supply chain that is used to transmit real-time information about orders, inventories, invoices, and other data is called ________.

electronic data interchange

Which of the following is a tool used to reduce health care costs by digitizing patient history?

electronic medical record

A(n) ________ is a temporary activity that is launched for a specific purpose, to carry out a particular objective.

project

Which of the following approaches for integrating ERP modules has high switching costs?

engineered suite

Which of the following strategies for integrating ERP modules is built from the ground up with consistent user interfaces, integrated backend database, and a single architectural foundation?

engineered suite

Which of the following requires application suites with synchronized modules?

enhancing ERPs through mergers or acquisitions

Which of the following terms describes a roadmap created by an organization to describe its current situation and where it should head to achieve its mission, focusing especially on business strategy and the technology infrastructure required to achieve it?

enterprise architecture

An integrated application suite to support a whole establishment that includes modules to manage financials, human resources, supply chain, customer relationships, and other business processes is called ________.

enterprise resource planning

Which of the following is a disadvantage of best-of-breed suites?

error-prone synchronization between systems

A real estate developer in the New Jersey area purchases a large tract of land and plans to build an apartment complex equipped with a golf course and other amenities. The developer is targeting the affluent software engineers from Manhattan who are looking for second homes. Halfway through the process of construction, recession hits the nation and many people lose their jobs. There are no takers for the apartments the developer is building, as homebuyers look for less expensive options. The developer, dismayed at the huge investment he has already made in the project, decides that it would be unwise to stop the project and plans to go ahead with it. The developer's reasoning is consistent with the idea of ________.

escalation of commitment

Which of the following is an accurate definition of "black swans"?

events that occur very rarely and are difficult or nearly impossible to predict

Which of the following do all types of information system tests mimic?

events the system is likely to handle when it goes live

________ involves the automatic tagging of unusual events in financial transactions and is used to spot mistakes and fraudulent activities.

exception reporting

Carrie, the finance manager of an insurance company, suspects some of the sales representatives of submitting their travel expenses receipts twice. Which of the following would help her spot such fraudulent submissions?

exception reports

A company incorporates contributions from buyers who help add value to the company's products and services. Which of the following best describes this action?

extension of the value chain

The process of retrieving data from multiple sources to be loaded into a data warehouse is called ________.

extraction

An agile method that focuses on frequent releases of workable software and short time boxes for development is known as ________.

extreme programming

An attribute of an entity in a table is called a ________.

field

Differentiating the product or service for a particular segment of the market is called a ________.

focused niche strategy

Which of the following is a good master data management strategy?

focusing on key areas

In a university database, the student table, with student ID as a primary key, is linked to the university department table through its primary key-department ID. In the student table, department ID is a ________.

foreign key

The information systems used by customer relationship management (CRM) are often ________.

fragmented

Which of the following devices receives signals from orbiting satellites that transmit time and location data?

global positioning systems device

The "big bang" approach for implementing ERP involves ________.

going live with all the core modules in the engineered suite at the same time

Which of the following is the role of a Chief Privacy Officer in an organization?

helping shape the policies that govern the protection of confidential information

The frequency of electromagnetic waves is measured in ________.

hertz (Hz)

Which of the following database architectures works well for one-to-many relationships, but is not effective with many-to-many relationships?

hierarchical database

Which of the following databases resembles an organizational chart?

hierarchical database

Which of the following factors increases the power of suppliers?

high switching costs

Which of the following is a disadvantage of the engineered suite?

high switching costs

The use of information systems in achieving excellence in operations can result in ________.

higher cost savings

A(n) ________ bias refers to a belief that an actual event was predictable even if it was not.

hindsight

In cloud computing, employees use information systems that are ________.

hosted by a vendor in a data center

Which of the following components of the HCM systems is responsible for tracking employees' demographic information?

human resources management modules

Which of the following is the operating system developed by Apple for mobile devices?

iOS

Peter automates his email inbox such that his incoming mails are filtered and all the junk mails are sent directly to the spam folder. This saves him time as he does not have to sort through the mails to find his work-related mails. He also creates a group mailing list for his team that makes it easier for him to send mails to the entire team instead of including their email addresses individually. In this scenario, Peter is using information systems tools to ________.

improve individual productivity

Which of the following is most closely associated with sustaining technologies?

improvements that streamline existing processes

An advantage of electronic data interchange (EDI) is that it ________

improves supply chain performance

Which of the following was a disadvantage of VoIP communication at its initial stages?

increased rate of dropped calls or bad audio

Network effects refer to the ________.

increased value of a product or service because there are more people using it

Mark, a 22-year old with a viral infection, is admitted to a hospital. On the second day post-admission, a nurse takes a single high-temperature reading and enters it into the patient records information system. This single reading when combined with Mark's other symptoms and previous medical records, becomes ________.

information

The risk of privacy breaches in information systems has become greater because ________.

information systems have become more powerful and interconnected

The multitude of servers in Google's windowless data centers serves as an example that represents ________.

information technology

The stage at which a project is conceived is known as the ________ process.

initiating

The financial management system of a software company automatically updates the general ledger whenever there are any transactions in the company's accounts receivable and accounts payable. This is an example of the financial system's ________.

integration of components

What advantage does VoIP offer over PBXs?

integration of voice with data

Lee works for Pink Net Worldwide Inc., an advertising company in California. Lee is developing software to improve the process of coordination with clients. Which of the following requirements is he concentrating on if he is interfacing the clients' software with a few of the information systems that are currently functioning within the company?

integration requirements

Which of the following results in decreased market profitability?

intense rivalry among competitors, based on price

________ takes advantage of signals transmitted via the phone to access a database, retrieve account information, and enter data.

interactive voice response

User navigation and data display are examples of the ________ included in an RDD.

interface requirements

In comparison with unstructured information, semi-structured information ________.

is easier to query and aggregate

Most applications rely on texting, email, and instant messaging rather than speech recognition because speech recognition ________.

is less accurate

Software that is freely distributed, along with the code underlying the program, so that people can access the code to improve it is known as ________.

open source software

Which of the following functional areas in an information systems department maintains the location of servers and communications equipment?

operations

Software used as a bridge to integrate separate information systems and synchronize data across multiple systems is referred to as ________.

middleware

Which of the following is a function of normalization?

minimizing duplication of information

In the ________ phase, project managers pay close attention to reports and dashboards that might show early warning signs that some tasks have fallen behind.

monitoring

Which of the following is a common way to decrease the IT spending of a company?

moving to cloud computing

Which of the following architectures refers to a client-server network in which any particular request by a client involves one or more servers?

n-tier

Which of the following classes of computers is widely distributed in developing countries and typically used as a cost-effective means of wirelessly connecting to the Internet?

netbooks

Which of the following is an early database approach that allowed flexible links to support many-to-many relationships?

network database

Orange, an online-gaming site, has millions of users. The site has many games which pit users against each other. The relative standing of each user is presented in the form of an elaborate ranking system for each game. Users pride themselves on gaining the highest points and the highest rank possible. This rise in user participation has increased the value of Orange significantly. This is an example of ________.

network effects

Which of the following do database developers use to avoid anomalies that result when users try to insert, edit, or delete data?

normalization

________ is a process that refines entities and their relationships to help minimize duplication of information in tables.

normalization

Which of the following is the best way to handle complex relationships, such as the data for a company where employees can be assigned to more than one project, and each project can have more than one employee assigned to it?

normalizing the relationship between "employees" records and "projects" records

Which database architecture is popularly used for organizing complex data types such as graphics and multimedia?

object-oriented database

Companies felt the need for virtualization because mainframe computers ________.

often wasted resources

Which of the following best describes legacy systems?

old systems which are built on aging or obsolete architectures

Roman Jade, an interior decorations company, stores employee details in its employee information system. The birth date of each employee is stored along with other details, including employee names. The relationship between the employee names and employee birth dates is a ________.

one-to-one relationship

Escapade Inc., a travel agency in Sydney, is using a highly expensive implementation process for a short period of time. It launches the new system while the old one is still running and employees have to do their jobs twice, once on each system. Which of the following is the company using?

parallel implementation

Which of the following is a type of testing for information systems where developers use the same input and compare the new system's output to the output generated by the system it is replacing?

parallel testing

Which of the following networks refers to a decentralized network in which there is no central server?

peer-to-peer network

Components such as response time, availability, and scalability are examples of the ________ included in an RDD.

performance requirements

A disadvantage of a ________ is that the new system's modules may be tightly integrated, so implementing one without the others may create some confusion and require temporary interfaces to the old systems.

phased implementation

Jonathan has joined a new software company in Manhattan and has been assigned the task of developing an internal communications system. He begins the task by assessing how the system will help in efficiently coordinating the projects that the company handles and in determining the feasibility of the system. In the given scenario, Jonathan is in the ________ step of the systems development life cycle.

planning

The first step in the successful management of a next-generation supply chain is ________.

planning

________ is the first step in the systems development life cycle, which defines the business need for a project, assesses its importance to the company, and determines whether the project is feasible.

planning

The term ________ refers to a task in the work breakdown structure that needs to be completed before a particular task can begin.

predecessor

Which of the following is a function of a supply chain planning software?

predicting demand

An organization is using a unified procurement approach if it ________.

prefers systems that are offered by a single vendor

The activities that are directly related to the process by which products and services are created, marketed, sold, and delivered are called ________ activities.

primary

A ________ is a series of events designed to deliver a product or service that is recurring in nature.

process

The function of which of the following components of an information system is to oversee if every data transaction made by an employee is logged in the information system?

process

The major function of a process diagram is to trace ________.

process operations from beginning to end in a way that is clear to all stakeholders

Which of the following is a critical component of an information system?

processes

The first targets of process improvements through integration of modules and creation of workflows in companies were ________.

procurement and accounts payable

Which of the following is a function of accounting information systems?

procuring goods and services

Element Inc. manufactures a new range of smartphones to take on incumbent competitors. Element grabs a huge chunk of the market share in its first year because of its feature-rich smartphones. Element's smartphones come with bigger screen sizes, greater memory capacities, and a free online music subscription for two years. The competitors fail to lure customers despite massive price reductions. Which of the following strategies is being used by Element?

product differentiation

A ________ oversees all the projects going on throughout the organization and provides project management training, software, and support.

program management office

Which of the following collects data from each project and aggregates it, building a larger picture of the overall health of the organization's project portfolio?

program management office

Independent testers are critical in testing information systems mainly because ________.

programmers are inept at testing their own code

A ________ is a document that authorizes a project and includes a clear statement of objectives, estimated start and end dates, the names of the relevant people and their roles, a tentative budget, criteria for success, and other pertinent information.

project charter

A kick-off meeting involves ________.

project stakeholders meeting one another to review the project charter

The ________ offers customizable dashboards so that developers can see at a glance how a process is coming along, what activities they need to complete in a day, and how they can keep abreast of all aspects of the process.

project- and issue-tracking software

The use of an information system in a grocery store would improve customer satisfaction by ________.

providing self-service checkouts

Which of the following is a type of volatile memory typically consisting of integrated circuits located close to the central processing unit (CPU)?

random access memory

A representation of an entity in a meaningful way, which includes the attributes of the entity, is called a ________.

record

In a relational database, information is organized into tables in which each row represents a(n) ________.

record

Which of the following is a characteristic of a process?

recurring in nature

A steel manufacturing company that follows a low-cost leadership strategy does not accept any product returns from its customers. The company's "no-return" policy aims to ________.

reduce supply chain costs

________ ensures that every foreign key entry actually exists as a primary key entry in its main table.

referential integrity

The database model that organizes information into tables of records that are connected to one another by linking a field in one table to a field in another table is called ________.

relational database

Which of the following is the most widely used database architecture?

relational database

Which of the following is essential if an organization has to follow a low-cost leadership strategy?

relentless search for ways to reduce operating expenses

Sellers Forever Inc. makes use of a system that sends emails to all employees in the organization with requests to recognize and congratulate the top performing sales reps at the end of every week to encourage and motivate the sales team. Which of the following has the company employed?

sales force automation

________ boosts the performance of an organization's sales reps by helping them track and manage their accounts, contacts, leads, and to-do lists.

sales force automation

A system's ability to handle rapidly increasing demand is called ________.

scalability

________ is an agile method for software development that relies on tightly knit, cohesive teams that do sprints of 2 to 4 weeks each.

scrum

Sam Torres, a security officer at a content management firm, is required to monitor the people coming in and going out of the organization and ensure data privacy through the process of encryption. Which of the following types of requirements is Sam focusing on in the given scenario?

security requirements

In Robin Dave Hospital, visiting physicians use different spreadsheets to record the name, address, mobile number, and email of clients. These individual spreadsheets are then compiled by a data-entry operator into one spreadsheet. What type of information does the compiled spreadsheet represent?

semi-structured information

To collate innovative ideas for an important business project, a manager creates a database which is not integrated into the enterprise database. The new database is an example of a(n) ________.

shadow system

Databases that are smaller than enterprise databases and focus on their creators' specific information requirements are known as ________.

shadow systems

Which of the following types of utility software makes deleted files completely unrecoverable?

shredder software

In comparison with primary storage, hard drives are ________.

slower in processing information

Which of the following modules of the human capital management systems encourages interactions through wikis and blogs?

social networking software

A general rule of thumb is that an organization should consider buying software rather than building it if the ________.

software can meet 75% to 80% of all business requirements

Companies pay subscription fees to access a vendor's software in the cloud, via the web, in the case of ________.

software-as-a-service (SaaS) products

In Kansas, an athletics association is partnered with a university to identify talented youth across the state. They use an online test to ensure easy accessibility to students across the state. This is an illustration of ________.

strategic use of information systems

Which of the following types of testing for information systems is conducted to assess how well a system performs under peak loads?

stress testing

Flippy, an online shoe store, uses an information system to store sales transactions with clearly defined fields for date, customer number, item number, invoice number, and amount. What type of information resource does Flippy use?

structured information

In which of the following approaches for integrating ERP modules does the vendor provide middleware to connect systems that may be running on different platforms?

suite with synchronized modules

The bullwhip effect can be reduced if ________.

suppliers have real-time access to up-to-date retail sales data

A bag manufacturing company had suffered financial losses due to overestimation of demand, which led to overproduction. Which of the following software can help the company prevent such situations in the future?

supply chain planning software

Which type of software controls basic operations such as file management, disk storage, and hardware interfaces?

system software

Which of the following types of testing involves both end users and IT staff testing the functionality of an entire IS?

system testing

Which of the following best describes service-oriented architecture (SOA)?

systems assembled from relatively independent software components

A mobile device with a large touchscreen and virtual keyboard, which is smaller and thinner than a laptop but larger than a smartphone, is known as a ________.

tablet

Which of the following best describes the primary goal of a focused niche strategy?

tailoring products and services based on the special preferences of a small group of customers

Which of the following is a common source of misunderstanding between IT and other departments?

technical jargon

Unknown hackers hack into the network security of a bank and steal the personal identification information of approximately 200,000 clients. Which of the following persons will be responsible for handling this situation?

the Chief Information Security Officer

Which of the following individuals is responsible for ensuring that a company's confidential information is well-protected?

the Chief Information Security Officer

Which of the following is a useful benchmark for information systems?

the amount of IT spending per employee in an organization

Roland Inc. is a fashion apparels retailer in the U.S. It wants to measure how its investment is helping create value in comparison with its competitors. Which of the following metrics used by Roland can be classified as a benchmark in this scenario?

the average number of sales made per day

________ is responsible for identifying, assessing, and addressing threats to an organization from unforeseen circumstances.

the crisis management team

It is important to appreciate the ethical issues involved in the development and use of information systems because ________.

the data they contain is vast and personal

Which of the following events led to tighter standards for accounting practices and a demand for more transparency in reporting?

the global financial crisis of 2009

An information system is used to centralize information related to voting behavior in Texas. One of the indicators measured by the system is the average waiting time to vote. The time people spend waiting in line to vote at each polling booth is aggregated for each region. This is then used to create a graph that depicts the average waiting times by location. According to this scenario, which of the following refers to information?

the graph with average waiting times

Marsha, a sales executive, faces issues while copying data from one spreadsheet to another. The formatting of the copied data is not the same as that of the data that is pasted. She started facing this problem only after her older spreadsheet application was upgraded to a newer version. She raises a ticket stating "Request older system. New system not working as desired." The IT technician misconstrues this as a request to replace the computer with an older version. When Marsha returns the next morning, she finds that her computer has been replaced with an older version. Which of the following is the reason why her request had been misunderstood?

the jargon barrier

The database performance tuning process takes into account ________.

the kind of data accessed by the end user

Which of the following poses a hindrance to the adoption of information systems in nonprofit organizations and government?

the lack of dedicated funding

One of the critical factors that contribute to the failure of projects is ________.

the lack of executive support for the project

Which of the following best defines a critical path in a project?

the longest project path that identifies tasks that cannot be delayed without affecting the finish date

Which of the following is a concern regarding information systems that support virtual teamwork?

the relative stage of infancy of such systems

Batch processing is defined as ________.

the sequential execution of operations on each record in a large set

RFID tags are typically used for ________.

tracking shipments of physical goods

Julian, a database administrator, prepares data to be loaded to a data warehouse. He checks the zip code field against a reference database of zip codes to ensure that it conforms to standards. The zip codes that aren't in the standard format are reformatted. This process is called ________.

transformation

When building a warehouse, the process of reformatting data so that it conforms to set standards is called ________.

transformation

Which of the following best illustrates the strategic use of IT?

transforming the business model of an organization

Which of the following supply chain management software is used to manage and optimize shipping, logistics, fleet routing, and scheduling?

transportation management software

Packet-switched network differs from circuit-switched network in that packet-switched network ________.

travels different routes

The percentage of workers who left an organization and were replaced during a time period is called employee ________.

turnover

Which of the following transmission media is most commonly used in ordinary telephones?

twisted pair wires

________ is a type of testing for information systems that involves programmers checking the functionality of small modules of code during the development phase of the SDLC.

unit testing

Which of the following is the most critical factor that contributes to failure of projects?

unrealistic time frames

Pieces of information that cannot be linked together are called ________.

unstructured information

White and Brown, a legal firm, stores details of each case in physical files and folders. The firm has a back room stacked with boxes containing hundreds of files. White and Brown's storage structure resembles ________.

unstructured information

Screen attractiveness is an example of the ________ included in an RDD.

usability requirements

Tom Daniels, an employee of a telecommunications company, is developing software that would enable customers to activate value-added services in a matter of seconds. Which of the following requirements is Tom developing if he is working to improve the visual appeal of the interface and to enhance the ease of learning the software?

usability requirements

Which of the following has raised questions regarding the ethical implications of companies collecting and analyzing enormous amounts of customer data?

use of target advertising

Dave heads the information technology department of a small company based in Atlanta that sells customized T-shirts over the Internet. The company has seen a surge in popularity and is planning to expand its operational base to four more cities. However, Dave has now been asked to come up with a strategy to cut down on the costs incurred in maintaining multiple servers in different cities to host the marketing and e-commerce sites. Which of the following measures will help Dave achieve his objective?

using virtualization to run multiple operating systems on a single server system

Which of the following database architectures relies on a cooperating collection of existing databases?

virtual federated warehouse

________ is a cost-cutting approach to servers in which multiple operating systems run concurrently on a single physical PC server.

virtualization

________ describes how easily managers can track timely and accurate supply chain metrics.

visibility

Which of the following supply chain management software is used to manage and optimize inventories, space allocation, shipments, and cross-docking?

warehouse management softwar

The ________ involves the sequential occurring of systems development life cycle tasks, with one activity starting only after the previous one has been completed.

waterfall method

E-marketing information systems provide extensive tracking capabilities by embedding in the HTML email a ________.

web beacon

Which of the following was the main function of computers in the 1980s?

word processing

A(n) ________ is an orderly listing of actual tasks that a project team must complete to produce the project's deliverables.

work breakdown structure

Which of the following components of the HCM systems keep track of employee time and attendance, sick leave, vacation leave, and project assignments?

workforce management rules