MIS CHAPTER 2
9) A(n) ________ is a collection of data that is stored within business records.
repository
3) A ________ is a subset of the activities in a business process that is performed by an actor.
role
6) Which of the following statements is true about roles in a business process?
C) The name of the role is written at the top of the swimlane.
26) Which of the following refers to information that is based on correct and complete data and has been processed correctly, as expected?
C) accurate information
21) Automation of a process activity consists of moving work from the ________ of the symmetrical five-component framework.
C) human side to the computer side
7) Which of the following statements is true of swimlane formats?
D) A particular role may be fulfilled by many people.
22) Which of the following statements is true of using an information system to improve process quality?
D) A process that uses a labor saving information system may not be efficient.
10) ________ represent the movement of data from one activity to another.
D) Data flows
28) Which of the following is a characteristic of good information?
D) It must be contextually relevant.
12) Which of the following statements is true about business process modeling notation?
D) The medium of data delivery is unimportant in a BPMN diagram.
1) A ________ is a network of activities for accomplishing a business function.
D) business process
30) As the CEO of a call center, which of the following information is good information for you?
D) department-level averages of revenue generation figures
19) Which of the following pairs consists of the two actors in an information system?
D) hardware and people
23) ________ is defined as recorded facts or figures.
Data
8) Explain data with an example.
Data is defined as recorded facts or figures. The facts that an employee of an organization earns $17.50 per hour and that another employee of the same organization earns $25.00 per hour are examples of data.
7) According to the business process modeling notation standard, the end of a business process is symbolized by a circle having a narrow border.
F
12) Buyers read vendor and product data from the vendor data repository, but they don't write data to it.
F
16) An activity is considered automated when it is characterized by people following procedures.
F
17) The outermost components of the symmetrical five-component framework of an IS are data and procedures.
F
22) Procedures act as the bridge between the computer and human sides of the five-component framework of an IS.
F
24) Automation moves work from the software component to the data component.
F
31) Data is knowledge derived from information.
F
34) Data delivered with active graphics need not be cross-checked for accuracy.
F
41) All data about an organization are relevant to the higher management.
F
43) Information systems should not be subject to the same financial analyses to which other assets are subjected.
F
6) According to the business process modeling notation standard, the start of a business process is symbolized by a circle having a thick border.
F
27) The major benefit of using an information system is that the data stored in databases and other repositories can readily be processed to produce information.
T
28) Data that is summed is called information.
T
29) Information is data presented in a meaningful context.
T
30) Information is data processed by grouping, comparing, or other similar operations.
T
32) Average wage is knowledge that can be derived from the data of individual wages.
T
35) Accurate information is information that is based on correct and complete data, and has been processed correctly.
T
36) Users develop work-arounds when data from an information system is unreliable.
T
37) Timeliness of information can be measured against events.
T
38) The quality of thinking determines the quality of the information that is produced.
T
39) Just barely sufficient information is information that is sufficient for the purpose for which it is generated.
T
4) Swimlane format is a graphical arrangement in which all of the activities for a given role are shown in a single vertical lane.
T
42) For data to be worth its cost, an appropriate relationship must exist between the cost of data and its value.
T
5) In some business processes, a role can be fulfilled by an information system.
T
8) According to the business process modeling notation standard, solid lines between activities are called sequence flows.
T
9) A collection of files on the Internet is a repository.
T.
25) The fact that Joe works 9 hours per day is an example of ________.
data
18) In an IS framework, ________ is the bridge between the computer side on the left and the human side on the right.
data
24) John's height is 6 feet 3 inches. This is an example of ________.
data
20) In an IS framework, data is considered to be a part of the computer side.
F
4) Activities within a business process are shown in ________.
rectangles
15) Effectiveness is the ratio of benefits to costs.
T
18) In the five-component framework of an IS, the actors are hardware and people.
T
26) Information systems can improve process efficiency but not process effectiveness.
F
3) A role is a subset of activities in a business process.
T
33) As long as information is relevant and timely, it need not always be complete.
F
16) The software and procedure components of the IS framework are both ________.
B) sets of instructions
1) Members of a team in a company need to understand business processes since they need to evaluate new technologies.
T
10) Data flows represent the movement of data from one activity to another.
T
11) A repository can be printed records stored in a shoebox or a collection of files in the cloud.
T
13) Process quality can be measured in two dimensions: process effectiveness and process efficiency.
T
14) An effective business process enables an organization to accomplish its strategy.
T
19) In the five-component framework of an IS, data is the bridge between the computer side and the human side.
T
2) To design an improved process, it is necessary to understand the existing process.
T
3) Briefly describe a repository.
: A repository is a collection of data that is stored within a business process. A repository can be a cardboard box, a notebook, a list, an Excel spreadsheet, a database, or even a collection of databases. For the purpose of documenting a business process, the particular medium in which repository data is stored is unimportant
Explain the importance of timeliness of information in an organization.
: Good information requires that data be available in time for its intended use. A monthly report that arrives 6 weeks late is most likely useless. In such a case, the data has arrived long after the decisions that needed that information have been made. An information system that sends a poor customer credit report after the goods have been shipped is unhelpful and frustrating. Notice that timeliness can be measured against a calendar (6 weeks late) or against events (for example, before shipping).
Explain the importance of just barely sufficient data in the information age we live in.
: Just barely sufficient data is data that is sufficient for the purpose for which it is generated, but just barely so. We live in an information age; one of the critical decisions that each of us has to make each day is what data to ignore. The higher one rises into management, the more data one will be given, and because there is only so much time, the more data one will need to ignore. So data should be sufficient, but just barely.
1) What is a business process? Define activities.
A business process is a network of activities for accomplishing a business function. Activities are specific tasks that need to be accomplished as part of the process.
) In some cases, developing systems that provide data in near real time is much more difficult and expensive than producing data a few hours later. Provide an example that supports this statement.
A person who works in marketing needs to be able to assess the effectiveness of new online ad programs. He wants an information system that will not only deliver ads over the Web, but one that will also enable him to determine how frequently customers click on those ads. In this case, determining click ratios in near real time will be very expensive; saving the data in a batch and processing it some hours later will be much easier and cheaper. If the user can manage with data that is a day or two old, the system will be easier and cheaper to implement.
15) The outermost components of the IS framework ________.
A) can take action
8) According to the business process modeling notation, the end of a business process is symbolized by a ________.
A) circle having a thick border
4) Briefly describe data flows.
According to the business process modeling notation (BPMN), the labeled dashed lines are called data flows. They represent the movement of data from one activity to another. The data can be delivered via email, text message, over the phone, by fax, or by some other means. In a BPMN diagram, the medium of the data delivery is also unimportant.
14) Which of the following statements is true of business processes?
B) An effective business process enables an organization to accomplish its strategy.
32) Which of the following statements is true regarding the characteristics of good information?
B) Information must hold an appropriate relationship between its cost and its value.
31) ________ information is information that directly pertains both to the context and to the subject.
B) Relevant
29) Which of the following statements is true about data characteristics of quality information?
B) The timeliness of information can be measured against events.
5) According to the business process modeling notation standard, the start of a business process is symbolized by a ________.
B) circle having a narrow border
What are the costs associated with data? When is data considered to be worth its cost?
Data is not free. There are costs for developing an information system, costs of operating and maintaining that system, and costs of time and salary for reading and processing the data the system produces. For data to be worth its cost, an appropriate relationship must exist between the cost of data and its value.
13) ________ is the ratio of benefits to costs.
Efficiency
Describe accurate information. Why is an information system providing accurate information crucial to an organization?
Good information is accurate information, which is based on correct and complete data, and it has been processed correctly as expected. Accuracy is crucial; business professionals must be able to rely on the results of their information systems. The IS function can develop a bad reputation in an organization if a system is known to produce inaccurate data. In such a case, the information system becomes a waste of time and money as users develop work-arounds to avoid the inaccurate data.
Describe the benefits of using an information system to store vendor and product-related data.
In order to select a vendor, a buyer has to gather data about vendors and products, make analyses of costs and margins, and store the results of those analyses. If an information system (IS) is not used to store these results, accessing past records and results will require a manual search. An IS makes the process of finding reliable data and reports faster and more reliable, improving the efficiency and quality of the business process.
21) In an IS framework, software and procedure components are both sets of instructions.
T
23) Automation is the process in which instructions for humans are transferred to instructions for hardware.
T
25) One of the major benefits of an information system is labor savings.
T
Describe relevant data. Explain the importance of relevant data in an organizational context.
Relevant data is data that directly pertains to both the context and the subject. Considering context, a CEO needs data that is summarized to an appropriate level for his job. A list of the hourly wage of every employee in the company is unlikely to be useful. More likely, the CEO needs average wage information by department or division. A list of all employee wages is irrelevant in this context. Data should also be relevant to the subject at hand. If data about short-term interest rates is required to find a possible line of credit, then a report that shows 15-year mortgage interest rates is irrelevant.
2) Briefly describe activities and roles in swimlane format.
Swimlane format is a graphical arrangement in which all of the activities for a given role are shown in a single vertical lane. Each swimlane has activities, which are specific tasks that need to be accomplished as part of the process. A role is a subset of the activities in a business process that is performed by an actor, which is a person, group, department, organization, or information system. The name of the role is written at the top of a swimlane, not people's names. This is because a given role may be fulfilled by many people, or the organization may change the people who are assigned to a given role.
40) Relevant data are those which aptly pertain both to the context and to the subject.
T
5) Describe the process of automation against the background of the five-component framework of an information system
The five components of an information system are hardware, software, data, procedures, and people. They are arranged symmetrically in the framework. The outermost components, hardware and people, are both actors; they take action. The software and procedure components are both sets of instructions: Software is instructions for hardware, and procedures are instructions for people. Finally, data is the bridge between the computer side on the left and the human side on the right. When an activity in a business process is handled by an automated system, it means that work formerly done by people following procedures has been moved so that computers now do that work by following instructions in software. Thus, the automation of a process activity consists of moving work from the right-hand side of the five-component IS framework to the left.
Define information
The most common definition of information is that information is knowledge derived from data.
2) In swimlane format, ________ are specific tasks that need to be accomplished as part of a business process.
activities
20) When work that was formerly done by people has been moved to computers, it is said to be ________.
automated
17) The ________ component of the IS framework provides instructions for people.
procedure
11) According to the business process modeling notation standard, an activity with a boxed plus sign inside it indicates a ________.
subprocess
27) A monthly report that arrives 6 weeks late is an example of information that is not ________.
timely
