MSS Exam

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

F

What are the four major components of a Business Intelligence (BI) system?

1. A data warehouse, with its source data 2. Business analytics, a collection of tools for manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the data warehouse 3. Business performance management (BPM) for monitoring and analyzing performance 4. A user interface (e.g., a dashboard)

Why is data alone worthless?

Alone, data is worthless because it does not provide business value. To provide business value, it has to be analyzed.

Computer applications have moved from transaction processing and monitoring activities to problem analysis and solution applications.

T

During the early days of analytics, data was often obtained from the domain experts using manual processes to build mathematical or knowledge-based models.

T

Which type of question does visual analytics seeks to answer? A) Why is it happening? B) What happened yesterday? C) What is happening today? D) When did it happen?

a

Fundamental reasons for investing in BI must be ________ with the company's business strategy.

aligned

Kaplan and Norton developed a report that presents an integrated view of success in the organization called A) metric management reports. B) balanced scorecard-type reports. C) dashboard-type reports. D) visual reports.

b

The competitive imperatives for BI include all of the following EXCEPT A) right information B) right user C) right time D) right place

b

This technique makes no a priori assumption of whether one variable is dependent on the other(s) and is not concerned with the relationship between variables; instead it gives an estimate on the degree of association between the variables. A) regression B) correlation C) means test D) multiple regression

b

What type of analytics seeks to recognize what is going on as well as the likely forecast and make decisions to achieve the best performance possible? A) descriptive B) prescriptive C) predictive D) domain

b

When you tell a story in a presentation, all of the following are true EXCEPT A) a story should make sense and order out of a lot of background noise. B) a well-told story should have no need for subsequent discussion. C) stories and their lessons should be easy to remember. D) the outcome and reasons for it should be clear at the end of your story.

b

Which type of visualization tool can be very helpful when a data set contains location data? A) bar chart B) geographic map C) highlight table D) tree map Answer: B

b

Business applications have moved from transaction processing and monitoring to other activities. Which of the following is NOT one of those activities? A) problem analysis B) solution applications C) data monitoring D) mobile access

c

The Internet emerged as a new medium for visualization and brought all the following EXCEPT A) worldwide digital distribution of visualization. B) immersive environments for consuming data. C) new forms of computation of business logic. D) new graphics displays through PC displays.

c

BI applications must be integrated with A) databases. B) legacy systems. C) enterprise systems. D) all of these

d

This measure of central tendency is the sum of all the values/observations divided by the number of observations in the data set. A) dispersion B) mode C) median D) arithmetic mean

d

Which characteristic of data requires that the variables and data values be defined at the lowest (or as low as required) level of detail for the intended use of the data? A) data source reliability B) data accessibility C) data richness D) data granularity

d

Which kind of chart is described as an enhanced version of a scatter plot? A) heat map B) bullet C) pie chart D) bubble chart

d

Which of the following is LEAST related to data/information visualization? A) information graphics B) scientific visualization C) statistical graphics D) graphic artwork

d

The user interface of a BI system is often referred to as a(n) ________.

dashboard

What are the most important assumptions in linear regression?

linearity, independence, normality, constant, multicollinearity

________ are typically used together with other charts and graphs, as opposed to by themselves, and show postal codes, country names, etc.

maps

Describe the difference between simple and multiple regression.

multiple is a extension of simple, more than one explanatory variable

When validating the assumptions of a regression, ________ assumes that the errors of the response variable are normally distributed.

normality

________ analytics help managers understand probable future outcomes.

predictive

A(n) ________ is a communication artifact, concerning business matters, prepared with the specific intention of relaying information in a presentable form.

report

Data accessibility means that the data are easily and readily obtainable.

t

Data is the main ingredient for any BI, data science, and business analytics initiative.

t

Descriptive statistics is all about describing the sample data on hand

t

Google Maps has set new standards for data visualization with its intuitive Web mapping software.

t

Interval data are variables that can be measured on interval scales.

t

One of SiriusXM's challenges was tracking potential customers when cars were sold.

t

Predictive algorithms generally require a flat file with a target variable, so making data analytics ready for prediction means that data sets must be transformed into a flat-file format and made ready for ingestion into those predictive algorithms.

t

Structured data is what data mining algorithms use and can be classified as categorical or numeric.

t

The use of statistics in baseball by the Oakland Athletics, as described in the Moneyball case study, is an example of the effectiveness of prescriptive analytics.

t

There are basic chart types and specialized chart types. A Gantt chart is a specialized chart type.

t

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

t

Visualization differs from traditional charts and graphs in complexity of data sets and use of multiple dimensions and measures.

t

________ series forecasting is the use of mathematical modeling to predict future values of the variable of interest based on previously observed values.

time

Typical charts, graphs, and other visual elements used in visualization-based applications usually involve ________ dimensions.

two

The Google search engine is an example of Big Data in that it has to search and index billions of ________ in fractions of a second for each search.

web pages

This measure of dispersion is calculated by simply taking the square root of the variations. A) standard deviation B) range C) variance D) arithmetic mean

a

When telling a story during a presentation, it is best to avoid describing hurdles that your character must overcome, to avoid souring the mood.

f

What is the intent of the analysis of data that is stored in a data warehouse?

The intent of the analysis is to give management the ability to analyze data for insights into the business, and thus provide tactical or operational decision support whereby, for example, line personnel can make quicker and/or more informed decisions.

_______ charts are effective when you have nominal data or numerical data that splits nicely into different categories so you can quickly see comparative results and trends within your data.

bar

This plot is a graphical illustration of several descriptive statistics about a given data set. A) pie chart B) bar graph C) box-and-whiskers plot D) kurtosis

c

What type of analytics seeks to determine what is likely to happen in the future? A) descriptive B) prescriptive C) predictive D) domain

c

Which characteristic of data means that all the required data elements are included in the data set? A) data source reliability B) data accessibility C) data richness D) data granularity

c

Which of the following is NOT an example of transaction processing? A) ATM withdrawal B) bank deposit C) sales report D) cash register scans

c

Which type of visualization tool can be very helpful when the intention is to show relative proportions of dollars per department allocated by a university administration? A) heat map B) bullet C) pie chart D) bubble chart

c

Organizations using BI systems are typically seeking to ________ the gap between the operational data and strategic objectives has become more pressing.

close

In the Opening Vignette on Sports Analytics, what was adjusted to drive one-time ticket sales? A) player selections B) stadium location C) fan tweets D) ticket prices

d

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics typically used to measure A) database responsiveness. B) qualitative feedback. C) external results. D) internal results.

d

Which of the following is an umbrella term that combines architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and methodologies? A) MIS B) DSS C) ERP D) BI

d

A(n) ________ is a major component of a Business Intelligence (BI) system that holds source data.

data warehouse

Business intelligence (BI) is a specific term that describes architectures and tools onlyThe growth in hardware, software, and network capacities has had little impact on modern BI innovations.

f

Data is the contextualization of information, that is, information set in context.

f

Successful BI is a tool for the information systems department, but is not exposed to the larger organization.

f

The growth in hardware, software, and network capacities has had little impact on modern BI innovations.

f

________ statistics is about drawing conclusions about the characteristics of the population. Answer: Inferential

inferential

Dashboards present visual displays of important information that are consolidated and arranged on a single ________.

screen

Describe the three major subsets of the Analytics Focused Software Developers portion of the Analytics Ecosystem.

• Reporting/Descriptive Analytics — Includes tools is enabled by and available from the Middleware industry players and unique capabilities offered by focused providers. • Predictive Analytics — a rapidly growing area that includes a variety of statistical packages. • Prescriptive Analytics — Software providers in this category offer modeling tools and algorithms for optimization of operations usually called management science/operations research software.

List the five most common functions of business reports.

• To ensure that all departments are functioning properly • To provide information • To provide the results of an analysis • To persuade others to act • To create an organizational memory (as part of a knowledge management system)

List and describe three levels or categories of analytics that are most often viewed as sequential and independent, but also occasionally seen as overlapping

Descriptive or reporting analytics refers to knowing what is happening in the organization and understanding some underlying trends and causes of such occurrences. • Predictive analytics aims to determine what is likely to happen in the future. This analysis is based on statistical techniques as well as other more recently developed techniques that fall under the general category of data mining. • Prescriptive analytics recognizes what is going on as well as the likely forecast and makes decisions to achieve the best performance possible.

According to Eckerson (2006), a well-known expert on BI dashboards, what are the three layers of information of a dashboard?

1. Monitoring. Graphical, abstracted data to monitor key performance metrics. 2. Analysis. Summarized dimensional data to analyze the root cause of problems. 3. Management. Detailed operational data that identify what actions to take to resolve a problem.

________ is an umbrella term that combines architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and methodologies.

Business intelligence (BI)