BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ANALYTICS DATA
SCIENCE AND AI COMPREHENSIVE
EXAMINATION TEST COMPLETE
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS
●● List some capabilities of information systems that can facilitate
managerial decision making.
Answer: Information systems can aid decision making because they
have the ability to perform functions that allow for better
communication and information capture, better storage and recall of
data, and vastly improved analytical models that can be more
voluminous or more precise
●● How can a computer help overcome the cognitive limits of humans?
Answer: Computer-based systems are not limited in many of the ways
people are, and this lack of limits allows unique abilities to evaluate
data. Examples of abilities include being able to store huge amounts of
data, being able to run extensive numbers of scenarios and analyses, and
the ability to spot trends in vast datasets or models.
●● List three of the terms that have been predecessors of analytics.
Answer: Analytics has evolved from other systems over time including
data support systems (DSS), operations research (OR) models, and
expert systems (ES).
,●● What was the primary difference between the systems called MIS,
DSS, and Executive Support Systems?
Answer: Many systems have been used in the past and present to
provide analytics. Management information systems (MIS) provided
reports on various aspects of business functions using captured
information while decision support systems (DSS) added the ability to
use data with models to address unstructured problems. Executive
support systems (ESS) added to these abilities by capturing
understanding from experts and integrating it into systems via if-then-
else rules or heuristics.
●● Did DSS evolve into BI or vice versa?
Answer: DSS systems became more advanced in the 2000s with the
addition of data warehousing capabilities and began to be referred to as
Business Information (BI) systems.
●● Define BI.
Answer: Business Intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term that combines
architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and
methodologies. Its major objective is to enable interactive access
(sometimes in real time) to data, enable manipulation of these data, and
provide business managers and analysts the ability to conduct
appropriate analysis.
●● List and describe the major components of BI.
, Answer: BI systems have four major components: the data warehouse
(with its source data), business analytics (a collection of tools for
manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the data warehouse),
business performance management (for monitoring and analyzing
performance), and the user interface (e.g., a dashboard).
●● Define OLTP
Answer: OLTP (online transaction processing) is a type of computer
processing where the computer responds immediately to user requests.
Each request is considered to be a transaction, which is a computerized
record of a discrete event, such as the receipt of inventory or a customer
order.
●● Define OLAP
Answer: OLAP (online analytical processing) is processing for end-user
ad hoc reports, queries, and analysis. Separating the OLTP from analysis
and decision support provided by OLAP enables the benefits of BI that
were described earlier and provides for competitive intelligence and
advantage as described next.
●● List some of the implementation topics addressed by Gartner's
report.
Answer: Gartner's framework decomposes planning and execution into
business, organization, functionality, and infrastructure components. At
the business and organizational levels, strategic and operational
objectives must be defined while considering the available
organizational skills to achieve those objectives. Issues of organizational
SCIENCE AND AI COMPREHENSIVE
EXAMINATION TEST COMPLETE
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS
●● List some capabilities of information systems that can facilitate
managerial decision making.
Answer: Information systems can aid decision making because they
have the ability to perform functions that allow for better
communication and information capture, better storage and recall of
data, and vastly improved analytical models that can be more
voluminous or more precise
●● How can a computer help overcome the cognitive limits of humans?
Answer: Computer-based systems are not limited in many of the ways
people are, and this lack of limits allows unique abilities to evaluate
data. Examples of abilities include being able to store huge amounts of
data, being able to run extensive numbers of scenarios and analyses, and
the ability to spot trends in vast datasets or models.
●● List three of the terms that have been predecessors of analytics.
Answer: Analytics has evolved from other systems over time including
data support systems (DSS), operations research (OR) models, and
expert systems (ES).
,●● What was the primary difference between the systems called MIS,
DSS, and Executive Support Systems?
Answer: Many systems have been used in the past and present to
provide analytics. Management information systems (MIS) provided
reports on various aspects of business functions using captured
information while decision support systems (DSS) added the ability to
use data with models to address unstructured problems. Executive
support systems (ESS) added to these abilities by capturing
understanding from experts and integrating it into systems via if-then-
else rules or heuristics.
●● Did DSS evolve into BI or vice versa?
Answer: DSS systems became more advanced in the 2000s with the
addition of data warehousing capabilities and began to be referred to as
Business Information (BI) systems.
●● Define BI.
Answer: Business Intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term that combines
architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and
methodologies. Its major objective is to enable interactive access
(sometimes in real time) to data, enable manipulation of these data, and
provide business managers and analysts the ability to conduct
appropriate analysis.
●● List and describe the major components of BI.
, Answer: BI systems have four major components: the data warehouse
(with its source data), business analytics (a collection of tools for
manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the data warehouse),
business performance management (for monitoring and analyzing
performance), and the user interface (e.g., a dashboard).
●● Define OLTP
Answer: OLTP (online transaction processing) is a type of computer
processing where the computer responds immediately to user requests.
Each request is considered to be a transaction, which is a computerized
record of a discrete event, such as the receipt of inventory or a customer
order.
●● Define OLAP
Answer: OLAP (online analytical processing) is processing for end-user
ad hoc reports, queries, and analysis. Separating the OLTP from analysis
and decision support provided by OLAP enables the benefits of BI that
were described earlier and provides for competitive intelligence and
advantage as described next.
●● List some of the implementation topics addressed by Gartner's
report.
Answer: Gartner's framework decomposes planning and execution into
business, organization, functionality, and infrastructure components. At
the business and organizational levels, strategic and operational
objectives must be defined while considering the available
organizational skills to achieve those objectives. Issues of organizational
