ISM 4011 EXAM 3 VERIFIED STUDY GUIDE
Business intelligence (BI) - Answers - is a technology- driven process for analyzing data
and presenting actionable information to help corporate executives, business managers
and other end users make more informed business decisions.
The patterns, relationships, and trends identified by BI systems
Business Intelligence Systems (BI) - Answers - are information systems that process
operational and other data to analyze past performance to make predictions.
Typical uses for BI - Answers - identifying changes in purchasing patterns,
entertainment,
predictive policing (BI can be used for more than just business) ,
Human Resources
3 primary BI activities - Answers - 1. Data acquisition:
• What needs to be done?
2. BI analysis
• How is it made useful?
3. Publish results
• How is it given to users
Data acquisition - Answers - When gathering data, it will generally fall under the
category of either quantitative or qualitative. There are differences in what the data tells
us, how it is collected, and how it is analyzed.
Quantitative data - Answers - refers to any information that can be quantified, counted
or measured, and given a numerical value. Examples would be ticket sales, revenue,
number of defects, number of returned items, height and weight....
Qualitative data - Answers - is descriptive in nature, expressed in terms of language
rather than numerical values. They can be observed but not as easily measured.
Examples would be product reviews (the food was delicious), interviews, birth state, hair
and eye color...
Data warehouse - Answers - It is a system that gets data from many different sources,
from within and/or outside an organization. The data is then analyzed for use in making
better and more informed business decisions.
Functions of a Data Warehouse - Answers - obtain data- Extract data from operational,
internal and external databases,
cleanse data,
organize and relate data warehouse
, catalog data using metadata
Data mart - Answers - A subset of a data warehouse. It is designed for a specific
department or business function such as sales, HR, finance, etc. They contain
repositories of summarized data collected for analysis by the specific area. It helps
users by giving a more focused version of the data warehouse. Users won't have to
search through the entire warehouse for what they need, and it also helps keep
information partitioned to control what data can be accessed.
Unsupervised data mining - Answers - Analysts do not create a model or hypothesis
before running the analysis.
Supervised data mining - Answers - develop a model prior to the analysis and apply
statistical techniques to data to estimate parameters of the model
BigData - Answers - a term that describes large volumes of data, both structured and
unstructured, that business capture every day.
Volume - petabyte and larger
Velocity - generated rapidly
Variety
• Free-form text
• Different formats of Web server and database log files
• Streams of data about user responses to page content; graphics,
audio, and video files
Data granularity - Answers - is a measure of the level of detail in a data structure - the
greater the granularity, the deeper the level of detail.
Possible problems with source data - Answers - dirty data, missing values, inconsistent
data, data not integrated, wrong granularity, too much data
system development - Answers - the process of creating and maintaining information
systems
• Difficulty of determining requirements
• Changes in requirements
• Difficulties with scheduling and budgeting
• Changing technology
• Diseconomies of scale - Answers - Types of challenges found with system
development
Brooks' Law - Answers - • "Adding more people to a late project makes the project
later."
• New staff must be trained by productive members who lose productivity while training.
• Schedules can be compressed only so far.
• Once a project is late and over budget, no good choices exist.
Business intelligence (BI) - Answers - is a technology- driven process for analyzing data
and presenting actionable information to help corporate executives, business managers
and other end users make more informed business decisions.
The patterns, relationships, and trends identified by BI systems
Business Intelligence Systems (BI) - Answers - are information systems that process
operational and other data to analyze past performance to make predictions.
Typical uses for BI - Answers - identifying changes in purchasing patterns,
entertainment,
predictive policing (BI can be used for more than just business) ,
Human Resources
3 primary BI activities - Answers - 1. Data acquisition:
• What needs to be done?
2. BI analysis
• How is it made useful?
3. Publish results
• How is it given to users
Data acquisition - Answers - When gathering data, it will generally fall under the
category of either quantitative or qualitative. There are differences in what the data tells
us, how it is collected, and how it is analyzed.
Quantitative data - Answers - refers to any information that can be quantified, counted
or measured, and given a numerical value. Examples would be ticket sales, revenue,
number of defects, number of returned items, height and weight....
Qualitative data - Answers - is descriptive in nature, expressed in terms of language
rather than numerical values. They can be observed but not as easily measured.
Examples would be product reviews (the food was delicious), interviews, birth state, hair
and eye color...
Data warehouse - Answers - It is a system that gets data from many different sources,
from within and/or outside an organization. The data is then analyzed for use in making
better and more informed business decisions.
Functions of a Data Warehouse - Answers - obtain data- Extract data from operational,
internal and external databases,
cleanse data,
organize and relate data warehouse
, catalog data using metadata
Data mart - Answers - A subset of a data warehouse. It is designed for a specific
department or business function such as sales, HR, finance, etc. They contain
repositories of summarized data collected for analysis by the specific area. It helps
users by giving a more focused version of the data warehouse. Users won't have to
search through the entire warehouse for what they need, and it also helps keep
information partitioned to control what data can be accessed.
Unsupervised data mining - Answers - Analysts do not create a model or hypothesis
before running the analysis.
Supervised data mining - Answers - develop a model prior to the analysis and apply
statistical techniques to data to estimate parameters of the model
BigData - Answers - a term that describes large volumes of data, both structured and
unstructured, that business capture every day.
Volume - petabyte and larger
Velocity - generated rapidly
Variety
• Free-form text
• Different formats of Web server and database log files
• Streams of data about user responses to page content; graphics,
audio, and video files
Data granularity - Answers - is a measure of the level of detail in a data structure - the
greater the granularity, the deeper the level of detail.
Possible problems with source data - Answers - dirty data, missing values, inconsistent
data, data not integrated, wrong granularity, too much data
system development - Answers - the process of creating and maintaining information
systems
• Difficulty of determining requirements
• Changes in requirements
• Difficulties with scheduling and budgeting
• Changing technology
• Diseconomies of scale - Answers - Types of challenges found with system
development
Brooks' Law - Answers - • "Adding more people to a late project makes the project
later."
• New staff must be trained by productive members who lose productivity while training.
• Schedules can be compressed only so far.
• Once a project is late and over budget, no good choices exist.
