BCOR 2020 Exam 1 Study Guide
Strategic decision - ANSinvolve higher-level issues concerned with the overall direction of the
organization
what do strategic decisions do? - ANSdefine the organization's overall goals and aspirations for
the future.
tactical decision - ANShow the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by its
strategy, and they are usually the responsibility of midlevel management.
operational decisions - ANShow the firm is run from day to day
1st step of decision making process - ANSidentify and define the problem
2nd step in decision making process - ANSdetermine the criteria that will be used to evaluate
alternative solutions
3rd step in decision making process - ANSdetermine the set of alternative solutions
4th step in decision making process - ANSEvaluate alternatives
5th step in decision making process - ANSchoose an alternative
what is business analytics? - ANSscientific process of transforming data into insight for making
better decisions
descriptive analytics - ANSthe set of techniques that describes what has happened in the past
predictive analytics - ANStechniques that use models constructed from past data to predict the
future or ascertain the impact of one variable on another
prescriptive analytics - ANSa course of action to take; that is, the output of a prescriptive model
is a decision. Predictive models provide a forecast or prediction, but do not provide a decision
data - ANSfacts and figures collected, analyzed, and summarized for presentation and
interpretation
variable - ANSA characteristic or quantity of interest that can take on different values.
observation - ANSA set of values corresponding to a set of variables.
, variation - ANSDifferences in values of a variable over observations.
random/uncertain variable - ANSA quantity whose values are not known with certainty
population data - ANSdata from the set of all elements of interest in a particular study
sample data - ANSdata from a subset of the population
random sampling - ANSCollecting a sample that ensures that (1) each element selected comes
from the same population and (2) each element is selected independently
quantitative data - ANSData for which numerical values are used to indicate magnitude, such as
how many or how much. Arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication
can be performed on quantitative data
categorical data - ANSData for which categories of like items are identified by labels or names.
Arithmetic operations cannot be performed on categorical data.
cross-sectional data - ANSData collected at the same or approximately the same point in time
time series data - ANSData that are collected over a period of time (minutes, hours, days,
months, years, etc.)
experimental source of data - ANSa variable of interest is first identified. Then one or more other
variables are identified and controlled or manipulated to obtain data about how these variables
influence the variable of interest
nonexperimental source of data - ANSno attempt to control the variables of interest, ex. survey
why do we modify data? - ANSwe examine methods for summarizing and manipulating data
using Excel to make the data more manageable and to develop insights
sorting data - ANSarranging it in a certain order such as alphabetic or numeric
filtering data - ANSremoving parts of data sets to simplify data and/or to make conclusions more
evident
conditional formatting - ANSAn Excel feature that enables you to specify how cells that meet
one or more given conditions should be displayed.
why do we use distributions? - ANShelp summarize many characteristics of a data set by
describing how often certain values for a variable appear in that data set
Strategic decision - ANSinvolve higher-level issues concerned with the overall direction of the
organization
what do strategic decisions do? - ANSdefine the organization's overall goals and aspirations for
the future.
tactical decision - ANShow the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by its
strategy, and they are usually the responsibility of midlevel management.
operational decisions - ANShow the firm is run from day to day
1st step of decision making process - ANSidentify and define the problem
2nd step in decision making process - ANSdetermine the criteria that will be used to evaluate
alternative solutions
3rd step in decision making process - ANSdetermine the set of alternative solutions
4th step in decision making process - ANSEvaluate alternatives
5th step in decision making process - ANSchoose an alternative
what is business analytics? - ANSscientific process of transforming data into insight for making
better decisions
descriptive analytics - ANSthe set of techniques that describes what has happened in the past
predictive analytics - ANStechniques that use models constructed from past data to predict the
future or ascertain the impact of one variable on another
prescriptive analytics - ANSa course of action to take; that is, the output of a prescriptive model
is a decision. Predictive models provide a forecast or prediction, but do not provide a decision
data - ANSfacts and figures collected, analyzed, and summarized for presentation and
interpretation
variable - ANSA characteristic or quantity of interest that can take on different values.
observation - ANSA set of values corresponding to a set of variables.
, variation - ANSDifferences in values of a variable over observations.
random/uncertain variable - ANSA quantity whose values are not known with certainty
population data - ANSdata from the set of all elements of interest in a particular study
sample data - ANSdata from a subset of the population
random sampling - ANSCollecting a sample that ensures that (1) each element selected comes
from the same population and (2) each element is selected independently
quantitative data - ANSData for which numerical values are used to indicate magnitude, such as
how many or how much. Arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication
can be performed on quantitative data
categorical data - ANSData for which categories of like items are identified by labels or names.
Arithmetic operations cannot be performed on categorical data.
cross-sectional data - ANSData collected at the same or approximately the same point in time
time series data - ANSData that are collected over a period of time (minutes, hours, days,
months, years, etc.)
experimental source of data - ANSa variable of interest is first identified. Then one or more other
variables are identified and controlled or manipulated to obtain data about how these variables
influence the variable of interest
nonexperimental source of data - ANSno attempt to control the variables of interest, ex. survey
why do we modify data? - ANSwe examine methods for summarizing and manipulating data
using Excel to make the data more manageable and to develop insights
sorting data - ANSarranging it in a certain order such as alphabetic or numeric
filtering data - ANSremoving parts of data sets to simplify data and/or to make conclusions more
evident
conditional formatting - ANSAn Excel feature that enables you to specify how cells that meet
one or more given conditions should be displayed.
why do we use distributions? - ANShelp summarize many characteristics of a data set by
describing how often certain values for a variable appear in that data set
