Lincoln University

BA160 Concepts of Information Systems

Henok Seifu
ID NO: 70357

Submitted to: W. Kruz

Date: August 17, 2020
 CHAPTER 1
Discussion Question
1. What do you hope to learn from this course that will make it worthwhile for you? Do you
think a basic understanding of information systems is important to you? Why or why not?
ANSWER Identify the fundamental components of an information system and describe their
Function, to identify the three fundamental information system types and explain what
organizational complements must be in place to ensure successful implementation and use of the
system, to identify and briefly describe the role of each component of an organization’s
technology infrastructure, Identify the basic types of business information systems, including
who uses them, how they are used, and what kinds of benefits they deliver, to Describe how
organizations are using business intelligence and business analytics to capitalize on the vast
amount of data becoming available, Discuss why it is critical for business objectives and IS
activities to be well aligned through system planning, development, and acquisition, to Identify
several major IT security threats as well as some of the legal, social, and ethical issues associated
with information systems.
Yes it is important because by information systems, I can be able to communicate
instantaneously with others; As a consumers I can make purchases online using mobile devices;
project members dispersed globally and across multiple organizations collaborate effectively; if I
am a manufacturing industry owner it can help me with suppliers and customers to track
inventory, order supplies, and distribute goods faster than ever before.
2. Describe how you might use information systems in a career area of interest to you.
ANSWER I will use information system to maintain and provide good service for my customers,
I will use it to make a better decision and improve the business process, to forecast my revenue
and expenses, to screen job applicants, administer performance tests to employees, monitor,
employee productivity, and generate required government reports, to process customer orders,
develop production schedules, control inventory levels, and monitor product quality and develop
new goods and services (product analysis), determine the best advertising and sales approaches
(promotion analysis), and set optimal product prices to get the highest total revenues (price
analysis).
3. How might completing this course help you in some of the courses you will take during your
academic career?
ANSWER As a Business Administration student this course plays a huge role in assisting the
other courses I take. It will enable me to understand the technology aspect of the business world
by providing me information’s and what relates business with technology. This way I will be
able to develop new method of understanding the courses I take
4. It has been estimated that the amount of digital data is doubling every two years. Discuss some
technological and social implications and issues associated with this rapid growth of data.
ANSWER rapid growth of data helps to develop new technologies, to operate our machines and
tools to their maximum capability. social issues, including job losses caused by increasingly
sophisticated, humanlike systems, invasion of privacy through various data collection programs,
freedom of expression versus censorship, and the issues caused by unequal access to computer
technology and the Internet.

5. What are some of the social implications of the use of smartphones by an increasing
percentage of the world’s population?
ANSWER Smartphones have become the primary device used by people around the world to
communicate, go online, and access and share information. It creates a more connected society
which will increase the process of globalization and the dissemination of information. One can
also understand cultural, ethical value of other societies by simply accessing information through
his phone
6. Which of your school’s information systems is the worst or most difficult for you to deal with?
Describe an ideal system that would replace this one. What role might students play in defining
and building this replacement system?
ANSWER the Student Information System is the worst one because it doesn’t have a complete
structure and an organized system. The ideal system to replace this will be a system which have
capabilities for registering students for course, documenting grades, building student schedules,
tracking student attendance and managing other student related data.
7. Discuss why it is critical for information systems to be linked to the business objectives of an
organization.
ANSWER Because Information system is the vital aspect for the organizations efficiency and
effectiveness so when organization are drafting their objective, they will access their past data.
Information system have also a tendency of facilitating an effective communication, record
keeping this way an organization will have a realistic, achievable objectives.
8. For an industry of your choice, describe how a CBIS could be used to reduce costs or increase
profits.
ANSWER It can easily bring market payers together to execute real time exchange transaction,
it facilitates team work and network synchronization which increases effectiveness, group of
vendors and customers can transact in a single online platform, it helps industries transcend
geographical barriers and grow globally to attain profit
9. An organization has struggled for over three years in an attempt to implement and use an ERP
system. It has finally decided to scrap this system, at great cost, and convert to a new ERP
system from a different vendor. Identify and discuss actions management should take to ensure
the success of the new system.
ANSWER Maintenance, repair, and operations which Automates and supports activities
involved with the planning and scheduling of maintenance and repairs for any sort of
mechanical, plumbing, or electrical and software device, along with the tracking of inventory and
ordering of necessary parts and supplies.
10. Identify specific benefits of the cloud computing model. Can you identify any potential risks
associated with using this approach?
ANSWER the benefits of cloud computing model are lower capital cost, lower IT operating
costs, no hardware or software installation or maintenance and optimized IT infrastructure
provides quick access to needed computing service.
The risks are environmental security like the concentration of computing resources and users in a
cloud computing environment also represents a concentration of security threats. Data privacy
and security: - hosting confidential data with cloud service providers involves the transfer of a
considerable amount of an organization control over data security to the provider. Data
availability and business continuity, record retention requirements and disaster recovery are other
risks.

CHAPTER 2
Discussion Question
1. Discuss a value chain of which you are a part. What is the purpose of the value chain? What
is your role? How do you interact with other members of the value chain? How is the
effectiveness of the value chain measured?
ANSWER A value chain can help my company to discern areas of its business that are
inefficient, then implement strategies that will optimize its procedures for maximum efficiency
and profitability. In addition to ensuring that production mechanics are seamless and efficient,
it's critical that businesses keep customers feeling confident and secure enough to remain loyal.
My role is in Human resources (HR) management which involves hiring and retaining
employees who will fulfil the firm's business strategy and help design, market, and sell the
product. I interact with them through a continues communication. The effectiveness of the value
chain is measured by the value chain report.
2. Discuss a virtual team of which you are a member. What is the role of the team? How were the
members of the team chosen, and what unique skills and experiences does each member bring to
the team? How does the team communicate and share information?
ANSWER I am a member of a global chat group where everybody shares their experiences. The
members are not chosen anyone can join the group if they want. It an experience of their life so
each have different skills. The group communicate through an application called telegram
3. What things might managers in an organization do that could unintentionally discourage
innovation by their employees? How can innovation be encouraged?
ANSWER If there is an autocratic leadership the chance an employee being creative will
diminish. Managers who don’t delegate and give responsibility will discourage employees.
Negative comments also decrease the creativity level. A manager can motivate its employees to
be innovative by giving the positive comments, positive rewards, pushing the employees to take
a risk.
4. Identify and briefly discuss the similarities and differences between outsourcing and
downsizing. How might an enlightened management team deal with the negative impacts of
either downsizing or outsourcing?
ANSWER the similarities are they both are used for a Positive change to make the company
profitable. their difference is outsourcing is done for specific business function. Downsizing s
usually performed across the entire company. Outsourcing due to poorly written contracts it
carries risk of increased cost while downsizing the direct cost are reduced. A manager can deal
with negative impacts by being ethical and by calculating the risk.
5. Identify several aspects of the culture shared by members of a group to which you belong. Are
there any aspects of this culture that you think are negative and detract from what the group is
trying to accomplish?
ANSWER there are many cultural values like respecting the elders, the wedding ceremony,
religious holidays and work division among men and women. I believe the difference between
men and women have negative impact by keeping women not to work as expected.
6. Your manager has asked for your input on ideas for how to improve the likelihood of
successful adoption of a major new information system that will be used by members of the
company’s finance department. What suggestions would you offer?
ANSWER I will suggest a software that support the automation and integration of public
financial management processes including budget formulation, execution (e.g. commitment
control, cash/debt management, treasury operations), accounting, and reporting. which improve
the efficiency and equity of government operations, and offer a great potential for increasing
participation, transparency and accountability.
7. You have been asked to assess the success of a recently implemented system that has been
deployed across the entire supply chain of a large organization. How might you go about trying
to measure the technology diffusion of this system? How else might you assess the success of
this system?
ANSWER I will assess it by using the supply chain analysis, whether the technology is up to
date. If the data recorded are realistic, whether the line of communication is clear and the role of
the information system achieving the organization goal.
8. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet to search for a job.
ANSWER From the comfort of your home, you can access thousands of job openings, we can
search for jobs in our geographic area or you can explore opportunities in the next city, across
the country or on the other side of the world. The job search eliminates the cost of printing
resumes and cover letters, and paying for postage to mail application packages to prospective
employers.
Disadvantages are that everybody else is doing it. we're one of millions of people vying for jobs
and perhaps thousands applying for the same job. Because only about one-fourth of all job
openings are advertised, online job-hunting is largely ineffective, compared to using professional
networking as a job search tool.
9. Assume you are a member of a committee responsible for replacing your organization’s
retiring CIO. What characteristics would you want in a new CIO? How would you go about
identifying qualified candidates?
ANSWER Who set objectives and strategies for the IT department which are hard and
achievable, that Select and implement suitable technology to streamline all internal operations
and help optimize their strategic benefits, who design and customize technological systems and
platforms to improve customer experience, who Plan the implementation of new systems and
provide guidance to IT professionals and other staff within the organization, a manager who
approve purchases of technological equipment and software and establish partnerships with IT
providers, who oversee the technological infrastructure (networks and computer systems) in the
organization to ensure optimal performance

10. Identify several personal characteristics needed to be successful in an information system

career. Which of these characteristics do you think you possess?
ANSWER Excellent communication skills, Sharp problem-solving skills, the ability to work
within a team, Creative thinking, Analytical thinking, Mathematics skills and the ability to thrive
under pressure. I possess Excellent communication skills and Creative thinking

CHAPTER 3
Discussion Question
1. Discuss the role a business manager should take in helping determine the computer hardware
to be used by the organization.
ANSWER the manager should allow his employees to take a training IT, he a have to digitalize
the company, increasing the time of interaction of the employees with digital equipment’s.
2. Identify the similarities and differences between massively parallel processing systems and
grid computing.
ANSWER Similarities: It has hundreds or thousands of processors running at once under one.
Analyses and solves large amounts of data
Differences: Massively processing systems can link multiple processors but those processors can
work on individual application. Grid computing can link multiple processors but for those to
work together to solve a common problem.
3. Briefly describe the concept of multiprocessing. How does parallel processing differ from
multiprocessing?
ANSWER In multiprocessing, two or more central processing units are used within the same
computer. It can also be used to refer to the process of executing several instructions concurrent
at the operating system level, where each process runs on it on CPU. In parallel processing, each
processor will have its properties.
4. Discuss some of the technical and nontechnical issues that might come up in trying to
establish a large grid computing project such as the Large Hadron Collider.
ANSWER Technical Issues:- The complexity in the development in the grid technology is more,
As this is the new technology and is not enough mature, thus the software that are readily
available in the market are very less, The data of the users will be present in the remote location
thus there is the need to security needed for this purpose, There could be more users working at a
time on the system thus there should be appropriate reliability that is needed for the system so
that resource are utilized in the most efficient way
Non-Technical Issues 1. The setup that is needed for the grid computing needs good area and
space as this contains processing units, storage power supply units that can sometimes become a
bigger issue if the space is not available for the setup, Grid computing being an immature
technology, there could be chances that management and administration can become difficult
sometimes as there are very few managers that are skilled with the management of the these
systems, The setup or the hardware for the computing will be present in the remote physical
location thus the physical security could be an issue.
5. What is 3D printing? Discuss what you think the future is for 3D printing.
ANSWER 3D printing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a
digital 3D model. Future of 3D printing is Bio printing. Bioprinting is a 3D printing of biological
tissues and organs by layering cells(living). Nowadays, bio-printing is utilised to develop custom
breast implants and grafts for cancer patients using the fat and skin cells. A medicine pioneer
Organovo has created blood vessels and cardiac tissues through a 3D printer that gives out cells
instead of ink. Now they also plan to sell 3D printed liver tissue.
6. What is a multicore processor? What advantages does it offer users over a single-core
processor? Are there any potential disadvantages?
ANSWER is a computer processor integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units,
called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions, as if the computer had
several processors.
Advantages of multicore processors have a good processing speed due to the multiple cores
which operate simultaneously on instructions, at lower frequency than the single core. Multicore
processors deliver high performance and handle complex tasks at a comparatively lower energy
or lower power as compared with single core processors.
Disadvantages of multicore processors Power and temperature issues. The power consumption is
also a function of number of transistors on a chip. The level of parallelism increases overall
parallelism by breaking a program into many small processes.
7. Outline how the Electronic Product Environment Assessment Tool (EPEAT) can be used for
rating computers.
ANSWER Three tiers of environmental performance metrics are used i.e. bronze, silver and
gold. All the products that meet set of environmental criteria or standards are ranked with a gold.
All purchasers will check and buy products that meet these standards in order to promote
sustainable use of computing resources
8. Identify and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of solid-state secondary storage
devices compared with magnetic secondary storage devices.
ANSWER Advantages Large operating temperature range as a typical magnetic hard drive can
only work in the range of 5 to 55 degrees Celsius while most solid-state secondary storage
devices can work at -10 to 70 degrees Celsius. Solid-state secondary storage devices have low
power consumption and are more power-efficient than magnetic secondary hard as they generate
less heat. They have small read delay as No magnetic head, fast random reading, minimal read
delay. According to related tests: on two computers with the same configuration, laptops with
solid-state drives took only 18 seconds to appear on the desktop, while laptops with traditional
hard drives took a total of 31 seconds, nearly half the difference between the two.
Disadvantage Solid-state disk life is limited. Although the solid-state hard disk does not have the
mechanical structure of the traditional hard disk, there are no problems such as head aging, bad
disk and so on, but due to the use of flash memory as the storage medium, its limited erase and
write times is a major injury. Data loss is irrecoverable. high speed, unstable. Once the solid-
state drive was launched, it directly subverted consumers' traditional concept of hard drive: not
afraid of shock, turn on the SSD to play on the swing.
9. Briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of attached storage, network-attached
storage, and storage area networks in meeting enterprise data storage challenges.
ANSWER Attached storage: It is directly attached to the computer. It is not used over a
network.
Advantages:
The main advantage of such storage is that it is directly accessible from the client. This also
means that nobody else can access it. It doesn't require any network hardware. It doesn't require
any special operating system environment. The data is shared independently which leads to
confidentiality. The storage if connected to a host can be shared by the host.
Disadvantages:
Data is not accessible by different users in a group. Only one user can access data at a time.
Administrative costs for the system can be very high.
Network-attached storage: Reliable data storage is the need for any enterprise. Network-attached
storage offers a mix of local and cloud-based storage. The device used for such storage comes
with a connection in the complete network.

Advantages of network-attached storage:

Storage space: Such storage offers more space to store and make the enterprise meetings
efficient. Laptops or other devices come with limited storage and can be a problem in the smooth
implementation of certain operations. Using network-attached storage one doesn't have to buy
space for all the users. Collaboration: Collaborating with others, sending emails, sharing
documents, etc. can be stressful. It requires the creation of many clone copies.
Disadvantages
Heavy use of NAS will clog up the shared LAN negatively affecting the users on the LAN.
Cannot offer any storage service guarantees for mission critical operations since NAS operates in
a shared environment.
storage area networks
Advantage
Efficiency: - Rather than having several servers with various levels of hard drive utilization (one
full, another half-empty), a SAN allows you to pool your storage and dynamically allocate
exactly what each server requires. Scalability: - There’s a limit to how many drives your servers
can accommodate. High availability, Greater fault tolerance, Centralized storage management,
Faster backups, Global file systems, Rapid data migration, Fault tolerance, Better data security
and Improved storage utilization
Disadvantage
Expensive, doesn’t work well with only a few servers and Data might leak
10. If cost were not an issue, describe the characteristics of your ideal computer. What would
you use it for? Would you choose a tablet, laptop, desktop, or workstation computer? Why
ANSWER Intel Core i7 8th Gen.
Quad Core, 1.8 GHz Clock Speed.
8 GB RAM.
512 GB Hard Disk.
Intel UHD Graphics 620.
13.3 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels.
Windows 10 OS. I would use for gaming purposes, learning from the internet and work-related
assignments. I will choose laptops because easily portable and have the ability of to access large
data’s through their high processing speed.

CHAPTER 4
Case One: Société de transport de Montréal (STM) Implements
Innovative Mobile App
Summary
To summarize what this case study is trying to tell us that the company known as STM uses
smart face cards called opus on which customers can add and maintain an account. The main
point of this opus card is to track the riding history of its passengers but suddenly they noticed
that they were losing 13 % of its riders each year .The loss of his riders were related deaths not
being able to move out of the city and mostly college student fond it more viable to either buy or
rent a car. So, they got to thinking what should we do to increase our business first of all was the
launch of the app called STM merci, next was giving rewards to loyal customers which was
divided into three ranks top, mid, low tier. Next, we have the question of security, here STM has
decided to divide its servers into and dividing up the information so that even if people gain
access to it will take them time to come through all that information
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Identify four success criteria for the STM Merci pilot project that address retention of riders,
cost/benefits, recruitment of STM Merci partners, and usability of the application. The criteria
should specific, quantifiable, and time constrained to occur within a certain time period.
ANSWER The four success criteria for the STM merci were:
1)customer loyalty was repaid extra rides , tickets to the opera .What they did here was
depending on how much you used there app you can get different discounts (long time user gets
a free ticket ,mid-tier gets 50 % and low tier meaning new to the app or service you get 20%
2) Using the opus card STM was able to track and found out that after college students stopped
using rides so they added bonus for customers to attract new customers
3) The launch of the app STM merci helped them because now it was easily accessible to
everyone and people saw the convenience of using it (some rewards are mentioned above
4)Customer privacy also played a key role here.
2. Do you believe that the database design will safeguard the privacy of STM riders? Why or
why not? If not, what further changes are needed?
ANSWER Yes, I do believe that the database design will safely guard it because one all of the
information is not stored in just one server but two secure ones. Next up as mentioned in the case
the first server holds information such as e-mail address, ticket purchase history... those files that
perceived as critical is stored in the first server under the first name of the user. Next in the
second server we have information know has profile data food preference hobbies.... under the
users second name. So even here if people had access to get the correct information, they would
need to match the first and second name correctly, which will be hard to do. finally, the public
doesn't have access to it.
3. How might STM Merci pilot project members identify additional capabilities or features that
could be added to the STM Merci app to encourage increased ridership?
ANSWER STM might consider adding an option where they could have people post their
opinion either to make interface with the app smoother or can directly discuss with the clients to
add bonus that may attract more customers or improve current features.