Study Suggestions for Midterm Examination
PADM 5500
Fall 2009
Dr. Neubauer
The midterm will cover chapters 1 through 5 of both textbooks plus the speaking notes I have provided, plus the notes each of you has taken in class. I anticipate that the midterm examination will be a combination of short-answer and short-essay questions. A short essay means at least one good well-written paragraph. The following list is intended to help you as you prepare for the midterm examination but it is not necessarily an all-inclusive list of topics and concepts.
COMPUTER BASICS
What does it mean to say that an information system is a "system?" Be able to explain this by analogy.
Hardware, operating systems and applications
Examples of major operating systems
Data, information, knowledge
Centralized computing, decentralized computing
Client server networks
Mainframe computers, mini computers, microcomputers and mobile devices
End user
The major parts of a computer, including the motherboard
Primary and secondary storage
Client-server networks
ORGANIZATIONAL NEEDS
AND CONVERGENT DESIGN OF ORGANIZATION STRUCTURES AND COMPUTER NETWORKS
Major roles of IT professionals including project managers and CIO's. What they do and don't do.
"Sunk costs" as relates to a software development
project that is not going well
Be able to identify and briefly discuss at least two of the factors that Barrett and Greene say relate to the embrace of e-government by many government agencies.
Be able to identify and briefly discuss at least one of the factors (considerations) that tend to deter government agencies from becoming more involved in e-government.
The fact that both organizations and information systems have ARCHITECTURES and that while they are not the same it is important that they at least be compatible with one another.
STRATEGIC LEVEL MANAGERS need software like Arena to help them make decisions about the future.
TACTICAL LEVEL MANAGERS need software that produce REPORTS at intervals to make sure things are on track.
OPERATIONAL LEVEL MANGERS ("street level bureaucrats") need EXPERT SYSTEMS and similar kinds of software to actually do what the organization does.
DATABASES
Why data needs to be "persisted"
Flat files (file processing systems)
The two major anomalies associated with flat file databases
Relational databases
Relational Database Management Systems – two examples of “industrial strength” RDBMs
Microsoft Excel is NOT a relational database management system.
Relational databases; relational database management systems (RDBMs)
Entity relationship diagrams
What (most) entities in analysis become when actually implemented as part of a relational database
Multiplicity of relationships – one-to-one; one-to-many; many-to-many
Attributes of an entity – how they appear in a table structure
Primary key field – what is it; what is its purpose?
Foreign key field – what is its purpose?
Structured Query Language (SQL) – what is its purpose? The three major clauses
Given an SQL expression – be able to tell how many columns will be in the "answer table" returned from the DBMS
Given an SQL expression, be able to identify the criteria. – we are only interested if . . .
Know that the criteria (WHERE clause) limits the number of ROWS returned from the DBMS
BUSINESS PROCESS
MODELING AND THE USE OF ARENA SOFTWARE
The fact that ARENA software can be used to model BUSINESS PROCESSES of organizations and can same organizations time and money by allowing STRATEGIC MANAGERS to "see" what is going to work before it is actually created.
That before an organization AUTOMATES an existing business process it is necessary to REENGINEER the process first.
The meaning of the major modules you have used in Lab 1 -- Create, Process, Decide and Dispose.
NETWORKS AND THE INTERNET
Stove pipe applications and "sneaker nets"
LAN's, MAN's and WAN's
The benefits of computer networking
The historic origins of the Internet. The original design intent.
How data goes across a network.
The Internet and the World Wide Web (and the difference)
Intranets and Extranets
IP addresses and Domain Names
Domain Name servers
The backbone of the Internet
Hops and the self destruction of lost frames on the Internet.
frivolous and non-frivolous protocols
IP addresses, domain names, domain name servers
THE ROLE AND
RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS
E-COMMERCE
HOW E-GOVERNMENT AND
E-DEMOCRACY "MAP TO" E-COMMERCE
THE BASICS OF
MODELING A "BUSINESS" PROCESS OF AN ORGANIZATION USING ROCKWELL ARENA
THE BASIC IDEA OF HOW
SHARING SERVICES AMONG ORGANIZATIONS (using a Service Oriented Architecture)
CAN POTENTIALLY SAVE MONEY.