Final Exam Diagnostic Quiz

            Multiple Choice  Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers

              the question.

____    1.   The first step in the problem-solving process is ____.

____    2.   The relevant information, data, rules, cases, and relationships used by the expert system are stored in the ____.

____    3.   Andrew and Aaron were tired of waiting for their expense book software to be developed by the IS department, so they received guidance from the IS department and created their own. This is an example of ____.

____    4.   The final step of the systems development process is systems ____.

____    5.   Systems ____ involves checking, changing, and enhancing the system to make it more useful in achieving user and organizational goals.

____    6.   Frequently, criminals can talk a critical computer password out of an individual, a practice called ____.

____    7.   A ____ can include both hardware and software that act as a barrier between an organization’s information systems and the outside world.

____    8.   A ____ is a variable value that is applied using an algorithm to a string or block of unencrypted text to produce encrypted text or to decrypt encrypted text.

                                                     Hints about using cases

(1) Read the case (or mini-case) through, highlighting or underlining facts that stand out.  These will be facts that "resonate" with lecture material
(2) Each question has responses that are crafted to look "attractive."  Some are clearly wrong (for example, they might contain conflicting ideas or incorrect definitions).  There may be two or more that might seem "correct".  If one answer logically implies another, then the first one is "more correct". 
(3) On occasion, the case leaves things out that a business student should be expected to know.  Strategic efforts take place among executives; businesses have customers; people don't like wasting money: these are taken as givens.  Use this knowledge to puzzle out the best answers.
(4) There is a principle in logic known as Ockham's Razor.  When two ideas, solutions, thoughts, etc. appear equally "good" or "true", the simpler one is the best. "Simpler" means makes or requires fewer assumptions, has fewer irrelevancies or requires less explanation.  This is when they appear equally true.  When one answer is clearly good and another is clearly wrong, simplicity does not matter.
(5) Put yourself in the minds of the players in the cases.  We are talking about real humans.  Business is a human activity.  Even MIS cannot make demands that people perform actions they are incapable of.
(6) Where minicases appear in sequence (this is not the case in this diagnostic quiz, by the way), read them in sequence, but not all at once.  The answers to each of the series help you in the subsequent minicases.
 

Questions 9-12 concern the Big Producers minicase

Big Producers is a manufacturing company headquartered in southeastern Michigan.  Stella Nightingale is a human resources director for the firm; she is in charge of hiring and developing all employees for this 14,000-strong company.  Stella’s strong points are her people skills (of course) and her ability to create teams of people who can work together to achieve Big’s mission.  As an executive of Big Producers, Stella not only has access to the big picture but has this in mind at all times, while simultaneously directing an organization of 26 people who are concerned with recruiting, hiring, training, career development, counseling, and retirement planning. She’s worked for Big for seven years, having started in compensation after graduating from Oakland University in 1999.

Last month Big -- as part of its diversification strategy -- acquired Medium Distributors, who for many years handled Big’s inbound and outbound logistics.  Medium has over 1000 employees all over North America, serving dozens of firms, including some of Big’s competitors.  Stella has the problem of integrating these employees into her existing HR information system, one that Big has been using for almost ten years. 

____    9.   Integrating these employees will require a change to Stell’s information systems.  Stella’s level of confidence is ___

____   10.   Given the kinds of work that is done at Big Producers, Stella’s best option for installation of the improved system including the integration of Medium Distributor’s employee records is ___

____   11.   A year after the successful integration of Medium’s employees’ records  into Big’s HR information system, Stella has been asked by the CEO of Big if the employees brought into Big have had problems or are doing OK.  Stella doesn’t actually know what “doing OK” specifically means, but figures that the information she needs in in her HR information system, including promotions, disciplinary notes, and annual evaluations.  She approaches her IT people and asks for help in answering this question.  The IT people build her a(n) ___.

____   12.   Stella is really not interested in technology, though, and assigns the task of keeping the technology up to date and useful to Sam Small, who begins the work by developing a plan for keeping the HR information system current.  Sam wants to manage this technology well, so the next step would be to

Questions 13-15 involve the Metropolitan Tourism minicase

Metrotown is a large metropolitan area (about 2.5 million people) located in a beautiful part of the country with a four-season tourism base.  Metropolitan Tourism (MT) has recently been formed by Metrotown Chamber of Commerce to develop and advance the tourism industry, poised to become the largest employer in town. 

                        MT has begun collecting information to build a large database about tourism in the Metrotown area; this database will be available on an intranet run out of the Metrotown Chamber of Commerce.  They’ve acquired information from local hotels and tourist attractions concerning visitors and their visits over the past five years to CoC member organizations.  They’ve also got information about those hotels and tourist attractions (also CoC members), too, including sales records that are confidential.  To retain this information safely, MT has spent $1000 on a good password system so that only authorized MT employees can get the information through the intranet.

____   13.  

Within hours of mounting the website on the MCofC website, the website is subject to attack, which denies service to any users.  MT does a quick assessment and doesn’t find anything wrong with the databases and resumes service with no apparent problems.  Resuming service is ___

____   14.   How much should MT be prepared to spend on recovery if they’ve spent $1000 on a “good password system” (select one range)?

____   15.   Regarding the information available to MT’s intranet-accessible database, which of the following ethical problems might MT face?

Final Exam Diagnostic Quiz  Answer Section

            1.   ANS:  A                    REF:   229

            2.   ANS:  D                    REF:   277

            3.   ANS:  B                    REF:   313

            4.   ANS:  A                    REF:   332

            5.   ANS:  A                    REF:   332

            6.   ANS:  A                    REF:   353

            7.   ANS:  A                    REF:   366

            8.   ANS:  D                    REF:   361

            9.   ANS:  D

As an executive in HR with 10 years or more experience, Stella should know precisely what she wants the system to do.  In fact, all that is happening is that 1000 records have to be entered correctly; this doesn’t require a change to how these records or any records are processed.  Yes, there is always risk in any change, but this risk isn’t out of proportion to any other risk.  She probably doesn’t know how the system functions technically, especially since she wasn’t there when the system was implemented.

           10.   ANS:  B

There’s no reason to create an expensive parallel system; this is not mission critical and information can be converted and entered over a relatively short period of time without changing the processes involved.  New employee records is not an identifiable group activity, nor is data conversion a typical function of an HR system.

           11.   ANS:  C

Assuming that Stella is actually competent, we can imagine that she has at least a vague idea of what “doing OK” means, but there are no established ideas about this, so she can’t have a DSS constructed.  An expert system isn’t used just for retrieval, but that’s pretty much what an MIS application does.  Printing out 1000 records is madness for an executive to do.

           12.   ANS:  A

A technological leader will engage in reasonable and solid technology management.  There is no possibility of procuring even an appropriate, never mind the best system, without understanding what the options are.  Most systems cannot really be easily commercialized; instead cost efficiencies should be built into existing system: if they’re not cost effective, they shouldn’t have been created in the first place.  Although taking a course in technological leadership is useful, it’s not necessary.

           13.   ANS:  B

MT doesn’t know what happened and a quick assessment cannot ever tell what has been altered or destroyed.  The website must be shut down, because data could be being corrupted or moved out and a lot of it is confidential.  Creating an audit trail after the fact is useless.

           14.   ANS:  C

Applying the exponential rule, deterrence should cost 1/8 to 1/1000 as much as recovery.  This means that they should be willing to spend something between $8000 (likely) to $1,000,000 (very unlikely).

           15.   ANS:  D