ITM Exam 2 (Chapter 6) – Flashcards

5 common characteristics of high quality information are EQUALLY important to Zillow. accuracy, completeness, consistency, uniqueness, and timeliness. Assess how Zillow uses a data-driven website to run its business: using tools and other links, imports data right from brokers, lot of data -> querying data for searches Zillow uses business intelligence to create a unique product for its customers by using queries to pull from all sources showing a competitive analysis. Internal- MLS info External- Competitor/geographic information

Levels of data: 1. Character and 2. Field 3. Records: Related fields with attributes and length 4. Files: Grouping of records with classification 5. Database: multiple files Integrated collection of logically related data elements Consolidates records into common pool of data elements Data is independent of application program and storage device

Personnel Database Files(ex: benefits and payroll files) Records (ex: employee records) Fields (ex: Name, SS, salary per employee) Characters (ex: Julie, 358-88-8888, 50,000)

Information is everywhere in an org Databases- maintains information about various types of objects(inventory), events(transactions), people(employees), and places(warehouses)

Increased flexibility Increased scalability Reduced information redundancies Increased information integrity(quality) Increased info security

Handles changes quickly and easily, provide different views, have one physical view(physical storage on a device), multiple logical views(meeting particular business needs) Physical view- Deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device. Logical view- Focuses on how individual users logically access information to meet their own particular business needs.

A database must scale to meet increased demand, while maintaining acceptable performance levels. Scalability- Refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demands. Performance- Measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction.

Databases reduce data redundancy. Inconsistency is one of the primary problems with redundant information.

Increased information integrity(quality): Relational integrity constraint: Rules that enforce basic fundamental information based constraint. Business critical integrity constraint: enforce business rules vital to an org. success and often require more insight and knowledge than relational. Ordering, sending to the same place.

Information is an organizational asset and must be protected. Databases offer several security features: Password- Provides authentication of the user. Access level- Determines who has access to the different types of information. Access control- Determines types of user access, such as read-only access.

Creates, reads, updates, and deletes data in a database while controlling access and security. 2 primary tools for retrieving information from DBMS: Query-by-example tool: Helps users graphically design the answer to a question against a database. Structured query language (SQL)- Asks users to write lines of code to answer questions against a database.

Benefits of high quality information: successfully collecting, compiling, sorting and analyzing information can provide insight into how an organization is performing. Costs of low quality: Inability to accurately track customers, difficulty identifying valuable customers, inability to identify selling opportunities, marketing to nonexistent customers, difficulty tracking revenue, inability to build strong customer relationships. Characteristics of high quality information: Accurate(customer's name spelled correctly?), complete(city, zip code missing?), consistent(may be duplication of information), unique(every customer represented only once), timely(refreshing database, updating information)

A process that weeds out and fixes or discards inconsistent, incorrect, or incomplete information. Used to make accurate and consistent information. Applied to raw data to make the data accurate and complete so the company can use the data to make organizational decisions.

A logical collection of information-gathered from many different operational databases-that supports business analysis activities and decision making tasks. Value: Combining information more specifically and strategically throughout an organization so people who need that information can make decisions. Can also standardize all information that goes into it.

Databases contain information in a series of two-dimensional tables. In a data warehouse and data mart, information is multidimensional, it contains layers of columns and rows. Dimension- A particular attribute of information Cube- Common term for the representation of multidimensional format.

Extraction, transformation, and loading- A process that extracts information from internal and external databases, transforms it using a common set of enterprise definitions and loads it into a data warehouse. The data warehouse then sends portions of the information to data marts. Data mart- Contains a subset of data warehouse information.

The process of analyzing data to extract information not offered by the raw data alone. Data-mining tools: Use a variety of techniques to find patterns and relationships in large volumes of information. Approaches decision making with a few different activities in mind: Classification- assigns records to one of a predefined set of classes. Estimation- Determines values for an unknown continuous variable behavior or estimated future value. Affinity grouping- Determines which things go together. Clustering-Segments a heterogeneous population of records into a number of more homogeneous subgroups. Data mining occurs on structured data already in a database.

Information collected from multiple sources such as suppliers, customers, competitors, partners, and industries that analyze patterns, trends, and relationships for strategic decision making. Enables business users to receive data analysis that is reliable, consistent, understandable, easily manipulated.

Focuses on developing new insights and understanding of business performance based on data and statistical methods. Makes extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predicative modeling, and fact-based management to drive decision making.

Informing-Accessing large amounts of data from different management information systems. Infographics- Displays information graphically Data visualization- Allows users to "see" or visualize data to transform information into business perspective. Data visualization tools- Sophisticated analysis techniques such as pie charts, controls, instruments, maps, time-series graphs, and more.

An interactive website kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers using a database. Advantages: Easy to manage content, easy to store large amounts of data, easy to eliminate human errors.