CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

Final Exam Study Guide

Please review the HW assignments, and their related class materials, as you may have
ER Diagram, Excel, and SQL related exam questions on top of the concepts summarized
below
Knowledge Content Sources
• Class Presentations/Discussion (In-class slides, activities, and the dialogue surrounding them) 
Introduction to Information Systems Textbook
• Assignments: HW, EC, Team Project

Please keep in mind that while not all of the content in a given reading or assignment was
covered in class, it is still valid. Similarly, not all material discussed in class was covered
in a reading or assignment, but it is still valid as well.
Content will focus on post-Midterm material. However, pre-Midterm material is fair
game.
For any concept or content covered, do not simply demonstrate an abstract understanding
of a concept or idea. It is necessary, but not sufficient, to simply know “what” something
is or “how” to do something. The important, integrative learning occurs when you can
contextualize and answer, in addition to how and what, the “why” of a subject. Why do
these things matter and why are they so important to business and the world in general?
PLEASE NOTE: These are only examples of questions. This is by no means a
comprehensive list. There will be questions on the exam that examine different areas of
the subjects covered than what are listed here. These are only a guide for you to use in
preparing yourself for the exam.

Please read your Class Slides, Textbook Slides, and Textbook

Chapter 7 – E-commerce
1. What is E-commerce?
a The process of buying selling transferring or exchanging products/services/info over a
network
2. What were some of the predecessors of E-commerce?
3. What are the different types of E-commerce models?
a B2C – Business to consumer (Amazon)
b B2B – Business to business
c C2C – consumer to consumer (eBay)
d B2E – business to employee
e G2C – government to consumer
f G2B – government to business
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

g Online direct marketing – sell directly to customers. Very efficient

h Electronic tendering system – business requests quotes from suppliers (Reverse Auction
B2B)
i Find the best price – Customers specify need and website compares prices of business,
must accept offer in short period of time
j Affiliate marketing – Hyperlinks on other websites which if clicked on profit is shared
k Viral marketing – social media marketing
l Group purchasing (e-coops) – economies of scale, GroupOn
m Online auctions – eBay
n Product customization
o E-marketplace
p Bartering online – craigslist
q Deep discounters – Alibaba
r Membership – Amazon prime
4. What are the different iterations of Web Technology (1.0-4.0) and what are examples of each?
a Screenshot (e-commerce slide 5)
5. Why do these web techs matter for E-commerce?
a E-commerce changed forms every time the internet improved.
6. What is the difference between a forward auction and a reverse auction, how are those services
typically implemented online, and what are example of online services that use similar functions
but do not actually provide auctions?
a Auction – highest bidder wins
b Reverse auction – buyers wants something done, lowest bidder wins
7. What are the different degrees of digitization?
a Brick n mortar, click n mortar, digital
8. How can E-commerce affect the supply chain?
a E-commerce essential takes the middle man out, producers can sell directly and brick
and mortar shops are disappearing
9. What is the Long Tail, and how does E-commerce make it possible?
a The 80% of products that accounts for 20% of revenues, you have to account for the un
selling products
10. What is Crowdfunding, and how does E-commerce make it possible?

a Sites like FundMe and KickStarter startups can seek donations to fund business ideas

Chapter 11 – CRM
1. What are the 4 phases of Customer Life Cycle? Do you know the order of the phases?
a Marketing, customer acquisition, relationship management, loss/churn
2. How does CRM work along Customer Lifecycle?
a Manages all interacts with the customer through the customer life cycle
3. What are the CRM components that are used for solicitation/lead tracking and relationship
management?
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

a Lead management (Marketing), Relationship/Social media (Acquisition)

4. What is the fundamental difference between top line and bottom line initiatives? How does this
impact our strategic decision-making regarding CRM systems and their implementation?
a Top line – customer facing revenue generating (Marketing, Customer Support)
b Bottom Line – cost reduction, related to costs (inbound log, operations, outbound log)
5. What is the difference between customer facing and customer touching applications?

a Customer facing – areas where customers directly interact with the company (Customer
service)

b Customer touching – areas where customers use software or tools to help themselves

Chapter 11 – SCM
1. What is a supply chain?
a The movement of resources from organizations to end consumer
2. What is supply chain management (SCM)?
a Tracks inventory and information among business processes and across firms (network
not chain)
3. What steps or organization types or typically involved in a supply chain?
a Supplier, manufacturer, distribution, retailer, customer
4. Why is the term “chain” misleading?
a It’s more like a network, doesn’t just move one way or one direction
5. What is Disintermediation in regards to strategic use of SCM?
a Distributors are the intermediary removal of the distributor is disintermediation
6. What's the difference between supply-chain profitability and organizational profitability?
a The two are necessarily the same thing supply chain sometimes you have to set aside
your own business
7. What is Just-in-time (JIT), and why do organizations want to implement this practice?
a Producing or delivering the p/s just as the customer wants it (Key feature of SCM)
(Risky if any member slacks off)
8. What are some of the ways IS can improve a supply chain?
a Businesses can now the instant a product needs to be restocked, track inventory, see
buying patterns in customers.
9. What factors affect its performance?
a ERP Systems, Modern Kanban systems, RFID/tracking
10. What is the “Bullwhip effect”?
a Erratic shifts in orders up and down the supply chain, ripple effect, less downstream then
upstream
11. What are the trade-offs of sharing information with other members of your supply chain and why
is this relevant to the Bullwhip Effect?
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

a Information transparency, JIT manufacturing, physical locations, can help reduce the
bull whip effect
12. Can you briefly explain the concept of Statistical Control?
13. Can you briefly explain Kanban and why it is important?

a First ever system which notified when product was running low and out. Started in Japan
by Deming after WWII now technology has taken over this, but it is still based on
Kanban

Chapter 9 – Social Media in Business

1. What is a Social Media Information System (SMIS)? How is it used?
a Use of IT to support sharing of content among networks of users
2. What is a “Defender of Belief”?
a Want to convince others
3. What is a “Seeker of the Truth”?
a Want to find something
4. What is SLATES in relationship to SMIS and Enterprise 2.0?
a Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signals
5. What is a Folksonomy? Can you provide an example?
a User generated metadata, Hashtags, Links
6. What are examples of SMIS that are used across an organization’s Value Chain?
a Online survey, social media analyzing, social media marketing and customer service
7. How has the Customer Decision Journey changed in the presence of Social Media?
a They now have hundreds to thousands of people reviewing products and can base
decisions off of that information
8. What are some fundamental ways that marketing has changed in the presence of Social Media?
a Companies now can market to hundreds of thousands of people easier by targeting
people with more followers
9. What are some potential pitfalls of engaging with customers via Social Media?
a If mistakes are made they go viral very quickly and reputations can be ruined fairly fast
10. What is the “Gig” Economy?

a Uber, Lyft, Task rabbit

Chapter 2 – Business Process

1. What is a business process? What are the components of a business process?
a A network of activities, roles, resources, repositories, and data flows to achieve a
business function
2. Which one of the 5 components of IS serves as a bridge between the human side and the
computer side?
a Data
3. What does it mean to automate a manual process?
a Automate things that used to be done manually, Kanban to ERM
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

4. What are some key ways to improve or refine a process (go from serial to parallel, etc)?
a Adjust role resources, change process structure
5. Discuss the importance of processes being in a particular order
a Activity, Decision, Role, Repository they need to build off of one another, must be in a
particular order
6. What is meant by an “as-is” model and why is it important?
a Represents the current situation “as it is” no chang
7. What is meant by a “to-be” model and why is it important?
a Represents the desired situation and is shows ways model is changing
8. What is the difference between BPR and BPI?
a Business process reengineering rethinking and radical redesign of business, business
process improvement focuses on piece of the operation and yields improvement.
9. Difference between parallel and serial performance of processes?

Chapter 13 – Systems Acquisition

1. What is an Information System?
a Collects, processes, stores, and analyze data
2. How can technology adjust a break-even analysis?
a
3. What are our options for employing a new system?
4. What are the key differences between insourcing, selfsourcing, and outsourcing systems
development?
5. What are the phases of the SDLC?
6. In which phase do we need to complete the feasibility analysis and come up with a project plan?
7. What are the 4 feasibility analyses that need to be completed?
8. List the activities that are performed within each of the phases of the SDLC
9. What is the role of system analysts in the planning/investigation phase?
10. What are the four ways organizations can implement a system conversion?
11. What are the major differences between small projects and large projects?
12. How/Why is the “waterfall nature of SDLC” is problematic?
13. What is a JAD session?
a Joint Application Development (JAD) – developers and users in the same room to
understand needs of the system
14. How do new approaches on system developments value individuals and interactions?
15. What is agile? How does it compare to waterfall? What is users’ role in agile?
16. In the context of agile systems development, what is an iteration?
17. Can all projects be run in agile development?
18. Can you briefly describe Scrum
19. Between what dimensions are the key trade-offs in Project Management?
20. What is a “Definition of Done”?
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

Chapter 4 – Security
1. Who is the greatest threat to an organizations’ security?
2. What are the five top security trends for 2015, according to CIO.com?
a Unintended state intervention (Apple San Bernardino)
b Big data big problems
c Mobile and IoT
d Cyber security
e Skills gap
3. What is “https”?
4. What is a firewall? How does it work?
5. What are the different types of malware and attacks?
a Worm – targeted attacks
b Virus – surface attacks, wide range
6. What is a Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack?
7. How should you, as a user, handle security?
8. How should an organization handle security?
9. What does the acronym “CIA” mean for security?
10. What are some alternatives to passwords?
11. Is “security” an outcome or a process?

Chapter 12, Chapter 5 pp. 137-147 – Business Intelligence

1. Can you define and explain the “buzz words” discussed in class?
a Look on slide
2. What are the four phases of the Rational Model of Decision Making?
3. What is a Pareto Analysis? SWOT Analysis? Management By Objectives (MBO)?
4. What is the purpose of business intelligence?
5. What’s the difference between an information worker and a knowledge worker?
6. What is dirty data? Coarse data?
7. What is a Data Warehouse?
8. What is a data mart? How is it different from a data warehouse?
a Data mart is a smaller warehouse, the data is moved from marts into warehouses
9. What is data mining?
10. How is supervised data mining different from unsupervised data mining?
11. What is Predictive Modeling?
12. How do reporting systems create information from data?
13. What is a KPI? A Critical Success Factor (CSF)?
14. What is the difference between Structured, Semistructured, and Unstructured decision-making?
15. What is a “measure”?
16. What is a “dimension”? A dimensional hierarchy?
17. What is OLAP?
18. Why is OLAP different than OLTP?
19. Excel PivotTables – rows, columns, data area, filter, drill down
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

Chapter 5 pp. 131-137 – Big Data

1. What is a HiPPO?
a Highest paid person
2. How can the balance between data and opinion driven decision-making be impacted?
3. How does Big Data impact decision-making?
4. What are the three V’s of Big Data?
5. What is Hadoop?
6. What is MapReduce and why is it needed?
7. Be able to define and explain the “buzz words” discussed in class
8. What is “42”?

Other:
1. Given a table and a set of SQL commands, what is the expected output?
2. Given a table and the desired output, what SQL commands would you use?
3. Please practice SQL using the web sites we used in class and for your homework.
4. Identify Nouns and Verbs in the information given you to create an ER Diagram. Draw the
diagram. Know how to represent cardinality.
5. Be able to read and/or identify key elements in an existing ER Diagram 6. Excel: Be able
to explain or execute basic functions and cell references
7. What is “Digital Darwinism”?
8. Can you write a simple Python script produce given output?
9. Can you debug a simple Python script that is not functioning properly (or at all)?
10. What is the difference between sentinel- and counter-controlled repetition?
11. What does it mean to “cast” a variable’s value in Python?
12. What are the various operators we discussed in this class for use in Python?
13. How do conditional statements work in programming?
14. What is an algorithm?
15. Can you craft an algorithm to solve a simple problem programmatically?
16. What is a PivotTable? A PivotChart? A Slicer? Why do we need these things? What do they have
to do with OLAP?
17. Can you construct a simple PivotChart and make an analysis and recommendation based on a
simple dataset?

SQL
 Select (Aggregate)
 From (Join, On) (Join = ‘Table one join table two on (tableone.pk = tabletwo.fk))
 Where (Order By, Group By)
Python
 Print()
 Import()
CIS 235 Introduction to Information Systems Summer 2016

 Len()
 Str()
 Int()
 While()
 For()
 If()
 If() Else() If()
