Chapter 6
In-Chapter Questions
1. When is the best time to list an item? What are the best strategies to respond to seasonal changes? Which items are selling well, and which aren’t worth listing? What is the best strategy for setting starting bids or reserve prices? How can sellers gain this insight and benefit from the tremendous amounts of historical data?
· eBay allows users to access tools and reports that help sellers analyze their past auctions. Sellers can use the information from their past auctions to determine successful times and strategies for selling items.
2. (Pg. 236): How can eBay utilize its traditional data to help both buyers and sellers?
· eBay can utilize its traditional data by analyzing bidding behavior over the life of an auction. This data is used to help fine-tune eBay’s systems, so the company is able to provide maximum performance.
3. (Pg. 236): Given the speed and volume of transactions on eBay, what business analytics and visualization tools could be used to better track and reduce fraudulent transactions?
· eBay can mine its massive data warehouse to determine behavior patterns that suggest fraudulent activity.
4. (Pg. 236): How could legitimate buyers and sellers help eBay improve its tools for fighting fraud?
· Legitimate buyers and sellers can use the data provided by eBay to make good decisions and can report any type of fraud that is occurring.
5. (Pg. 248): Can ads come to the rescue?
· According to Mediamark’s survey, seventy percent of the respondents find mobile ads annoying, while almost twenty-five percent of the respondents are willing to watch ads if the cost of live TV on their mobile devices is lower.
6. (Pg. 254): *Go to www.imdb.com* Who was the blond in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
· Cate Blanchett
7. (Pg. 254): *Go to www.imdb.com* Who was the Native American actor who played Tonto in the Lone Ranger?
· Jay Silverheels
8. (Pg. 254): What made Robert Blake famous and what animal was his costar?
· He was made famous by the show “Baretta”. His animal costar was his pet cockatoo.
9. (Pg. 254): How can IMDb use automated tools to ensure accuracy of the information submitted by users of other sources?
· They could use automated tools to pull information from databases to cross reference to ensure the accuracy of the submitted information.
10. (Pg. 254): How could user generated content be used to predict the success of future movie releases?
· The site could pitch an idea and storyline to the users of the site, and the users could give feedback.
11. (Pg. 267): If your neighbor is watering his lawn and accidently waters some your grass, have you “stolen” your neighbor’s water?
· No because the neighbor is the one who watered your grass for you.
12. (Pg. 267): When you tune in a station on your car radio, are you illegally using the “free” radio?
· No because it is free. The only radio that you have to pay to listen to is satellite radio and not every car has that capability.
13. (Pg. 267): If you are sitting in your car with your laptop in front of a business with in-house Wifi service and you are surfing the Internet by “piggybacking” on the business’ Internet access, are you stealing Internet service?
· According to most Internet service providers, the answer is “yes” because piggybacking allows you to use, for free, a service that costs the business.
14. (Pg. 267): How does GIS help in analyzing geospatial related data?
· Typically, GIS provides a user with a blank map of an area. The user can then add layers of information they to get the answers they are searching for.
15. (Pg. 270): Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of online medical records
· Benefits: Physicians can digitally store any diagnosis, which facilitates the sharing of information between them, the nurses, and even the insurance companies.
· Drawbacks: The privacy of the patients could be breached if the data security is not closely monitored.
16. (Pg. 270): Computer-aided diagnosis can replace years of experience providing opportunities for young inexperienced physicians. Contrast the benefits and drawback for patients and physicians.
· For patients: A quick diagnosis can be reached with a doctor who does not have much experience. However, if they do not understand the information given to support the diagnosis then the patient could be the victim of medical malpractice.
· For Physicians: Older physicians did not have the advantage of computer-aided diagnosis so it undermines all of the hard work they did in medical school to have young doctors using the computer instead of their education to make decisions about their patients. Younger physicians who did well in medical school and understand the technology behind computer-aided diagnoses can put themselves heads above their older counterparts.
17. (Pg. 270): Will there be a place for physicians without computer skills in the future? Why or why not?
· We do not believe so because everything is so technologically driven. Most, if not all, professions will have to have computer skills in order to keep up with the increase in the use of technology over the years.
Chapter 6 Review Questions
1. How can a continuous planning process help businesses respond to external threats and opportunities?
· A continuous planning process can help businesses respond to external threats and opportunities by analyzing data from the operational level of the organization.
2. Describe the difference between entities, tables, rows, and attributes in a database
· Entity: Something you collect data about, such as people or classes
· Table: A collection of related records in a database where each row is a record and each column is an attribute
· Row: A record in a table
· Attribute: A column in a table
3. What is the importance of mater data management?
· The importance of master data management is to come to a single version of the truth using data that is shared among multiple users within the organization. Also, the different business units and different corporate levels have to agree on the meaning of the master data items or how to handle duplicates.
4. What are the advantages of DBMS?
· Program Data Independence: Much easier to evolve and alter software to changing business needs when data and programs are independent
· Minimal Data Redundancy: Single copy of data ensures that storage requirements are minimized
· Improved Data Consistency: Eliminating redundancy greatly reduces the possibilities of inconsistencies
· Improved Data Sharing: Easier to deploy and control data access using a centralized system
· Increased Productivity of Application Development: Data standards make it easier to build and modify applications
· Enforcement of Standards: A centralized system makes it much easier to enforce standards and rule for data creation, modification, naming, and deletion
· Increased Security: A centralized system makes it easier to enforce access restrictions
· Improved Data Quality: Centralized control, minimized redundancy, and improved data consistency help to enhance the quality of data
· Improved Data Accessibility: A centralized system makes it easier to provide access for personnel within or outside organizational boundaries
· Reduced Program Maintenance: Information changed in the central database is replicated seamlessly throughout all applications
5. Explain the differences between OLAP and OLTP
· OLAP: (Online Analytical Processing)—Refers to a process of quickly conducting complex, multidimensional analysis of data stored in a database that is optimized for retrieval using graphical software
· OLTP: (Online Transaction Processing)—Refers to immediate automated responses to the requests of users. Designed to hand multiple concurrent transactions from customers
6. Describe how OLAP enables users to conduct multidimensional queries
· The OLAP server enables users to conduct multidimensional queries because it understands how data is organized in the database and has special functions for analyzing the data.
7. What is the meaning of support and confidence in the context of data mining?
· Data mining provides capabilities for discovering hidden predictive relationships in data. Support has to be given on the basis of these relationships. Additionally, the users of the data must be confident that the algorithms used yielded the correct and desired results.
8. Explain the difference between clustering and classification
· Clustering: The process of grouping related records together on the basis of having similar values for attributes
· Classification: Used when the groups (“classes”) are known beforehand, and records are segmented into these classes.
9. What is the relationship between measures and dimensions?
· Measures: Sometimes called facts, are the value or numbers the user wants to analyze such as the sum of sales or the number of orders placed.
· Dimensions: Provides a way to summarize the data such as region, time, or product line.
· Relationship: Sales (a measure) could be analyzed by product, time (year, quarter, week), geographical region or distributor (dimensions)
10. Describe and give examples of two types of Web Mining:
· Web Content Mining: Extracts textual information from Web documents. An example would be a Web Crawler (gathers sites and documents that match pre-specified criteria and places this information in a massive document warehouse).
· Web Usage Mining: Analysis of a Web site’s usage pattern, such as navigational patterns. An example of this would be clickstream data (records the user’s path through a website).
11. What is a Web site’s stickiness, and why is it important?
· Stickiness is the ability of a Web site to attract and keep customers. This is important because it helps the site to optimize its structure.
12. Explain the purpose of a model within a DSS?
· Decision Support System (DSS)—is a special purpose information system designed to support organizational decision making related to a particular recurring problem. Typically used by managerial-level employees to help them solve semi-structured problems such as a sales and resource forecasting.
13. Explain the difference between explicit and tactic knowledge
· Explicit Knowledge: Reflects knowledge that can be documented, archived, and codified, often with the help of information systems
· Tactic Knowledge: Reflects the processes and procedures that are located in a person’s mind and how to effectively perform a particular task
14. Describe four types of intelligent agents. How can they be used to benefit organizations?
· User Agents: Agents that automatically perform a task for a user, such as automatically sending a report at the first of the month, assembling customized news, or filling out a Web form with routine information
· Buyer Agents (Shopping Bots): Agents that search to find the best prices for a particular product you wish to purchase
· Monitoring and Sensing Agents: Agents that keep track of key information, such as inventory levels or competitors’ prices, notifying the user when conditions change
· Data Mining Agents: Agents that continuously analyze large data warehouses to detect changes deemed important by a user, sending a notification when such changes occur
15. What is a knowledge management system, and what types of technologies make up a comprehensive system?
· A knowledge management system refers to the processes an organization uses to gain the greatest value from its knowledge assets.
· Comprehensive System: Enhances innovation and creativity, improves customer service, shortens product development, streamlines operations, enhances employee retention, and improves organizational performance
16. How can visual analytics be used to gain business intelligence and improve decision making?
· The combination of various analysis techniques and interactive visualizations solves complex problems by combining human intelligence and reasoning capabilities with technology’s retrieval and analysis capabilities. This can improve decision making because it merges the strengths of both humans and machines.
17. What is the purpose of using layers in GIS applications?
· In GIS, related data can be made visible or invisible when viewing a map; each layer acts like a transparency that can be turned on or off and processes additional information, such as roads, utilities, zip code boundaries, flood plains, etc.
Chapter 6 Self-Study Questions
1. In a DBMS, an entity is represented as a (n) ______.
· B—Table
2. A (n) ______ report provides a summary of critical information on a recurring schedule.
· C—Key indicator
3. In order to swiftly respond to a highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, organizations utilize a ______.
· A—Continuous planning system
4. ______ is used to determine the likelihood of new customers to default on a loan.
· C—Classification
5. Web usage mining entails analyzing ______.
· A—Clickstream data
6. Market share analysis is a type of model typically used by the ______ function of an organization.
· A—Marketing
7. Examples of the types of activities that can be supported by ESs include all of the following except ______.
· A—Payroll calculations
· Includes: Financial planning, machine configuration, and medical diagnosis
8. ______ agents keep track of key information such as inventory levels, notifying the users when conditions change.
· C—Monitoring and sensing
9. What is true about knowledge management?
· D—All of the above are true
§ As baby boomers retire at an increasing rate, knowledge management is helping organizations capture their knowledge
§ A knowledge management system is not a single technology but a collection of technology-based tools
§ Finding the right technology to manage knowledge assets is much easier than identifying what knowledge is needed, why it is needed, and who has this knowledge.
10. Which of the following is an example of attribute data commonly used in GIS applications?
· D—Annual sales
Chapter 6 Assigned Problems
1. Match the following terms with the appropriate definitions
· Social Network Analysis: C—A technique that attempts to find groups of people who work together, to find who don’t collaborate but should, or to find experts in particular subject areas
· Measures: F—The values or numbers a user wants to analyze
· Master Data: J—The data that is deemed most important in the operation of a business
· Web Content Mining: H—Extracting textual information from Web documents
· Online Processing: E—Processing of information immediately as it occurs
· Data Mining: D—A set of applications used to find hidden predictive relationships in a data set
· Expert System: B—A special-purpose information system designed to mimic human expertise by manipulating knowledge (understanding acquired through experience and extensive learning) rather than simply information
· Digital Dashboard: I—A user interface visually representing summary information about a business’s health, often from multiple sources
· Geographic Information System: A—An information system designed to analyze and store spatially referenced data
· DSS: G—A special-purpose information system designed to support organizational decision making primarily at the managerial level of an organization
2. (#3): Visit www.amazon.com and search for a product of interest to you. What attributes are likely stored in Amazon’s database?
· Price, size, color, quantity, etc.
3. (#15): How do you prefer your desired information be presented? Do you use any type of visualization tools? If so, which ones?
· I do not use any type of special visualization tools. I do find the windows system to be very helpful. I think it is the reason that personal computers have become so popular and useful. I remember when computers did not have this type of display. Finding your way around a computer system was difficult and tedious. Many people who had never had any contact with a computer were lost when trying to access any information and they would usually become aggravated and closed off to the idea that a computer could help them. The windows system became very popular because it presented the information in an intuitive way that was easy to see and understand.
Chapter 6 Assigned Case #1
1. In what ways could Netflix visualize movie ratings, preferences, or trends to provide its subscribers with additional “movie intelligence”?
· Netflix already has a rating system in place. People are able to rate a movie or tv show and a 5 star rating system is displayed on the screen when you select a title. It also has a separate genre of movies that are selected by people on facebook. There is even a column of movies that are selected from using information about what you have watched in the past. As you rate more and more movies and tv shows, the system will learn more about you and pick movies and tv shows that it thinks you may enjoy.
2. What are the pros and cons of having the winner of the Netflix Prize share the improved Cinematch method?
· The pro is that Netflix is able to use the method and understand how it works. The con is that other companies are also able to view how the method works and use that method.
3. Describe another problem in business or society that could utilize an approach similar to that for winning the Netflix Prize (i.e., a contest that anyone can try to solve).
· There are several problems in businesses and society that can utilize a similar approach. An example of this could be the use of kids submitting projects in science fairs that aim at answering currently unanswered science questions.