Tutorial Questions: Chapter Six

1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.

High quality information can be characterised into five categories. These characteristics can be identified as accuracy, completeness, consistency, uniqueness and timeliness.

1.      Accuracy- the information must be checked to ensure that it is accurate and correct. For example, the spelling of the document is correct and the information is composed in a logical way. In a Spread sheet document, data must be accurate and avoid data redundancy.

2.      Completeness- Data and information must always be complete in order for it to make sense and assist an enterprise in its decision making processes. In a spread sheet document, all fields must contain valid data. For example, names and addresses must be included in each record which requires this information.

3.      Consistency- a characteristic involves information which is consistent as a whole. For example, an essay must contain an argument which is present throughout the whole document.

4.      Uniqueness- involves differences within each cell of a spread sheet. It is important that no cell is the same as another, as data redundancy can occur.

5.      Timeliness- Data and information within a business must be up-to-date with the changes of a growing and dynamic business. For example, customer information such as house addresses must be updated to ensure that the customer is informed with business updates and vice versa.

2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.

A database is it system which has the ability to store key business information and has a purpose to organise a collection of business data; whereas, a database management system (DBMS) is a group of programs that has the ability to manipulate and organise the data. A DBMS is the computer program used to manage and query that data located on the database, E.g. Oracle. The DBMS is a useful tool for businesses as it allows employees to identify trends and manipulate the data so it can be applied into the decision making process.

3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.

There are many advantages that an organisation can gain when the business is using a database system. For example, Business and customer information is easily organised and this particular data can be analysed into meaningful charts and graphs. Database application can also provide businesses with certain decision making skills such as, goal seeks and what-if analysis. These tools can offer enterprises with a competitive advantage as they assist in the decision making process. A database may also help organisations identify certain market trend through the data mining system; these trends include the number of sales expected by a business during a particular time in the year. Therefore, employees may act accordingly and respond to these generated trends, for example, increasing the number of items manufactured during this time to keep up with consumer demand.

4. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.

The fundamental components of a relational database are entities and attributes. An entity is a person, transaction or event which has the ability to store and receive information. An attribute are characteristics or properties of an entity class. A relational database is a series of two dimensional tables that link to each other through primary and foreign keys. Once these relationships are formed the tables has the ability to “talk” and interactive with each other.

5. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.

A data driven website has many advantages in the operation of an organisation. A data driven website is an interactive website kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers through the use of a database. The customers have the ability to search particular criteria in the website and the database runs a query to reach the required information. The benefits of a data driven website are business development, content management, the ability to minimise human error, more efficient and improve business stability.

6. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation.

Data warehouses are a logical collection of information, gathered from many different operational databases that support business analysis activities and decision making tasks. The primary purpose of a data ware house is to aggregate information throughout an organisation into a single repository for decision making purposes. A data mart contains a subset of data warehouse information. To distinguish between data warehouses and data marts, think of data warehouses as having more organisational focus and data marts having focused information subsets particular to the needs of a given business unit such as finance or production and operations. (Baltan, et al, 2010)