Deck 23: Extension: Using Technology to Manage Information

Question 1

In the 1970s business technology was known as data processing.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Information is data that has been processed and organized so that it can be used for managerial decision making.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Though the types of technology used by businesses have changed over the last several decades, the role of business technology has remained remarkably constant.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Data and information are two different names for essentially the same thing.

Question 5

During the 1980s, the role of business technology changed from supporting business to doing business.

Question 6

The experiences of the past several decades show that, while improvements in technology frequently enhance the efficiency of basic business operations, such improvements never actually change the fundamental way that businesses operate.

Question 7

Business intelligence (BI) changes the traditional flow of information so that the database goes to the individual rather than the individual going to the database.

Question 8

Information technology brings work to people instead of requiring people to go to work.

Question 9

During the 1970s, the purpose of data processing was to support the existing business by improving the flow of financial information.

Question 10

Katie Prescott's assistant just handed her a report that summarizes and organizes many raw facts and figures into a few key measures that will help her judge whether her department is meeting its key objectives. The summary measures included in the report are information, while the raw facts and figures used to compute these measures are data.

Question 11

During the 1980s business technology began to emphasize the use of technology to change how business was conducted by introducing new methods.

Question 12

Business intelligence is any variety of software applications that analyze an organization's raw data and take useful insights from it.

Question 13

In the coming years, successful information management will be more concerned with achieving and maintaining stability and predictability, and less concerned with adapting to change.

Question 14

Over time, business technology has become much more sophisticated, but its basic application has remained to support the existing operations of businesses by providing key financial information.

Question 15

In today's technological environment, the typical chief information officer (CIO) spends the majority of his or her time overcoming glitches and making sure the organization's information system is up and running.

Question 16

Information technology has changed the staffing and customer relations of businesses.

Question 17

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, businesses began to emphasize finding ways to employ new technologies to improve existing methods of doing business.

Question 18

Today the role of the chief information officer is to help the business use technology to communicate better with others while offering better service and lower costs.

Question 19

As businesses began using business intelligence, managers spent less time finding information and more time using it to make decisions.

Question 20

During the 1970s business technology employees often dealt directly with customers.

Question 21

Data mining looks for previously unknown relationships among vast amounts of data.

Question 22

The quality of management information depends on its accuracy and reliability.

Question 23

Your online shopping trail provides information that indicates your personal preferences.

Question 24

RFID devices collect biological data.

Question 25

The success of data mining depends on access to data.

Question 26

Subjectivity is one of the four characteristics of useful information.

Question 27

Penny Pinchers Discount is a major discount store chain in the Southwest. The company wants to do a better job of finding sales patterns and trends that will help it customize the product offerings for different stores. Data mining is one technique that would help Penny Pinchers achieve this goal.

Question 28

In this age of technology, managers can easily become buried in information infoglut.

Question 29

Public data includes electronic traces that people leave when posting to the Internet and sending e-mail.

Question 30

The key to improving management decision making is to provide the manager with as much information as possible.

Question 31

Useful information has three defining characteristics: (1) it is easily accessible, (2) it is efficiently organized, and (3) it is simple to manipulate.

Question 32

Redundancy is one of the four characteristics of useful information.

Question 33

A basic truth in management is that you can never have too much information.

Question 34

Major retail firms such as Walmart have used data mining to customize the product offerings for each store.

Question 35

Manager Minnie Hope is overwhelmed by information overload. Unfortunately, in this day of technology, there is little she can do to control this problem.

Question 36

Relevance is one of the key characteristics of useful information.

Question 37

The first step in avoiding information overload is to identify four or five key goals and focus only on information that is related to those goals.

Question 38

Kent Uchi is the CIO for a major corporation. Kent's job will require him to have an extensive knowledge of the hardware and software his company uses, but he will seldom be concerned about the methods and procedures used by specific departments.

Question 39

Timeliness is one of the characteristics of useful management information.

Question 40

In order for information to be useful to managers, it must satisfy only two criteria: it must be timely, and it must be easy to manipulate.

Question 41

Internet2 runs more than 22,000 times faster than today's public infrastructure.

Question 42

The most productive way for firms to use intranets is to publish information that can be accessed by all employees within an organization.

Question 43

Extranets now allow small firms to share and process data much as large firms have been able to do using electronic data interchange.

Question 44

The extranet is the next stage in the evolution of the Internet, consisting of a revolutionary new fiber optic technology that will enable computer users throughout the world to send and receive data up to 256 times faster than they can using the Internet technology of the early 2010s.

Question 45

Bandwidth is the term used to describe the rate at which data flows through the Internet.

Question 46

An intranet is a companywide network that is based on Internet technology, but closed to public access.

Question 47

Virtual private networks are quick and easy to set up, but they are less secure than extranets.

Question 48

One problem with most extranets is that they use public lines, which makes it possible for hackers to get into the network.

Question 49

The software or hardware barrier that a business uses to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to their intranet is known as a tripware.

Question 50

A common use of an extranet is to extend an intranet to outside customers.

Question 51

Enterprise portals have the ability to identify users and give them access to specific areas of an organization's intranet depending on their relationship to the organization.

Question 52

Interactive intranet applications can save money and increase revenue by reducing paper handling and enabling faster decision making.

Question 53

Enterprise portals are simply web pages with links to company-specific products and services.

Question 54

Firewalls can be constructed using software, hardware, or a combination of both.

Question 55

Widebeam is the term used to refer to technologies that give users continuous access to the Internet and greatly increase the speed at which data flows to and from their Internet connection.

Question 56

Compared to intranets, one advantage of an extranet is that it protects a company's information from hackers.

Question 57

Initially, the very-high-speed Internet2 network service was set up to connect government supercomputer centers with a select group of universities.

Question 58

Intranets use a different, less sophisticated, type of technology than the Internet.

Question 59

Virtual private networks create secure connections over regular Internet lines.

Question 60

A virtual private network allows information managers to simulate a real intranet in order to identify possible security problems and technical glitches before the company sets up the actual private network.

Question 61

Bluprintz, a company that publishes home design software for personal computers, wants to set up a temporary link with another firm with which it wants to collaborate and share data on a short-term basis. Bluprintz wants to keep the cost of setting up this connection reasonable, but is concerned about hackers and wants to make sure its link is secure. The best way for Bluprintz to achieve its goal is to set up an extranet with dedicated lines.

Question 62

Highbrow University just obtained a link to Internet2. Researchers at Highbrow intend to make very heavy use of their new link for various forms of collaboration, for videoconferencing and for running complex simulations. Unlike the regular Internet, the more bandwidth Highbrow's researchers use on Internet2, the more the University will have to pay.

Question 63

The On-The-Green Golf Company currently has an intranet, and is considering making use of an extranet. One of the main reasons On-The-Green may want an extranet is to allow a select group of outside customers to have access to information on its intranet.

Question 64

Because cloud computing is often too expensive for small businesses, it is rarely used.

Question 65

Cloud computing is a form of virtualization in which a company's data and applications are stored onsite and accessed via an external hard drive.

Question 66

Some advantages of cloud computing include flexible capacity and easier access.

Question 67

Users of Internet2 each pay the same fee for their connection and share bandwidth equally.

Question 68

Jimmy Bartlett just got started using a storage device called Dropbox. He stores most of his information with this service. Jimmy is using cloud computing.

Question 69

Internal networking shares the resources of all computers with each networked computer.

Question 70

The advantages of cloud computing are security, possible instability, and data control.

Question 71

The fact that electronic data interchange technology is so expensive that only large firms can afford to use it puts small firms at a severe disadvantage when it comes to sharing information.

Question 72

There are three types of cloud computing; private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds.

Question 73

The main reason for setting up an enterprise portal is to ensure that only employees of an organization have access to the information on its intranet.

Question 74

The main purpose of an intranet is to allow a company to keep in close contact with its customers.

Question 75

A major reason for the creation of Internet2 was that private businesses wanted to establish a network that was free from government regulation.

Question 76

Even high-tech companies that specialize in computer-related products and services often outsource technology training.

Question 77

Virtual networking is a process that allows software-based networked computers to run multiple operating systems and programs.

Question 78

The use of computers increases the number of layers of management, resulting in taller organizations.

Question 79

Information managers at Sezhu Industries want to provide a single, seamless interface that will make it easier for customers, suppliers, and employees to gain access to the parts of its intranet that they need. Sezhu could achieve this result by setting up an enterprise portal.

Question 80

One of the most revolutionary effects of computer networks is that they give employees the ability to do much of their work at home.