Exam 15: Managing Information

Which of the following statements about knowledge is true?

Using ____ data mining, the user usually begins by telling the data mining software to look and test for specific patterns and relationships in a data set.

Two critical steps are required to make sure that data can be accessed by authorized users and no one else. They are ____.

Pages listing all of the felony crimes perpetrated in a given city during the last decade would be an example of ____.

To properly secure data and data networks, a manager should use all of the following EXCEPT ____.

____ occur in data mining when two or more database elements occur together in a significant pattern, with one of the elements preceding the other.

Extranets are used to handle organizational transactions with suppliers and distributors.

By examining checkout data, supermarkets have learned that people who are buying beer often also buy a bag of salty snacks. The use of data mining led to the discovery of a(n)____ pattern.

Jupiter Communications An entrepreneur developed Kibu.com as an online fashion magazine for girls between the ages of 13 and 18. The messages from Kibu's advertisers were tailored for and intriguing to a teenage audience. Revenue came from companies that sponsored various channels and features on the site, such as the Fashion Channel. Kibu had a loyalty program, the kPoints xChange, which gave site visitors an incentive to communicate with the site and its sponsors. Each time they did, they earned points that could be exchanged for merchandise such as CDs, movie tickets, or beaded jewelry. Visitors who filled out surveys could win one of the 10,000 Kibu Boxes. Box recipients got still more points if they went to the Box Channel and filled out forms telling one to three of the participating companies how they liked the products inside. By September 2000, however, the site closed, and its founders returned the remaining start-up capital to investors. Refer to Jupiter Communications. If a cosmetics manufacturer learned from analyzing the data that teenage girls who buy more than six bottles of nail polish monthly also like to dress up their pets to match their outfits, it would have used the survey results to identify a(n)____ pattern. (The manufacturer could use this information to develop a line of pet nail polish.)

WWYD Delta Airlines lose bags. They need to handle thousands of bags per day and then rush them to connecting planes or baggage carousels. The challenging logistics, however, don't make up for the impact of delays on passengers. In all, 31 million bags are delivered late worldwide each year. In the U.S., seven people per 1,000 passengers, or roughly one per plane, don't get their luggage on time, and they file 7.5 million mishandled baggage reports a year. Over the last decade, the three largest airlines, American, United, and Delta, have been the worst. Delta is 30 percent worse compared to the best airlines. Second, 28 percent more bags are delayed today compared to a decade ago. No wonder passengers are frustrated, especially when charged a handling fee for checked bags. Nothing like paying extra to have the airline lose your bags, especially when Delta brings in $952 million a year in bag fees! Passengers are beginning to realize that bag fees bring in much more than the cost to deliver bags, so they have every right to expect Delta to do a better job delivering bags. After all, if Amazon can send emails and texts notifying customers when their orders leave the warehouse, arrive at their local airports, and are delivered to their homes, then why can't Delta do the same thing with luggage that's supposed to never leave the airport? Delta Airline's historically poor job of handling baggage is clearly related to Delta trailing its competitors in the use of information technology to track and manage baggage handling. While Delta catches up with its competitors in terms of high-tech baggage handling systems, it is the first airline to offer real-time tracking of passengers' bags. Not unlike tracking an Amazon shipment, Delta's real-time tracking allow passengers to know precisely where their bags are from check-in, to the flight on which they're loaded, to the baggage carousel where they're hopefully waiting. Passengers receive a tracking number for each bag and can track its whereabouts using their smartphones. Should a bag be delayed, that tracking number is easily entered into baggage claim forms on Delta's website. The challenge for airlines such as Delta, which have begun or are considering self-tagging systems, is not capturing information or processing information, but protecting information. All airlines use bar codes on boarding passes, either printed from your home computer or from the check-in kiosk at the airport. An increasing number of airlines, including Delta, now send electronic boarding passes containing bar codes via email to passengers' smartphones to be scanned in place of bar codes on printed boarding passes. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA)says that paperless boarding passes are more secure "and will prevent fraudulent paper boarding passes that could be created and printed at home." Why? Because instead of physically examining a printed copy of a boarding pass, TSA agents will scan the bar code on the electronic boarding pass to ensure its validity at the checkpoint. Passengers will still be required to show photo identification so officers can validate that the name on the boarding pass matches the name on the ID. Refer to WWYD Delta. If Delta and other airlines install surveillance cameras in the bellies of their planes, they would be able to _____ information about what happens to bags in transit.

A(n)____ is a private company network that allows employees to easily access, share, and publish information using Internet software.

____ is the direct electronic transmission of purchase and ordering information from one company's computer system to another company's computer system.

A data warehouse stores raw data that have been collected from a variety of sources for later use.

The first company to use new information technology to substantially lower costs or differentiate products or services often gains ____.

What are the two basic methods of capturing information? Comment on the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Intranets are ____.

Electronic data interchange (EDI), extranets, and the Internet have proven to provide such a competitive advantage that managers are scrambling to find ways to use them in their own companies.

It is important to understand that DSS programs should not replace managerial decision making.

Virtual private networks (VPN)and secure sockets layer (SSL)encryption perform basically the same function.

Most expert systems work by using a collection of "if-then" rules to sort through information and recommend a course of action.