Tonga Institute of Higher Education IT 141: Information Systems Lecture 12: Information Systems

Info Systems and Organizations What is an information system? A system that will collect, store and process information in order to provide useful and accurate information for an organization. Usually this will involve computers and electronic media What is an organization? Any group of people that come together to achieve more than they could by themselves. When the organization tries to make money, it’s a business Most organizations have what is called a mission statement, which is a document that describes the purpose of the organization

Organizational Structure All people inside an organization will use the information system in some way. Some workers will use it to do their jobs (cashier at a supermarket) Managers might use the system to plan for the future Strategic Planning - Long term planning for future goals Tactical Planning - Planning for the near-future, such as a year ahead, Operational Planning - Day to day planning

Info Systems in Action Workers and managers will use information systems to help them make decisions and solve problems Structured problems are ones with known solutions. (Example: What customers should receive overdue bills). Info Systems can usually automate these problems Semi-structured problems require more human thought, although using data from the past will be helpful (For example, how much bread should a bread shop make) Unstructured problems are difficult problems with no known answers. Information systems can provide data, but no clear answer (like how to solve global warming)

Successful Organizations For businesses to succeed, they must respond quickly to threats. Computers have become very important for this, in order to analyze data and problems In responding to problems, a business has three choices involving technology 1) It can become better by cutting costs, lowering prices, giving better service and so on (companies can use computers to save time on accounting) 2) It can change the structure of an industry (amazon.com sells everything over the internet) 3) A company can invent a new product (companies will use computer software to help design, plan and market products)

Info Systems in Organizations What are the ways that info systems can help organizations? Office Automation – tasks that are computerized to save time, like spreadsheets, databases, word processing, and sharing important documents in central locations Transaction Processing – systems that help with buying and selling (an ATM, credit card, and so on) A TPS (transaction processing system) provides a way to store, modify and delete transactions In the past, a TPS would do “batch processing” meaning it would collect many transactions before processing them at the end of the day Now most systems use “online processing” which means every transaction is done at the time it is entered

Info Systems in Organizations Management Information Systems – (also known as MIS) An info system that looks at data from transactions and makes reports for managers They can make many types of reports that are all supposed to help managers make better decisions and make them faster, but it cannot make predictions Decision Support Systems – this is like a more advanced, complex MIS. It will create reports and get important data for managers so that they can make long term decisions. It will help predict things for managers. It will let them “model” data and create possible situations You still need people to make the decisions. DSS just helps them make decisions

Info Systems in Organizations Expert Systems – sometimes called “knowledge-based” systems are computers that can analyze a problem and solve it, instead of just giving suggestions (like DSS) The data is taken from smart people in a field and then a database (called an “inference engine”) is made which can look at the problem and pick what is probably the best answer Expert systems are usually very “smart” in the field they were made for, but are not good outside that field

Expert Systems Expert systems today are used to help diagnose medical problems. A person will enter symptoms and the computer will say what is probably happening Microsoft uses expert systems to help solve computer problems. It will lead you through questions designed to find answers to your problem Expert systems work by having a set of rules and questions. Depending how a question is answered, a rule is applied and then a likely answer is given

Expert Systems Sometimes expert systems will not have all the data. The person who is entering data may not know everything. In this case, it can use “fuzzy logic.” Fuzzy logic is when a computer will use percentages of likelihood. Instead of just 1 or 0 (yes or no), it can say, maybe this happened, and maybe it happened with a 85% percent chance

Neural Networks Can a computer learn a rule without being told? Neural networks are an attempt to teach computers and make them learn about rules on their own. They are given data, then they make a decision and see how close they are to the right answer. If they are wrong, they slowly learn to pick the right answer by making better rules. This is the same way the human brain works. It is a very good method for “pattern recognition,” which is what humans are good at. If we see a person we can immediately tell if it is a male or female. But that is very difficult for a computer. With neural networks, it can learn what a male and female look like slowly.

Systems Analysis Software and computers have been called the most complex work humans have ever built. Thus, it is important that before you design an info system, you analyze the needs, problems and solutions very carefully. It will save you a lot of time and money in the end if you do the job right the first time

System Life Cycle

System Analysis Phases - Planning Planning – this is when you will collect information you need about the project. Like who will work on it, a description of the goals, schedule for the project and the purpose of the project Assemble the people – you need to get the people together that will work on the project. Many companies will have an Information Systems (IS) department that will be the one responsible for doing the projects

Analyzing the Info System The goal of analyzing the system is to produce a list of requirements for the new system For your system to be effective, you must study the current system carefully and see where its strengths and weaknesses are. Your new system should amplify the strengths and fix the problems with the old system You will also determine the system requirements here – what the system needs to be effective

System Design The analysis phase determined what the system would do, The system design phase determines how the system will do it A list of potential solutions are usually created – these solutions need to take into consideration costs, availability, ease of use and a number of other factors Some other issues they need to address are: Hardware, level of automation, central or distributed processing and network technologies

System Design Besides hardware needs, the design must also look at software solutions. You can either buy commercial software, use application development tools or make the software yourself. Making software yourself can be difficult and complex. You will need computer scientists graduates to develop applications, but the advantage is that you get a lot of control over your IS Application development tools don’t take as long to use. They are like pieces of a puzzle that you put together to make the software you want. This gives you some control over your IS

Building a System: Methods of Development There are a few methods to implement a new system. They mostly describe the software development process Structured methodology – focuses on processes that will happen in the system Object-Oriented methodology – breaks the parts of the system into smaller objects that can be built separately Rapid Application Development – small systems are built for the customer to test out. The customer gives feedback and the next system is built with that feedback included in the system. Usually a fast way to build a system

System Design The other option is commercial software. Here you would buy the entire software package, already compiled and just install in your system. This might seem like the easiest, but it might not meet all your requirements. You can customize the software some, but do not have full control If you don’t want to do any work at all, you can get a “Turn-Key” system, which you make no changes to. You just install and run. With this you have no control

Requesting Specifications You have to evaluate all the solutions to choose the best one. You might also want to ask people who sell software and hardware about prices A RFP – Request for Proposal is a formal letter to vendors asking for what they think is the best solution and how much it will cost A RFQ – Request for Quote – is a formal letter to a vendor asking prices for specific hardware and software

Specifications While designing and finding software and prices, you might also need to make a detailed list of how the software will interact with the user This is a description of the user interface and how the system will actually work You cannot do this part without knowing the hardware and software you will use. For example, if you choose to use an application over the internet, you might not be able to use shared drives

Implementation and Maintenance This is the phase where hardware and software is bought and installed. It will also replace older systems and involve training people to use the new system There might also be the need for software “customization” so that you can change commercial software to do what you want If you have an expert system, you might need to train it (or teach it) by giving it information. This is called “knowledge engineering”

Implementation After everything is installed, you must test the system and ensure that all pieces are working correctly. Then you should make documentation, so that people can consult a source of information in case there is a problem. These are called user-manuals and help teach people how to use the system Then you must train users to use the new system and convert data from the old system

Using the new system There are a few methods for deploying a new system. This process is called “system conversion” Direct conversion – the old system is turned off, new one is turned on. Parallel conversion – the new system and the old system both are kept running until the new system works well Phased conversion – if a system is very big, there might be many pieces and they can slowly be turned on Pilot conversion – if a company is large, maybe a small department will use the new system first to see if it works

Maintenance After the system is working well, it enters a period of maintenance, or making sure it runs. At first maintenance will be expensive because there might be many problems After some time, most problems are fixed and people are familiar with the system After a long time, it is hard to fix anything because the technology is old. Maintenance costs begin to rise again. Systems can sometimes be used for 20 years before they are just too old. Hardware may not even support the software anymore

Summary Information Systems are about the planning, design, implementation and maintenance of systems that help collect and process data. There are many types of information systems and there are many types of ways to make information systems To be a good computer scientist or IT worker, you need to be aware of the different solutions possible