Information Systems Challenge

This is a challenge to test your knowledge of Information Systems, the use of computers and common office productivity software. The areas that you will be tested on are:

GU Information System

  1. Create a folder (directory) on your USB drive called “ISChallenge”. Access your student network (H:) drive and repeat the process above. Before you leave the lab make sure that you copy your files from your USB drive to your network drive as a backup.[10%]
  2. Create a MS Word document. Use some of the formatting tools to with large bold heading "1008ICT Business Informatics", a smaller bold subheading "GU Information System " and save it to your USB drive in the directory created above as "Challenge.doc". In this document you will answer the questions and complete the tasks below.
    1. Search the Griffith Website for the policy on plagiarism.
      1. Save a copy of the URL of the page(s) that you viewed. 
      2. In your own words, write a definition of plagiarism
      3. What is cheating?
    2. Search the Griffith Website for the policy on Academic Misconduct. 
      1. Save a copy of the URL of the page(s) that you viewed.  Read the policy
      2. In your own words, restate the penalties for academic misconduct
      3. Download to your USB memory stick, a copy of the policy document.
    3. Perform an online library search of the Gold Coast Parklands library for books that talk about “management information systems” in your subject area.  Record the name and catalogue number of five interesting titles that might have something to do with your chosen project.
    4. Using a selection of online search engines (Yahoo, Lycos, Google, Dogpile, Metacrawler, etc) use the same search phrase(s) to search for web-based documents that relate to your own project area.
      1. Remember to record the URL and document name for any potentially useful document that you find.  
      2. Save copies of any Adobe or Word document that you find useful.
      3. Describe the important features of the search engine(s) that worked best for you. 
    5. Search the Griffith Website for a how-to guide to referencing documents and referencing styles.
      1. Save a copy of the URL of the page(s) that you viewed.
      2. What are the three styles for referencing documents that are accepted at Griffith University called?
      3. What is the referencing style used by your school?
      4. Create a bibliography of the documents that you found in question 3 above. Your referencing style should be the one used in your school or disciline..
      5. Save the document so far to your USB memory stick.

Match the Computer Concepts

This is a simple concept understanding test. In the lefthand column are computer concepts marked 1 to 12. Match each concept to a statement, marked A to P, in the righthand coloumn that best matches that concept. In your MS Word document (Challenge.doc) put a subheading "Computer Concepts" and create a two column x 12 row table so that each concept number is placed next to its matching statement letter.

  CONCEPTS     STATEMENTS
1 Data   A ASCII
2 Primary Storage   B Hard Disk
3 Web Address   C Network
4 Binary System   D Information
5 Secondary Storage   E 16 bits
6 Interconnected Computers   F Random Available Memory
7 Executable file extension   G Executes Instructions
8 Text only files   H .exe
9 Basic language of the computer   I URL
10 Byte   J Random Access Memory
11 Control Unit   K 1's and 0's
12 Computer CPU Speed   L Machine Language
      M Megabytes
      N 8 bits
      O Decodes Instructions
      P Gigahertz

Information System Quiz

Create a subheading in your document "Information System Quiz" and create an enumerated list with your best answer to the following questions:

  1. What is an information system?
  2. In order of importance, what are five key components of any information system?
  3. From a business perspective, what are the major reasons for information systems adoption and development?
  4. What is the difference in purpose between a spreadsheet program, like MS Excel, and a database program like MS Access?
  5. Explain the difference between HTTP and HTML?
  6. In terms of corporate information systems explain the term "Scalability" and why it is important
  7. In terms of corporate information systems explain the term "Accessability" and why it is important
  8. In terms of corporate information systems explain the term "Redundancy", how it is used and why it is important
  9. In terms of corporate information systems development explain the term "Interoperability"
  10. In terms of management information systems what is the difference between ERP, CRM and CAD?

Save the Word document (Challenge.doc) to your USB drive in the directory that you created above.

Spreadsheets

In MS Excel create a new worksheet and name it "Functions" as we will use some of the many functions that Excel supplies. To put this in perspective, there are several areas of the Systems Analysis phase that require simple calculations, decisions and tables to be created. An example of this might be a decision table or tree.

NB: The help in MS Excel is and excellent source of instruction for many of the formulae

NB2: While creating formulae by typing or using a wizard, never click on a cell before you have finished the formula by hitting the enter key.

  1. In cell A2 put a large heading in dark blue that says "Computer Choices And Excel Functions"
  2. In cell D4 put a small column label "Index" and then click to the cell below
  3. ROUND() and RAND() can be used together to create random "integer" numbers within a certain range.
    1. In D5 create a formula that returns a number between 0.0 and 2.0
    2. In cell D5 change the formula so that the value that is generated is an integer value between 0 and 2.
    3. Click on the D5 cell and you will notice that the cell is outlined with a black line and there is a small "dot" in the bottom left corner. This dot is called the "fill handle" and is used to repeat a value or formula over a range of cells. When you mouse over the fill handle the pointer will turn to a small bold cross. Click on the fill handle on the cell D5 and drag it down 25 cells and then let go. You should get a whole bunch of random numbers between 0 and 2
    4. Double click on an empty cell somewhere and then click on a second cell. You should notice that the values that you created have all changed as the spreadsheet recalculates itself. Stabilise the numbers and stop them changing by using the Copy command and Paste Special to replace the formula in each cell with its current value.
  4. Making a logical choice - using the IF() function to return one of two possible values - or more. If a 3-way decision has to be made then IF() statements can be nested one within the other. Eg. =IF(D2<5,"Less than 5",IF(D2<10,"5 or more but less than 10","10 or more")) provides output for three different choices.
    1. In cell E4 put a small column label "Level" and then click to the cell below
    2. Create a formula in cell E5 that will return the value "Low End" if the value in D5 is equal to 0, return the value "Mid Range" if the value in E5 is equal to 1 and "High End" otherwise.
    3. When you have perfected the formula then select the cell and use the fill handle to drag the formula down 25 cells. This should create text values for each of the random numbers that you have generated.

Save the spreadsheet as "Functions.xls" to the same directory that you saved the MS Word document.

Databases

Supplier table: Create a table in Microsoft Access with the following attributes:

Field Name Type Size Description
Supplier Code text 8 Unique identifier for suppliers
Supplier Name text 30 Company name
Address text 30 Street address
Town text 20 City town or suburb name
Postcode text 4 Postal or zip code
State text 3 State (abbreviation)
Phone Number text 10 Contact phone number for orders
Contact Name text 20 Name of sales consultant
Order clerk id # text 8 Employee id# of our ordering clerk
  1. Creating a Table: Use MS Access to create a new blank database on your flash drive or student network drive. Call the new database "Entities.mdb". You will have a menu system that will have database objects on the left and relevant activities on the right. Under the tables objects select "Create a table in Design view". Something a bit like the table above will appear ready to start entering data descriptions.
  2. Fill in the Field names, Data type and Description (Yes you must type it in) as per the table above - feel free to adjust it to your particular requirements. You will notice that the default data type is text.
  3. For each field click on the data type entry and look down to the "field properties" view below in the "general" tab. The default field size is 50 characters. You can click on this value and change it as required in table above.
  4. For the Supplier Code there must be a unique identifier that every supplier in the database must have. There should be no other records in the table with the same code. To ensure this set the "Required" field to "Yes", "Allow zero length" to "No" and "Indexed" to Yes (No duplicates)
  5. The Supplier Name should have similar attributes so that each supplier has a name entered into the database but there could be companies that might have the same name or abbreviation. To allow this the "Indexed" field should be Yes (Duplicates OK)
  6. Every table has one or more "key" values that are used as unique identifiers. We could use just the Supplier Code but to ensure uniqueness we will set both the Supplier Code and Supplier Name to be key values. To do this go to the gray area to the left of the Supplier Code field click on the gray tab and select that and the Supplier Name field below (they should both be highlighted). Go to the menu bar and click on the button that resembles a small key. A small key symbol should appear in both of the gray tabs to the left of the field names.
  7. Use the save utility to save the table that you are working on as "Suppliers". Close the table design view. The next step will save you the effort of filling out the table.
  8. Importing Data: Download the file "Suppliers.csv" to your flash drive or student drive. In MS Access go to the menu bar and select: File-->Get External Data-->Import. Navigate to where you saved the Suppliers.csv file, in the "Files of type" area choose "text file" so that the csv file is displayed. Select "Suppliers.csv" and click on the "Import" button. A dialogue box/wizard will appear that will lead you through the importing of the supplier data into your Supplier table. The important points are that the csv file is comma delimited and there are no field names in the first row. You want to store the data in an existing table (Suppliers table)
  9. Open up the Suppliers table and look at it in the "Datasheet" view. All of the field should be filled in with 15 different suppliers.
  10. Create a query that returns the suppliers that are based in QLD only.

Save the database and ensure that you save a copy to the same directory that you created the Word and Excel document in.

Web Presentation

Use MS Notepad and HTML to create a simple web page with:

  1. The major heading "Information Systems Challenge".
  2. Add an image of your choice and align it to the center of the page
  3. Ad subheadings with your Name and Student Number
  4. Make the background colour something light and easy to view
  5. Add a table with 4 rows x 2 columns and center the table on the page
  6. Row 1+Column 1 should have the heading "Deliverable" and Row 1+Column 2 the heading "Links"
  7. In column 1 the deliverables are: "Word Document", "Excel Document" and "Access Database"
  8. In column 2 the links are to each of the documents that you have created on your USB drive
  9. Change the background colour of the table to something complementary to the other colours on the page.

NB: Do not use Dreamweaver or Composer to create your web pages.

Save the Web page to your USB drive as "Challenge.html" and use a browser to test to make sure that each of the documents is accessible from the links that you created in the table

Submission

You should have all or some of:

Please create an email and address it to s.drew@griffith.edu.au with a subject heading "Information Systems Challenge". Attach each of the documents that you have created to the email and send it off.