SIMS 201 Informatics Course

Chapter 1 INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THE BIG PICTURE Information systems are combinations of hardware, software, and telecommunications networks that people build and use to collect, create, and distribute useful data, typically in organizational settings. The term information systems is also used to describe the field comprising people who develop, use, manage, and study information systems in organizations. IS includes personal, group, organizational, inter0orgainizational, and even global computing systems. The last part of the IS defenition is the term organization. People use information systems to help their organization to be more productive and profitable, to help their firm gain competitive advantage, to help their firm reach more customers, or to improve service to the customers their organization serves. Knowledge workers are professionals who are relatively well educated and who create, modify, and/or synthesize knowledge as a fundamental part of their jobs. Peter Drucker predicted that a knowledge society would emerge with the development of the knowledge worker. Given the importance of education and learning to knowledge workers and the firms that need them, education would become the cornerstone of the knowledge society. Information and information technology have become very important to us and knowledge workers are vital. Data is raw material recorded, unformatted information, such as words and numbers. Data has no meaning in and of itself. Data formatted with dashes or labels is more useful than unformatted data. Contextual clues, such as a label, are needed to turn data into information that is familiar to the reader. In addition to data and information, knowledge and wisdom are also important. Knowledge is needed to understand relationships between different pieces of information. Wisdom is accumulated knowledge. Wisdom goes beyond knowledge in that it represents broader, more generalized rules and schemas for understanding a specific domain or domains. Wisdom allows you to understand how to apply concepts from one domain to new situations or problems. Understanding that a unique individual identifier,

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such as a social insurance number, can be applied in certain programming situations to single out an individual record in a database is the result of accumulated knowledge. Wisdom can be gained through a combination of academic study and personal experience. When we use the term information system, we are normally talking about computerbased information systems. Computer-based information systems are a type of technology. Technology is any mechanical and/or electrical means to supplement, extend, or replace human, manual operations or devices. The term information technology refers to machine technology that is controlled by or uses information. Information technologies use machine technologies as building blocks and then combine them with computing and networking technologies. Information technology is the boxes and wires, while an information system is a combination of hardware, software, and telecommunications networks that people build and use to collect, create, and distribute data. The goal of an information system is to provide useful data to users. CIO (Chief Information Officer) In the early 1980s, the CIO position became popular as the new title given to executive level individuals, who were responsible for the information systems component within their organizations. The CIO was charged with integrating new technologies into the organzations business strategy. Not surprisingly, many organizations have jumped on the CIO bandwagon and either hired or named a CIO. As a result, many people thought that the CIO boom was a fad that would soon end, as do many other popular management trends. In facct, in early 1990, BusinessWeek printed a story entitled, CIO Is Starting to Stand for Career Is Over. Today, most large organizations have a CIO or an equivalent position. On the industry side, eight CIOs were named as Chiefs of the Year in December 2001. Business Competency It is absolutely vital for IS professionals to understand the technical areas of the business and the technology/strategy fit. Systems Competency - Those who understand how to build and integrate systems and how to solve problems will ultimately manage large, complex systems projects, as well as those in the firm who have only technical knowledge and skills. Internetworking and systems integration, it is difficult to say that any given information system fits into only one of these categories (i.e., that a system is a management information system only and nothing else).

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Customer relationship management systems and enterprise resource planning systems are good examples of these types of systems that encompass many features and types of data and cannot easily be categorized. Office automation systems and collaboration systems are typically bought off-theshelf and enable people to 1) perform their own work , and 2) work with others. Systems for electronic business, such as corporate Websites, are also very popular and important. These systems are typically Internet-based and enable 1) consumers to find information about, and purchase, goods and services from each other and from business firms, and 2) business firms to electronically exchange products, services, and information. Technology is like a sword you can use it effectively as a competitive weapon, but as the old saying goes, those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword. Denver International Airport: Implemented huge automated baggage handling IS. Due to problems in the software, the system opened, damaged, and misrouted cargo, forcing airport authorities to leave the system sitting idle for nearly a year. System that works: FedEx. Customers can track shipments on their website at any time of the day or night. DIA and FedEx were strategic in their intent. These systems were not developed solely because managers in these organizations wanted to do things faster or because they wanted to have the latest, greatest technology. These organizations developed these systems strategically to help gain or sustain some competitive advantage over their rivals. Let us not forget technology should be strategic and can be a powerful enabler of competitive advantage. Firms of all types and sizes can use information systems to gain and sustain a competitive advantage over their rivals. All indicators point to the increased use of technology and organizations continued awareness of the importance of technology, both as a tool for productivity and as a vehicle for achieving competitive advantage and organizational change. The same holds for IS units that have taken on this new service mentality. This IS personnel do everything they can to ensure that they are satisfying their systems customers within the firm. Technology is, potentially, the great lever, but it works best when people work together, not against each other, to use it.

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The Spread of Technology in Organizations Another phenomenon that shows how integral and vital information systems and their proper management have become to organizations is the extent to which the technology is firmly integrated and entrenched within the various business units (i.e. accounting, sales, marketing). In many organizations today, you will find that the builders and managers of a particular information system or subsystem spend most of their time out in the business ujnit, along with the users of that particular system. Changing Skill Set and Human Resource Planning There is clearly a need for people who know the technology side and the business side of the business as well. Downsizing of Organizations and IS Departments Many organizations that are downsizing, or rightsizing, as some call it, are looking toward the IS function and technology as the lever for simultaneously shrinking the organization and making it more productive. Career Prospects and Opportunities There is still and is likely to continue to be an acute need for people within the organization to have the responsibility of planning for, designing, developing, maintaining, and managing technologies

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Chapter 4 TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET The role of Telecommunications and Networks in Organizations Telecommunications refers to the transmission of all forms of information, including digital data, voice, fax, sound, and video, from one location to another over some type of network. A network is a group of computers and associated peripheral devices connected by a communication channel coapable of sharing information and other resources (e.g., a printer) among users. Bandwidth, or the carrying capacity of telecommunications networks, has increased to the point that any digitized data, from photographs, to art, to movies, to complicated business records, can be quickly transmitted via a network. One of the most pervasive uses of networks is sending electronic mail, or email. The benefits of e0mail are that it nearly eliminates telephone tag and that it enables widespread work groups to ignore time zones and office hours. Newsgroups, also called computer-based discussion groups, allow individuals and organizations to participate in discussion Mailing lists, also known as listservs, let you use e-mail to participate in discussion groups on topics of special interest to you. Instant messaging (IM, Internet Relay Chat, real-time messaging) lets you have conversations with others in real time on the Internet. Facsimile or fax machines digitize images, such as letters, memos magazine articles, photos, contracts, even hand-written notes, so that they can be transmitted to other fax machines over the telephone lines. Voice mail allows callers to leave voice messages in a voice mailbox, much like leaving a message on an answering machine. Unlike an answering machine, however, voice mail digitizes voice messages so that they can be stored on the computer. Videoconferencing lets groups of people in the same office or at diverse locations meet online, rather than gathering together in one meeting room or traveling across the country to see one another in person. Electronic Business refers to the use of the Internet to support a variety of business activities, such as streamlining operations, selling products and providing customer support, connecting to suppliers, and many other business-related activities. Business Websites range from simple, just-the-facts pages that resemble printed brochures or data sheets to more sophisticated, interactive productions where customers can do everything from ordering products to taking a virtual tour through manufacturing facilities.

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Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is another form of electronic business. It involves the use of telecommunications technology to tranfer business information between organizations, thus cutting down on paperwork. Home Depot first began implementing an electronic data interchange network in 1992; today, 85 percent of all the companys dealings with suppliers-from ordering to invoicing-are conducted electronically. Telecommuting is the act of working at home or from another remote location and commuting to the office via computing and networking technologies. Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) is another aspect of e-business. It involves transferring funds from one financial account to another via computer. Distance learning is the process of providing instruction to students who are physically separated from instructors through the use of some sort of communication technologies including videoconferencing, Internet chatting, and various Web-based tools. Telemedicine is the exchange of medical information from one location to another via a computer network. Computer networking is the sharing of information or services. As with human communication, all computer networks require three things: 1. Senders and receivers that have something to share 2. A pathway or transmission medium, such as a cable, to send the message 3. Rules or protocols dictating communication between senders and receivers Transmission media refers to the physical cable(s) used to carry network information. Protocols define the procedures that different computers follow when they transmit and receive data. A fundamental difference between human and computer communication is that human communication consists of words, whereas computer communication consists of bits, the fundamental information units of computers. The process of converting a photograph or a song into digital information, or bits, is called digitizing. Note that when data is stored in a location, like a file on your hard drive, its size is measured in bytes. However, when data is being transferred from on place to another, it is measured in bits. There are eight bits in a byte. After information is converted into bits, it can travel across a network. To transmit either the screen of text or the picture in a timely manner from one location to another, adequate bandwidth is needed. For example, using a 56 kbps modem - a device that transmits approx. 56 kilobits of data in a second a single screen of text would be transferred in under one second, while a digital image could take more than four seconds. Centralized computing remained largely unchanged through the 1970s.

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During the mainframe era (beginning in the 1940s), people entered data on mainframes through the use of local input devices called terminals. These devices were dumb terminals because they did not conduct any processing or smart activities.. Computer networks evolved in the 1980s when organizations needed separate, independent computers to communicate with each other. Distributed Computing The introduction of personal computes in the late 1970s and early 1980s gave individuals control over their own computing. The 1980s were characterized by an evolution to a computing model called distributed computing, in which multiple types of computers are networked together to share information and services. In the 1990s, a new computing model, called collaborative computing, emerged. Collaborative computing is a synergistic form of distributive computing, in which two or more networked computers are used to accomplish a common processing task. Types of Netoworks Computing networks today include all three computing models: centralized, distributed, and collaborative. Computer networks are commonly classified by size, distance covered and structure. The most commonly used classifications are a private branch exchange (PBX), local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), and personal area network (PAN). A private branch exchange (PBX) is a telephone system that serves a particular location, such as a business. A Local area network (LAN) is a computer network that spans a relatively small area, allowing all computer users to connect with each other to share information and peripheral devices, such as a printer. There are also wireless local area network products available. These are very popular because they are relatively easy to set up and enable you to have a network without any network cables strewn around your home or office. A wide area network (WAN) is a computer network that spans a relatively large geographical area. WANs are typically used to connect two or more LANs. A global network spans multiple countries and may include the networks of several organizations. An enterprise network is a WAN that is the result of connecting disparate networks of a

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single organization into a single network. Medium-speed WANs, called value-added networks (VANs) are private, third party managed networks that are economical because they are shared by multiple organizations. A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a computer network of limited geographic scope, typically a city-wide area, that combines both LAN and high-speed fibre-optic technologies. MANs are attractive to organizations that need high-speed data transmission within a limited geographic area. A personal area network (PAN) is an emerging technology that uses wireless communication to exchange data between computing devices using short-range radio communication, typically within an area of 10 metres. The enabling technology of PAN is called Bluetooth, a specification for personal networking of desktop computers, peripheral devices, mobile phones, pagers, portable stereos, and other handheld devices. Bluetooths founding members include Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba. The name Internet is derived from the concept of internetworking, which means connecting host computers and their networks together to form even larger networks. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began to study ways to interconnect networks of various kinds. This research effort produced ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a large wide area network that linked many universities and research centres. In 1986, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the development of the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) , which became a major component of the Internet. Other networks throughout the United States and the rest of the world were interconnected and/or morphed into the growing Internet. Among thse s were BITNET, CSNET, NSINET, ESNET, and NORDUNET. The internet relies on packet-switching technology to deliver data and information across networks. LANs, WANs, and the internet all use packet-switching technologies so that users can share the communication channel and minimize delivery delays. For packet switching to work, each packet being sent across a network must be labeled with a header. This header contains the network address of the source and the network address of the destination. Because so many different networks are interconnected nowadays, they must have a common language, or protocol, to communicate. The protocol of the Internet is called TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol). The first part, TCP, breaks information into small chunks called data packets and manages the transfer of those

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packets from computer to computer. The IP defines how a data packet must be formed and to where a router must forward each packet. Packets travel independently to their destination, sometimes following different paths and arriving out of order. The destination computer reassembles all the packets based on their identification and sequencing information. Together, TCP and IP provide a reliable and efficient way to send data across the Internet. A data packet that conforms to the IP specification is called an IP datagram. The Internet uses special-purpose computers, called routers, to interconnect independent networks. Routers are the fundamental building blocks of the Internet because they connect thousands of LANs and WANs. LANs are connected to backbone WANs, as depicted in figure 4.1 A backbone network manages the bulk of network traffic and typically uses a higher-speed protocol than the individual LAN segments. Each of the hosts or Websites that you visit on the Internet is assigned a domain name. Domain names are used in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) to identify particular web pages. Domain names also have a suffix that indicates which top-level domain they belong to. Edu educational institutions Org organizations (nonprofit) Mil military Com commercial business Net network organizations Ca Canada Each of these domain names is associated with one or more IP addresses. The IP address serves as the destination address of that computer or device and enables the network to route messages to the proper destination. A number of national and international standing committees and task forces have been used to manage the development and use of the Internet. Among thses is the coordinating committee for Intercontinental Networks (CCIRN). The Internet Society (ISOC) is a professional membership society, with more that 150 organizational and 6000 individual members around the world, that helps to shape the future of the internet and is home for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the internet Architecture Board (IAB). The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has provided the recording of system identifiers on the Internet and has helped to manage an Internet Registry that acts as a central repository for Internet-related information and provides central maintenance of the domain name system (DNS) roots database, which points to distributed DNS servers replicated throughout the Internet. In 1993 the NSF created InterNIC, a government-industry collaboration, manage

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directory and database services, domain registration services, and other information services on the Internet. In the late 1990s, this internet oversight was transitioned more fully out into industry when InterNIC morphed into the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an nonprofit corporation that assumed responsibility for managing IP addresses, domain names, and root server system management. For personal use we typically connect to the Internet through Internet service providers (ISPs) also called Internet access providers. ISPs connect to one another through network access points (NAPs). Much like railway stations, these NAPs serve as access points for ISPs and are an exchange point for Internet traffic. NAPs are a key component of the Internet backbone, which is the collection of main network connections and telecommunications lines making up the Internet. Plain old telephone service (POTS). The POTS system is also called the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL). DSL uses special modulation schemes to fit more data onto copper wires. DSL is referred to as a last-mile solution because it is used only for connections from a telephone switching station to a home or office, and is generally not used between telephone switching stations. ADSL is short for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. SDSL (symmetric digital subscriber line). Cable modems: Coaxial cable used for cable TV provides much greater bandwidth than telephone lines, and millions of homes in Canada are already wired for cable TV, so cabled modems are a fast, popular method for accessing the Internet. Cable modems offer speeds up to 2 mbps. Internet over Satellite (IoS). To gain adequate access to the internet, organizations are turning to long-distance carriers to lease a dedicated T1 line for digital transmissions. The T1 line was developed by AT&T as a dedicated digital transmission line that can carry 1.544 mbps of information. Very expensive. T3 line provides about 45 mbps of service at about 10 times the cost of leasing a T1 line. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is a method of transmitting voice, video, and data over high-speed LANs at speeds of up to 2.2 gbps. ATM uses a form of packet transmission in which data is sent over a packet-switched network in a fixed-length, 53 byte cell.

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Encryption is a technique whereby key data are encoded with a special secret key when being stored or transmitted. Firewalls , consisting of specialized hardware and software, keep unwanted users out of a system, or let users in with restricted access privileges. A variety of means of authentication are used to verify who users are and what they are allowed to do once they are inside a system or a database. In 1996, 34 US research universities began working on Internet2, a faster, private alternative to the public internet. In 1997, the University Corporation for Advanced internet Development (UCAID) was created to help manage Internet2. Internet2 requires state-of-the-are infrastructure, so Internet2 universities are connected to the Abilene network backcone, which uses regional network aggregation points called gigaPoPs and very high-speed network equipment and facilities. Canada has a high-speed network similar to Internet2 called CA*net 4 , funded by the federal government and designed, deployed, and operated by CANARIE. Prior to the invention of the Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991, content posted on the Internet could be accessed through an Internet tool called Gopher . Gopher provided a menu-driven hierarchical interface to organize files stored on servers, providing a way to tie together related files from different Internet servers across the world. The web took Gopher one step further by introducing hypertext. A hypertext document, otherwise known as a Web page, contains not only information, but also references or links to their documents that contain related information. These links are known as hyperlinks. The Web also introduced the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) , which is the standard method of specifying the format of Web pages. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Uniform Resource Locator (URL) The introduction of the Web was the first of three events that led to it proliferation. The second event was the Information Infrastructe Act, passed by the US government in 1992, which opened the Web for commercial purposes. The third event was the arrival of a graphical Web browser mosaic, which quickly transcended Gopher by adding a graphical front end to the Web.

Chapter 5 Electronic Business, Intranets, and Extranets

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Electronic business Simply put, this includes everything having to do with the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to the conduct of business between organizations or from company to consumer. E-commerce This highlights the fact that there are numerous forms of business related ICT-based interactions that can occur between businesses, or between a business and an end consumer, which do not directly concern buying and selling. Internet commerce, this reflects the fact that electronic commerce need not be conducted only over the Internet. B2C (business to consumer), B2B (business to business), B2E (business to employee), C2C (consumer to consumer). Web technologies are also helping firms realize their goal of mass customization. Mass customization helps firms tailor their products and services to meet a customers particular needs. The phenomenon of cutting out the intermediary and reaching customers more directly and efficiently is known as disintegration. Companies following a bricks-and-mortar approach choose to operate solely in the traditional, physical markets. Clicks-only companies (virtual, pure-play) conduct business electronically in cyberspace. These firms have no physical locations, allowing them to focus purely on EB. Bricks and clicks Clicks only companies often have a price advantage since they do not need to support the physical aspects of the bricks-and-clicks approach. This, these companies can reduce prices to rock-bottom levels. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the forefather of modern B2B EB and continues to maintain a stronghold in B2B computing. EDI refers to the digital, or electronic, transmission of business documents and related data between organizations via telecommunications networks. Value added networks (VANs) provide a direct link over which data can be transmitted. EDI enabled RJR Nabisco to reduce the cost of processing a paper-based purchase order from $70 to less that $1. EDI is costly to implement and maintain.

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By late 1997 , Cisco systems, a leading producer of networking technologies such as routers, had shifted nearly 40 percent of its B2B sales from bricks-and-mortar markets to the Web. An intranet consits of an internal, private network using web technologies to facilitate the secured transmission of proprietary information within the organization. In order to communicate proprietary information with authorized users outside organizational boundaries, a company can implement an extended intranet, or extranet. An extranet enables two or more firms to use the internet to do business together. Intranets and extranets benefit corps. in a number of ways. First and foremost, intranets and extranets can dramatically improve the timeliness and accuracy of communications, reducting the number of misunderstandings within the orgainizations, as well as with business partners and customers. Furthermore, they allow central management of documents, thus reducing the number of versions and amount of out of date information that may be stored throughout the organization. Web-based technologies are cross-platform, meaning that disparate computing systems can communicate with each other, provided that standard web protocols have been implemented. Intranets and extranets do not require large expenditures to train users on the technologies. Above all, intranets and extranets impact the companys bottom line. A company can use them to automate business transactions, reducting processing costs and achieving shortened cycle times. Intranets use firewalls to secure proprietary information stored within the corporate LAN and/or WAN. Firewalls are hardware devices with special software that are placed between the organizations LAN or WAN and the Internet, preventing unauthorized access to the proprietary information stored on the intranet. To enable access to an intranet, web browsers are installed on each employees workstation, and the TCP/IP protocol must be implemented on top of the protocols existing on the corporate LAN/WAN. Companies can use intranet to streamline routine business processes because an intranet provides a web browser interface to facilitate online entry of information. One of the most common problems in large corporations relates to the communication of business activities in a timely fashion across divisional areas of the organization.

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An extranet looks and acts just like an intranet and uses the same software, hardware, and networking technologies to communicate information. However, an extranet connects the intranets of two or more business partners, and thus requires an additional component. Intranets can be connected together using a virtual private network (VPN) to facilitate the secured transmission of proprietary information between business partners. To access information on an extranet, Web browsers are installed on the workstations within each intranet and the TCP/IP protocol must be implemented on top of existing network protocols. VPNs use a technology known as tunneling to encapsulate, encrypt, and transmit data over the internet infrastructure, enabling business partners to exhange information in a secured, private manner between orgainizational firewalls. Before information can be transmitted from one intranet to the other, the VPN connecting the two firewalls is established, and a secured tunnel is created. TCP/IP routes the encrypted packets through the firewall and through the tunnel en route to their destination. When the packets reach the business partners firewall, each packet is verified to ensure it has been sent from an authorized business partner. After packet verification, the packets are decrypted, and TCP/IP reassembles the packets and delivers them to the intranet web server for processing. Authentication confirms the identity of the remote user who is attempting to access information from the Web server. Supply chain management. Dell computers has used an extranet to strealine its supply chain, reducing its number of suppliers from more than 1000 to approx. 100. Collaboration via extranets allows companies to respond proactively to the changing marketplace by working directly with their business partners, suppliers, and customers. These applications provide companies with the ability to develop products that will soon be in demand, giving them an understanding of what will be needed and when. Enterprise portals come in 2 forms: Distribution portals are designed to automate the business processes that occur before, during, and after sales have been transacted between a supplier and multiple customers. Procurement portals are designed to automate business processes that occur before during and after sales have been transacted. E-tailing requires additional time for products to be delivered - lack of sensory information such as taste, smell, touch - eliminates social aspects E-Information E-Integration

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E-transaction EB success 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The website should offer something unique The website must be aesthetically pleasing The website must be easy to use and fast The website must motivate people to vists, to stay, and to return You must advertise your presence on the web You should learn from your website Any piece of information should be no more than 3 clicks away.

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