Question Paper

Management Information Systems (MC261 ) : January 2007

Section A : Basic Concepts (30 Marks)

 This section consists of questions with serial number 1 - 30.

 Answer all questions.
 Each question carries one mark.
 Maximum time for answering Section A is 30 Minutes.

1.
The plastic card, that stores digital information like identification data, telephone numbers, and at times
serves as “electronic purse” is
(a)
Identity card
(b)
Ration card
(c)
Smart card
(d)
Playing card
(e)
All of the above.

2.
‘CASE’ tools stands for
(a)
Complex Algorithms for Software Engineering
(b)
Computer – Aided Software Engineering
(c)
Computer – Aided Software Estimation
(d)
Complex Algorithms for Software Estimation
(e)
Computer Algorithms for Selection and Evaluation.

3.
A digital code attached to an electronically transmitted message that is used to verify the origin and
contents of the message is
(a)
Encryption
(b)
Parity bit
(c)
Profiling
(d)
Digital signature
(e)
Prototyping.

4.
Plans for the restoration of computing and communications services after they have been disrupted by an
event such as an earthquake, flood or terrorist attack is
(a)
Calamity rehabilitation planning
(b)
Disaster recovery planning
(c)
Tsunami Warning system
(d)
Early Warning system
(e)
Data redundancy system.

5.
Which of the following is not a step in prototyping?
(a)
Identify the user’s basic requirements
(b)
Develop an initial prototype
(c)
Cost estimation of the complete project
(d)
Use the prototype
(e)
Revise and enhance the prototype.

6.
The process of turning over an organization’s computer operation, telecommunication networks or
application development to external vendors is called
(a)
Resourcing
(b)
Outsourcing
(c)
Vendor development
(d)
Vendor management
(e)
End - user management.

7.
A specific measure of quality representing 3.4 defects per million opportunities, used to designate a set of
methodologies and techniques for improving quality and reducing costs is
(a)
Black belt
(b)
Seven sigma
(c)
Six sigma
(d)
Benchmarking
(e)
Business process Re-engineering.

8.
Which of the following is not a challenge of managing the new information technology infrastructure?
(a)
Loss of management control
(b)
Connectivity and application integration challenges
(c)
Hidden cost of enterprise computing
(d)
Market share
(e)
Scalability, Reliability and Security.

9.
Private and multipath data – only third party managed network that multiple organizations use on a
subscription basis is
(a)
LAN
(b)
WAN
(c)
VAN
(d)
Twisted pair cables
(e)
Optical fibre.

10.
A database, with reporting and query tools, that stores current and historical data extracted from various
operational systems and consolidated for management reporting and analysis
(a)
Data
(b)
Data base
(c)
Data Warehouse
(d)
Information
(e)
Report.

11.
A form of distributed processing, that links computer via private networks or internet, so that they can share
processing tasks is
(a)
Grid computing
(b)
Parallel processing
(c)
Peer – to – peer computing
(d)
Computing
(e)
Centralised processing.

12.
Computer systems at any level of the organization that change goals, operations, products, services or
environmental relationships to heep the organization gain a competitive advantage is
(a)
Decision Support System
(b)
Market Information System
(c)
Personnel Information System
(d)
Strategic Information System
(e)
Financial Accounting System.

13.
An analysis of organization – wide information requirements that examines the entire organization in terms
of the organizationsal units, function, processes and data elements and helps to identify the key entities and
attributes in the organisation’s data is
(a)
System Analysis
(b)
Enterprise Analysis
(c)
Market Analysis
(d)
Self Analysis
(e)
SWOT Analysis.

14.
Which of the following is not a Decision Model Classification?
(a)
Deterministic
(b)
Stochastic
(c)
Opportunistic
(d)
Simulation
(e)
Domain specific.

15.
Which of the following does not form the four basic levels of MDM (Multiparticipant Decision Maker)
technology?
(a)
Organisational Decision Support System (ODSS)
(b)
Group Support System and Groupware (GSSG)
(c)
Group Decision Support System (GDSS)
(d)
Decision Support System (DSS)
(e)
Single Support System (SSS).

16.
Which of the following is not a method for determining Executive Information needs?
(a)
Null method
(b)
Key indicator method
(c)
Total study method
(d)
Budget method
(e)
Critical success factor method.

17.
Which of the following is not a Taxonomy of knowledge types?
(a)
Descriptive
(b)
Procedural
(c)
Linguistic
(d)
Art
(e)
Reasoning.

18.
The characteristic of a Data Warehouse, where all inconsistencies regarding naming
convention and value representations are removed is
(a)
Subject Orientation
(b)
Integration
(c)
Summarization
(d)
Time Variance
(e)
Non Volatality.

19.
Which of the following is not an advantage of “Simulation” method in Decision Support
Systems?
(a)
A great amount of time compression can be attained
(b)
It is descriptive rather than normative, helping the user to pose ‘what-if’ question
(c)
It automatically produces many important performance measures
(d)
It can generally handle an extremely wide variety of problem types
(e)
It is built for one particular problem and typically cannot handle any other problem.

20.
Which of the following is a limitation of Decision Support Systems?
(a)
Extend the decision maker’s ability to process information and knowledge
(b)
Extend the decision maker’s ability to tackle large-scale, time consuming, complex problem
(c)
Shorten the time associated with a decision making
(d)
Cannot yet be designed to contain definitely human decision making talents such as creativity, imagination
or intuition
(e)
Improve the reliability of a decision process or outcome.

21.
When designing a Decision Support System, the set of specifications that focuses on its
capacity for the storage, record and production of knowledge useful to the problem
context is
(a)
Interface requirements
(b)
Coordination requirements
(c)
Functional requirements
(d)
Stationary requirements
(e)
Standard requirements.

22.
In DSS, many type of tools help in building complex, systems. Which of the following
come under complex system tools?
I. Knowledge Disposal.
II. Knowledge Acquisition.
III. Knowledge Validation.
IV. Knowledge Responsiveness.
V. Knowledge Verification.
(a)
(I), (II) and (III) above
(b)
(I), (II) and (IV) above
(c)
(II), (III) and (IV) above
(d)
(II), (III) and (V) above
(e)
(I), (II) and (V) above.

23.
Who among the following is considered as Doctor of DSS?
(a)
Ralph Kimbell
(b)
Alter
(c)
Hosapple
(d)
Sprague
(e)
Carlson.

24.
Which of the following decision making styles that describe people who approach a
problem by structuring it in terms of some formal method?
(a)
Systematic decision-making
(b)
Congnitive style
(c)
Rational model
(d)
Intuitive decision makers
(e)
“Garbage can” model.

25.
A decision support system should not be such that:
(a)
The user is in a position to access the database easily
(b)
It supports an interactive testing of solutions
(c)
It helps the manager arrive at the most optimum solution
(d)
It involves everyone in the organization in the decision-making process
(e)
It helps to structure the problems and provide a systematized approach.

26.
There is no pre-established decision procedure for
(a)
Pre-planned decision
(b)
Adhoc decision
(c)
Structured decision
(d)
Unstructured decision
(e)
Planned decision.

27.
“Decision makers make use of past experience to evaluate the importance of a variance
and don’t rely on just percentages or absolute difference,” said
(a)
Lewis and Simon
(b)
Newell and Simon
(c)
Simon and Cummings
(d)
Judd, Paddock and Wetherbe
(e)
Charles Babbage.

28.
The assurance that stored data will remain unaltered is termed as
(a)
Reliability
(b)
Authenticity
(c)
Integrity
(d)
Privacy
(e)
Scalability.

29.
In which phase of the Herbert-Simon model, is the raw data collected, processed and
examined?
(a)
Intelligence
(b)
Design
(c)
Choice
(d)
Collection
(e)
All of the above.

30.
Structured, programmable decisions
(a)
Can be pre-specified
(b)
Cannot be pre-specified
(c)
Are very complex
(d)
Are very simple
(e)
None of the above.

END OF SECTION A

Section B : Problems/Caselets (50 Marks)

 This section consists of questions with serial number 1 – 5.
 Answer all questions.
 Marks are indicated against each question.
 Detailed workings/explanations should form part of your answer.
 Do not spend more than 110 - 120 minutes on Section B.

1.
Atlas Limited wants to develop information system that meets its needs. The general manager of the
company wants to develop it from a scratch, while the CEO wants to use an existing system as a reference
for developing the new system. Which of these approaches is right? Do you suggest a mixture of the two
approaches?
(10 marks)

Caselet 1
Read the caselet carefully and answer following questions:

2.
What are the business benefits of Maxwealth’s intranet?
(10 marks)

3.
How does Maxwealth’s extranet help strengthen its ties with its agents?
(10 marks)

Maxwealth India Ltd, a Rs. 3000 crore diversified property and casuality insurer, largely bypassed
client/server technology on its way to the intranet. It did so partly because of the insurance industry’s
conservative stance on technology.
However, the intranet’s simple application deployment and its potential as a competitive business tool drew
Maxwealth’s attention. The web provided Maxwealth with the opportunity to distinguish itself with better,
more informed services in an otherwise mature market. That meant a way to strengthen ties with its
independent agent network. “This has always been a relationship business,” says the director of
collaboration solutions.
MaxNet, Maxwealth’s first intranet application, was an enterprise wide risk management application that
went up last year. It allows over 900 customer service representatives to track the account status and
identify risk exposures by consulting a reference database of 40,000 policies and information from content
experts on specific types of litigation or claims awards. Users make predefined queries, which offer 10 to
20 variables, against a SQL server database; that in turn accesses a DB2 database on the mainframe.
When this system worked well, Maxwealth developed an extranet application for agents selling worker’s
compensation insurance. In insurance, where the name of the game is getting quick quotes, Maxwealth’s
extranet guarantees response time of 10 minutes or less, compared to hours or days in the old way. The
company is also planning an extranet admission system for worker’s compensation claims to streamline a
costly process bogged down by paperwork.
And for its top customers, Maxwealth is considering adding a premium service extranet involving virtual
private networks to get around the uncertain performance of public networks.
Caselet 2
Read the caselet carefully and answer following questions:

4.
Why is Paradigm splitting its top information systems job into two positions?
 (10 marks)

5.
Should other companies appoint CIO and CTO executive to manage their use of information technology?
What are the limitations and benefits of this approach?
(10 marks)

Most Chief Information Officers (CIOs) dream of creating innovative business applications so that their
company gains a competitive advantage. However, they end up spending most of their time dealing with
legacy systems maintenance. At Paradigm Consultants, management decided that one executive simply
couldn’t shoulder the burden of IT strategy and infrastructure as the company sought to explore new growth
opportunities. Hence, Paradigm Consultants split the top technologist position into the position of CIO and
the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Companies such as Merrill Lynch & Co., General Motors,
and GE Capital Corporation have had CIOs setting and aligning business goals and strategies. But chief
technology officers (CTOs) typically handled day-to-day operations.
Paradigm Consultants, split the duties of the CIOs because the time and resource constraints that weighted
on them were just too much. Now Paradigm Consultants is in a position to leverage new business
opportunities. It can make effective use of the terabytes of data it has on 25 million households and also try
to expand the company’s catalog customers.
Paradigm Consultants is in the early stages of bolstering Paradigm Consultants Online with more products
and services for sale. According to analysts, the company is also considered to be a technology leader
because of its innovative use of database marketing and data mining capabilities.

END OF SECTION B

Section C : Applied Theory (20 Marks)

 This section consists of questions with serial number 6 - 7.
 Answer all questions.
 Marks are indicated against each question.
 Do not spend more than 25 - 30 minutes on section C.

6.
Decisions differ with the structures that are used for making them. A highly structured decision, unlike a
highly unstructured decision, may be pre-planned or pre-specified. Explain structured and unstructured
decision making.
(10 marks)

7.
Management’s contribution and participation is indispensable for an effective MIS implementation. What
role does managerial participation play in the implementation of MIS?
(10 marks)
 END OF SECTION C

END OF QUESTION PAPER

1.
Answer : (c)
Reason : The plastic card, that stores digital information like identification data, telephone numbers, and
at times serves as “electronic purse” is smart card.

2.
Answer : (b)
Reason : CASE’ tools stands for Computer – aided software engineering.

3.
Answer : (d)
Reason : A digital code attached to an electronically transmitted message that is used to verify the origins
and contents of the message is Digital signature.

4.
Answer : (b)
Reason : Plans for the restoration of computing and communications services after they have been
disrupted by an event such as an earthquake, flood or terrorist attack is Disaster recovery
planning.

5.
Answer : (c)
Reason : Cost estimation of the complete project is not a step in prototyping.

6.
Answer : (b)
Reason : The process of turning over an organization’s computer operation, telecommunication networks
or application development to external verndors is called outsourcing.

7.
Answer : (c)
Reason : A specific measure of quality representing 3.4 defects per million opportunities, used to designate
a set of methodologies and techniques for improving quality and reducing costs is Six sigma.

8.
Answer : (d)
Reason : Market share is not a challenge of managing the new information technology infrastructure.

9.
Answer : (c)
Reason :Private, Multipath, data – only third party managed network that multiple
organizations use on a subscription basis is VAN (Value Added Networks).

10.
Answer : (c)
Reason :A database, with reporting and query tools, that stores current and historical data
extracted from various operational systems and consolidated for management
reporting and analysis is known as Data Warehouse.

11.
Answer : (c)
Reason : A form of distributed processing, that links computer via private networks or internet, so that
they can share processing tasks is Peer – to – peer computing.

12.
Answer : (d)
Reason : Computer systems at any level of the organization that change goals, operations, products,
services or environmental relationships to heep the organization gain a competitive advantage is
Strategic Information System.

13.
Answer : (b)
Reason : An Analysis of organization – wide information requirements that examines the entire
organization in terms of the organizations units, function, processes and data elements and helps
to identify the key entities and attributes in the organisation’s data is Enterprise Analysis.

14.
Answer : (c)
Reason : Opportunistic is not a Decision Model Classification.

15.
Answer : (e)
Reason : Support System (SSS) does not form the four basic levels of MDM (Multiparticipant Decision
Maker) technology.

16.
Answer : (d)
Reason : Budget method is not a method for determining Executive Information.

17.
Answer : (d)
Reason: Art is not a Taxonrmy of knowledge type.

18.
Answer : (b)
Reason : The characteristic of a Data Warehouse, where all inconsistencies regarding
naming convention and value representations are removed is integration.

19.
Answer : (e)
Reason : One of the disadvantage of “Simulation” method in Decision Support Systems It is built for one
particular problem and typically cannot handle any other problem.

20.
Answer : (d)
Reason : Cannot yet be designed to contain definitely human decision making talents such as creativity,
imagination or intuition is a limitation of Decision Support Systems.

21.
Answer : (c)
Reason : When designing a Decision Support System, the set of specifications that focuses on its capacity
for the storage, record and production of knowledge useful to the problem context is Functional
requirements.

22.
Answer : (d)
Reason : Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Validation; Knowledge Verification are the complete
system tools that help in building a complete DSS.

23.
Answer : (a)
Reason : Ralph Kimbell is considered as doctor of DSS.

24.
Answer : (a)
Reason :Systematic decision-making describe people who approach a problem by
structuring it in terms of some formal method.

25.
Answer : (d)
Reason : A decision support system should not be such that It involves everyone in the organization in the
decision-making process.

26.
Answer : (d)
Reason : There is no pre-established decision procedure for Unstructured decision.

27.
Answer : (d)
Reason : “Decision makers make use of past experience to evaluate the importance of a variance and don’t
rely on just percentages or absolute difference,” was said by Judd, Paddock and Wetherbe.

28.
Answer : (c)
Reason : The assurance that stored data will remain unaltered is termed integrity.

29.
Answer : (a)
Reason : In Intelligence phase of the Herbert-Simon model, is the raw data collected, processed and
examined.

30.
Answer : (a)
Reason : Structured, programmable decisions Can be pre-specified.

Section B : Problems
1.
Carefully examining existing information system components within an organization, or
in similar organizations, can often provide useful information on information system
needs. A deriving strategy of this kind can be further supplemented by carefully
investigating the features of information products and services in the market.
One problem with deriving information system requirements from existing systems, it
that this strategy focuses attention on the technical features of individual application
subsystems rather than their suitability for supporting the management activities of a
particular form. Synthesizing strategies help focus attention on the business activities to
be supported by the information system. They are usually based on structured
investigations of business activities, followed by a mapping of organizational
characteristics into desired information system characteristics. Critical success factor
analysis is used to identify the information needs. This method is widely used to help
general managers in large organizations identify their most important information needs.

2.
Maxwealth’s intranet allows over 900 customer service representatives to track the
account status and identify risk exposures of policy holders by consulting a reference
database of 40,000 polices and information from content experts on specific types of
litigation or claims awards. Users make pre-defined queries, which offer 10 to 20
variables, against a SQL Server database; that in turn accesses a DB2 database on the
mainframe.

3.
Maxwealth’s extranet helped it to strengthen its ties with its agents. Maxwealth’s extranet
guaranteed a response time of 10 minutes or less, compared to hours or days. It also has
an extranet admission system for worker’s compensation claims to streamline a costly
process bogged down by paperwork. For its top customers, Maxwealth is adding a
premium services extranet involving virtual private networks to avoid the use of
uncertain unreliable public networks.

4.
The management at Paradigm Consultants decided to split the company’s top
information systems job into two because it felt that one executive could not handle the
burden of IT strategy and infrastructure. Also, since the company wanted to explore new
growth opportunities, it felt that it would be difficult for one executive to handle the
workload efficiently. Typically, chief information officers (CIOs) set and align business
goals and strategies. However, chief technology officers (CTOS) handle the day-to-day
operations.

5.
Depending on the size of the company and its future expansion plans, it should decide
whether it requires CIO and CTO executives to manage its use of information technology.
If a company aspires to expand and increase its operations, it must split its top
information systems job into two positions. This will ensure that the company operates
smoothly. However, if the company plans to cut costs and does not intend to expand, this
move would not be advisable as it would create more designations and increase costs.

Section C: Applied Theory

6.
Structured Programmable Decisions:
An organization can prepare a decision rule or decision procedure when a decision can be
programmed. The decision rule or decision procedure can be a flowchart, a decision
table, a formula or a set of steps to be followed. The decision procedure will also specify
the information needed before the application of decision rules. Some structured,
programmable decisions can be handled by lower-level personnel with little specialized
knowledge because they can be pre specified and are not so complex. Many highly
structured decisions however, require human review even though they can be fully
automated. Some examples of highly structured decisions are inventory reorder formulae
and rules for granting credit.
The information system requirements for structured decisions are clear. Various
procedures – such as entering the required input data, using validation procedures to
ensure correct and complete input, processing the data using decision logic and
interpreting the output of the programmed decision are in a form that is easy to
understand and operate. A useful output is one that clearly indicated how it should be
used. It should have enough data to help the user assess the correctness of the decision. It
is not possible to define a decision procedure or rule for handling all situations. When it is
not possibly to specify a decision procedure, decision rules are written to apply to the
most common situations. Situations, that are uncommon or unusual are referred to a
human decision-maker who has specialized knowledge of the subject.
Unstructured Non-Programmable Decisions:
There is no pre-established decision procedure for an unstructured decision, for the
following reasons:
a. The decisions is too infrequent to justify the organizational cost of preparing a
decision procedure.
b. The decision process is not understood well enough
c. The decision is too changeable to allow the development of a stable, pre-established
decision procedure.
The information system requirements for unstructured decision making are access to
relevant data and various analysis and decision procedures that can be applied to solve
the problem. For an unstructured decision, data requirements are not known in advance,
so retrieval of the data must allow adhoc retrieval requests. Interactive decision support
systems with generalized inquiry, and analysis capabilities provide useful information
support for unstructured decision-making.

7.
Lack of managerial participation is one of the most important reasons for the failure of
MIS. In successful companies, MIS development is the responsibility of both the top and
operating line management. MIS is too important to be left to the technicians alone.
If one analyzes the companies that have been successful with computer-based MIS, such
as IBM, Xerox, Pillsbury and Ford etc, it is clear that their success is due to the fact that
managers and users are both involved in the systems design. The top management should
take personal interest and define what work the computer should do for the organization.
The three reasons why managerial participation is necessary are: First managers should
be familiar with the topic of MIS; second from an organization’s point of view,
information system is a major part of its operations like marketing, operations and
finance and third; manager’s participation in MIS will lead to better and effective
information systems.