Week Five Questions

1. Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology

There are several ethical issues surrounding information technology such as Intellectual Property, Copyright, Fair use doctrine, Pirated Software, Counterfeit software.

Intellectual property is the collection of rights that protect creative and intellectual effort.
Copyright is the exclusive right to do, or omit to do, certain acts with intangible property such as a song, video game and some types of proprietary documents.
Pirated Software is the unauthorised use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software.
Counterfeit software is software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such.


2. Describe the relationship between an ‘email privacy policy’ and an ‘Internet use policy’.

The email privacy policy details the appropriate ways in which email messages should be used and the extent to which emails may be read by others. The email privacy policy also defines who legitimate email users are. The policy should complement the ‘ethical computer use policy’. Similar to the email policy, the ‘Internet use policy’ contains general principles to guide the proper use of the internet within an organization such as the available internet services and the ramifications for violations. The use of emails may be covered in the internet policy.


3. Summaries the five steps to creating an information security plan

4. What do the terms; authentication and authorization mean, how do they differ, provide some examples of each term.

Authentication is a method for confirming user identities such as face recognition or smart cards where as authorization is the process of giving someone permission to do or have something.

Authentication and authorization can be classified into three categories. (1) Something the user knows such as a password or user ID, (2) something the user has such as smart card or token, (3) something that is part of the user, such as fingerprint.

5. What are the five main types of Security Risks, suggest one method to prevent the severity of risk?

The five main types of security Risks are:

1/Human Error

2/Technical Failure

3/Natural Disasters

4/Deliberate Acts

5/Management Failure

To prevent technical failure, a organisation may use robust systems and implement backups to prevent the loss of information.

Week Four Questions

1 What is an IP Address? What is its main function?
An internet protocol address is a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network that uses the internet protocol for communication between its nodes. Every computer on the internet has a unique IP address and these can be either public or private. An IP address has two main functions; (1) to be a host or network interface identification and (2) location addressing. Put simply, it is the basic communication language of the internet.

2. What is Web 2.0, how does it differ from 1.0?

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social and technology trends that collectively from the basis for the next generation of the internet—a more mature distinctive medium characterised by user participation, openness and network effects. The term Web 2.0 does not refer to an update of technical specifications; rather, it refers to changes in the way software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. Web 2.0 allows its users to interact with other users or to contribute to website’s content, in contrast to web 1 where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. The web is no longer linking text, its linking people.

(http://www.blog.aysoon.com/)

3. What is Web 3.0?
Web 3.o is a term that has been tainted with different meanings to describe the development of web usage and interaction among numerous separate paths. These include transforming the web into a database, a move towards making content available by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, or the semantic web which is an evolving expansion of the World Wide Web in which content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software agents, thus allowing them to find, share and integrate information more easily.

4. Describe the different methods an organisation can use to access information
There are four common tools an organisation can use to access information, these being the (1) Intranet, (2) Extranet, (3) portal and (4) kiosk. (1) The intranet is an internalised section of the internet sheltered from outside access, which permits an organisation to provide access to information and application software to only its employees. It can host all kinds of business associated information such as benefits, entitlements, schedules, strategic direction and employee directories. (2) The Extranet is an Intranet that is available to tactical ‘allies’, such as customers, suppliers and partners. (3) A Portal (e.g http://www.9msn.com/) is a website that provides a large selection of resources and services, such as email, online discussion groups and search engines. (4) A kiosk is a publically available computer system that has been programmed to allow interactive information browsing. In a kiosk, the computer’s operational system has been concealed from view, and the program runs in a full screen mode, which provides a few simple tools for navigation.

5. What is e-Business, how does it differ from e-Commerce?
The term e-business refers to the conducting of business on the internet, including the buying and selling, serving customers and collaborating with business partners. In contrast, the term e-commerce has a narrower meaning and purposes that e-business as it refers only to online transactions where as e-business also refers to online exchanges of information, such as a financial institution allowing its customers to review their banking, credit card and mortgage accounts.

6. List and describe the various e-Business models?

(1.www.wikipedia.org/wiki//business-to-government)

7. List 3 metrics you would use if you were hired to assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of an
e-Business web site?

(1) Click stream data

(2) Cookies

(3) Banner ad


8. Outline 2 opportunities and 2 challenges faced by companies doing business online?
There are several benefits for doing business online such as:
(1) the highly accessible nature of the web which allows businesses to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and
(2) the cost of conducting business on the internet is substantially smaller than traditional forms of business communication.

There are also several challenges to using the internet to do business such as:
(1) Protecting consumers against unsolicited goods and communication illegal or harmful goods and
(2) Increasing liability. As e-business exposes suppliers to unknown liabilities because Internet commerce law is vaguely defined and differs from country to country

Week Three Questions

1. Define TPS & DSS, and explain how an organisation can use these systems to make decisions and gain competitive advantages

Transactional Processing system is the basic business system that serves the operational level in an organisation. TPS enable organisations to contain all their information within a single business process which allows support for the daily operational tasks such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll, credit decisions and flow of materials. These transactions can be managed though batch processing which enables a business to collect data from transactions as they occur, placing them in groups or batches. They are then prepared and processed periodically, often without human intervention, thus minimising the risk or error. The appropriate decisions are then made based on this ordered and accurate information.

Transaction related process were the first to be automated because these repetitive, consistent, high volume tasks were ideal candidates for ‘computerisation’. As TPS are the foundation for all other information systems, they are out-reaching and convey impressions to the customers about the quality of business and further, can be built on a client/ server architecture which allows for a faster transaction process, giving competitive advantage.

DSS or Decision Support Systems help managers make decisions, in particular in relation to complex situations, also known as unstructured or semi structured problems such as estimating the sum of future cash flows from the use of long-lived assets, judging the adequacy of an argument promoting a reduction in the capital gains tax rate and preparing an operating budget for the next 5 years. These functions allow a business to predetermine the course of the business.

2. Describe the three quantitative models typically used by decision support systems.
There are three quantitative models used by DSSs to determine business possibilities. These include:

(1) Sensitivity analysis - the study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model. Users change the value of one variable repeatedly and observe the resulting change

(2) What-if analysis - checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution.

(3) Goal-seeking analysis - finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output. Instead of observing how changes in a variable affect other variables as in what if analysis, goal seeking analysis sets a target value fir a variable and then repeatedly changes other variables until the target value is achieved.

3. Describe a business processes and their importance to an organisation.

Business process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task, such as processing a customs order. Business Process transform a set of inputs into a set of outputs (goods or services) for another person or process by using people as tools. Examining business processes helps an organization to anticipate bottlenecks and eliminate duplicate activities, combine related activities and indentify smooth-running processes. Organisations are only effective as their business process and developing logical business process can help an organisation achieve its goals

4. Compare business process improvement and business process re-engineering.

Many organisations begin business process improvement with a continuous improvement model. A continuous process improvement model attempts to understand and measure the current process, and make performance improvements accordingly whereas Business Process re-engineering relies on a different school of thought than business process improvement. In the extreme BPR assumes the current process is irrelevant, does not work, or is broken and must be overhauled from scratch. Such a clean slate enables for a total process remodel while further enabling the process designers to distance themselves from today’s process and focus on a new process. Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises.

5. Describe the importance of business process modelling (or mapping) and business process models.
Business process modelling is the activity of generating a detailed flowchart or process map of a work process, showing its inputs, tasks and activities in a structured sequence where as a business process model is a visual representation of a process, showing the succession of process tasks, which is developed for a specific purpose and from a selected viewpoint. The importance of a business process model is to expose the process detail gradually and in a controlled manner while further promoting conciseness and accuracy in describing the process model. It also directs consideration on the process model interfaces while providing a powerful process analysis and consistent design vocabulary. Today’s technology makes the processes within a business invisible, so BPM makes the processes visible