April 1999
IM218: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

QUESTION 1 (Compulsory)

Total Marks: 20 Marks

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GRADE A
Student's solutions are indicated in green.
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(a) What information, as opposed to data, in the context of information management? Identify two properties of information, and explain the difference (with respect to these properties) between information suitable for operational control and information suitable for strategic planning. [6]
  1. Information are the data being processed and presented to the user in suitable form for interpretation and analysis.
    Data are now facts regard to people, object, events, and etc.
    Two properties of information:
  2. Source
    Sources of Information for operational control are mainly internal while strategic planning may obtain information from internal as well as external of the organisation.
  3. Scope
    Information scope for operational control may be mainly sizeable while scope of information for strategic planning is mainly wide and long-range.

 
(b) Outline two reasons for an organization to provide continuous training for its staff. [2]
The two reasons are:
  1. As the environment changes, organisation may introduce new idea which require new technologies to be incorporated to the business operations, therefore, the staff may need continuous training to be efficient in using the new hardware and software.
  2. Better utilisation of resources may require skilled staff, therefore, staff need to have training in order to enable them to be efficient in handling resources.

 
(c) Give an example, with the aid of a diagram, of a career ladder for a small data processing department. [4]

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(d) Explain the difference between theoretical and physical benchmarking of hardware proposals. Why are two separate benchmarking processes used? [2]
Theoretical benchmarking
To verify the specifications solely claimed by the vendor in the request for proposal report.

Physical benchmarking
To conduct tests and reviews of the mandatory and desirable attributes to prove the accuracy and reliability of the hardware.

Theoretical benchmarking could eliminate the number of products used to be tested in the physical benchmarking.

 
(e) Explain what is meant by the term separation of EDP functions; in particular, what is the purpose of this separation? Give two guidelines for achieving this separation. [4]
Separation of EDP function is a method of general controls employed to the organisation as to limit the rate of involvement of the employees in a particular information in order to eliminate frauds and sabotage being committed.

Two guidelines:

  1. Operation staff should not be allowed to know the actual design and process of the information system where they may commit fraud if they know how the data is being designed and stored.
  2. Operation staff and system development staff should not be allowed to access to the production area.

 
(f) What is a firewall? [2]
Firewall is a mechanism to protect the network from unauthorised access to the organisation communication network from remote side and other network systems.