Lecture 4.
Topic 4.
Information system resources. Information System Activities. The components of an information system.
Systems concepts, components and relationships. Classification of information systems. Classification by
management and decision-making levels. The entire structure of the IS, the general structure
Information systems (IS) is an integrated environment of the hardware, software, peoples which mainly
functions for the purpose of collecting and processing data to valuable information by applying a list of
procedures on data collection, thus information is derived from data by IS procedures, and clears the
difference between data and information. The data is raw materials and the information is the resultant data
of processing [4].
INFORMATION SYSTEM RESOURCES
Information system consists of five major resources:
1) People
2) Hardware
3) Software
4) Data
5) Networks
Types of Information Systems
● Operations Support Systems: This type of information system is primarily designed to assist a certain business
process.
● Decision Support Systems: Decision support systems enable an organization to make decisions with regard to
its operations. It can be employed in both fully automated and human-operated systems. However, for optimal
efficiency, a combination of human and computer-operated devices is advised.
● Management Information Systems: Management information systems (MIS) are computerized systems that
gather, store, process and display data that help in making decisions for management.
● Executive Information Systems: The final type of management support system is the executive support system
(EIS). They assist in making senior-level choices for an organization.
Operational Level
Operations managers run the day-to-day business operations and make routine decisions such as a coffee shop manager
wanting to know whether to order more coffee or not for next week. Transaction processing systems and process control
systems are two types of information systems used at the operational level.
1. Process Control Systems
Another kind of system commonly used at the operational level is the process control system. Operational managers and
others use process control systems to monitor and control physical processes. An example would be to test the temperature
of food during preparation. Unlike transaction processing systems, process control systems take their input data from
sensors to generate reports that are analyzed by an operational manager to adjust the business process. Process control
systems are commonly found in industrial and manufacturing applications.
Examples of process control systems include:
● Assembly lines
● Petroleum refineries
2. Transaction Processing System
Operational managers use transaction processing systems that can track and capture automated or semi-automated transactions
between an employee and a customer, an employee and a supplier, or even between two employees of different departments
within the same organization. The main job of a transaction processing system is to validate, sort, merge, calculate and update data
from these transactional events and produce summary reports or lists from which decisions can be made.
Examples of transaction processing systems include:
● Payroll systems
● Order processing systems
● Reservation systems
● Systems for payments and fund transfers
2. Decision Support Systems
Decision support systems, on the other hand, are interactive systems that can help solve ill-structured or semi-structured
problems. An example of an ill-structured problem for the coffee shop would be whether to open a new coffee shop at
another location. Decision support systems have analytical and/or modeling capabilities to analyze existing structured
information and they allow managers to project the potential effects of their decisions into the future. They may also support
the exchange of information within the organization, so they are also classified as knowledge management systems.
Examples of decision support systems include:
● Group decision support systems
● Computer-supported cooperative work systems
● Logistics systems
● Financial planning systems
3. Middle Management Level
Management Information System (MIS) is one of the five major Computer Based Information Systems (CBIS). Its purpose is to
meet the general information needs of the managers in a firm or organization. MIS is a computer based system that makes
information available to users with similar needs. Management Information System (MIS) consists of the following three pillars:
Management, Information, and System. These are explained below.
Middle-level managers make tactical decisions that assist in implementing the strategy of the organization. Tactical
decisions involve decisions related to developing divisional plans, structuring workflows, establishing distribution channels
and acquisition of resources, such as personnel, materials and money. Using the coffee shop example, a tactical decision
would be whether to open earlier in the morning or on the weekends to attract new customers. Two types of information
systems that can be used by middle-level managers are management information systems and decision support systems.
Management information systems are built on data provided by transaction processing systems. They extract their data from
databases located in different departments to compile reports such as sales analysis, inventory level reports or financial
statements. They typically have little or no analytical capability and are used to provide reports on the firm’s past or current
performance rather than the future performance of an organization.
5. Executive Level
The top-most tier is the senior executive level, also known as the C-suite. Management at this level comprises chief officers of
various functions such as executive (CEO), operational (COO, information (CIO) or financial (CFO). The C-suite makes strategic
decisions that affect and shape the future survivability of an organization. An example of a strategic decision for the coffee shop
would be to decide whether to remain in the café business or not. Long-term forecasts of business turnover set against likely
market conditions can help the senior management of the coffee shop determine whether they should close the café business or
not.
Executive information systems help executives and other senior managers analyze the environment in which the organization
operates to identify long-term trends and to plan appropriate courses of action. The information in such a system is often weakly
structured and comes from both internal sources, such as its own databases or data warehouse, and external sources, such as
data from customers, suppliers or other governmental databases.
Executive information systems tend to be highly individualized and are often custom-made for a particular client group. However,
many off-the-shelf executive information systems packages do exist. And many enterprise-level systems offer a customizable
executive information system module. A straightforward digital dashboard with a real-time view of the performance of an
organization is a common feature of an executive information system. As with most information systems, many executive
information systems now integrate AI-driven analytics that can offer executives complex and accurate insight based on natural
language queries.
Classification and Evolution of Information Systems
Information systems are made out of components that can be assembled in many different configurations, resulting in a
variety of information systems and applications, much as construction materials can be assembled to build different homes
types. The size and cost of a home depend on the purpose of the building, the availability of money, and constraints such as
ecological and environmental legal requirements. Just as there are many different types of houses, so there are many
different types of information systems. It is useful to classify information systems into groups that share similar
characteristics. Such a classification may help in identifying systems,
analyzing them, planning new systems, planning integration of systems, and making decisions such as the possible
outsourcing of systems. This classification can be done in several alternative ways. Information systems are classified by
organizational levels, mode of data processing, system objectives, and by the type of support
provided.
Typical information systems that follow the organizational structure are functional (departmental), enterprise, and
inter-organizational. These systems are organized in a hierarchy in which each higher-level system consists of several (even
many) systems from the level below it. At a higher level, the enterprise system supports the entire company, and
interorganizational systems connect different companies.
Functional Information Systems
Functional organizations are hierarchical structures and center on a strong concept of supervisors and subordinates. The
controlling authority, often called top management, coordinates with each management level and functional department to
keep the organization running smoothly. A functional organization analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each member,
groups them into categories and assigns them to tasks that best utilize their skills. Jobs that perform a similar function are
grouped in functional areas. Each functional area contains employees with varied skills that are further grouped based on
specialization and put in separate units or departments. Information systems which served these functional departments are
called functional information systems
Enterprise Information Systems
While a departmental information system is usually related to a functional area, other information systems serve
several departments or the entire enterprise. These information systems together with the departmental applications
comprise the enterprise information system (EIS). One of the most popular enterprise applications is enterprise
resources planning (ERP), which enables companies to plan and
manage the resources of an entire enterprise. ERP systems present a relatively new model of enterprise computing
now days.
Knowledge Work System (KWS)
The KWS is a specialized system that expedites knowledge creation and ensures the business's technical skills and
knowledge are correctly applied. The Knowledge Work System aids workers in creating and disseminating new
information using graphics, communication, and document management tools.
Example
CAD (Computer-Aided Design) is used by software engineers and architects to design and test structures, enabling
knowledge workers to create detailed models and simulations.
Various methods are used in the design of IS. A design method is an organized set of processes for developing
a number of models that describe various aspects of the system being created using a certain notation.
A design method includes:
• a theoretical basis (concept); for example, such a basis can be a certain approach to design (object-oriented,
structural);
• a notation used to build models of the static and dynamic structure of the system being designed; graphical
diagrams are usually used as a notation,
since they are the most visual and easy to perceive;
• a procedure that determines the practical application of the method, i.e. the sequence and rules for
constructing models, the criteria used to evaluate the results
A distinction is made between structural and object-oriented IS design methods, which correspond to certain
approaches to IS design. Structural methods appeared earlier and are still used, object-oriented methods
appeared later, are very popular among designers and system developers and have powerful tool support
(CASE tools).
In structural design, the following diagrams are used:
IDEF0 — a diagram of the IDEF family (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing DEFinition — a
methodology for solving problems of modeling complex systems), intended for functional modeling;
IDEF3 — a diagram of the IDEF family, intended for modeling the sequence of actions and the relationship
between them within a process;
IDEF1X — a diagram of the IDEF family, intended for information modeling of data;
DFD (Data Flow Diagrams) — a data flow diagram;
ERD (Entity-Relationship Diagram, ER-diagram) — an entity-relationship diagram.
In the object-oriented approach, the UML modeling language is often used.
Data flow diagrams (DFD) are a classic representative of the structural approach, but are actively used in
object-oriented design. UML activity diagrams allow you to model the structure of an activity.
UML class diagram is a development of the entity-relationship diagram (ERD). Both approaches necessarily
consider the functional and flow representation of the system. The use of one or another approach depends
on the specific tasks
• IDEF0 is more suitable for describing business processes;
• DFD diagram allows you to identify the sequence of events occurring in the system, and the data associated
with these processes;
• IDEF3 shows both the sequence of execution of processes and which of these processes can be performed
sequentially;
• UML diagrams are relatively easy to read, allow you to analyze business processes, and are a means of
communication within the project.
Information Systems Architecture (ISA)
Information Systems Architecture is the fundamental concepts or properties of an information system in its
environment, as embodied in its elements and relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution
(ISO/IEC/IEEE 2011).
The Information Systems Architecture of an organization is a common framework, within which different
kinds of individual information systems play their respective roles and interact with one another.
The information system architecture of any firm can be considered a blueprint depicting how the data
processing system, telecommunications networks, and data are incorporated.
It provides a summarized response to the following questions :
Where to store data?
What data is gathered?
How and where was the data gathered?
Which application uses the data and how are they related to the overall system?
How is the data transferred?
Internet Technology
Internet Technology refers to the implementation of a 2-tier 'thin client' architecture where most processing
is done on central servers, and information is displayed on a Web browser. It can evolve into a 3-tier
architecture for more complex applications requiring local processing capabilities.
The client–server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a
resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients.[1] Often clients and servers communicate over a
computer network on separate hardware, but both client and server may be on the same device. A server host runs one or
more server programs, which share their resources with clients. A client usually does not share any of its resources, but it
requests content or service from a server. Clients, therefore, initiate communication sessions with servers, which await
incoming requests. Examples of computer applications that use the client–server model are email, network printing, and the
World Wide Web.
Client and server role
The server component provides a function or service to one or many clients, which initiate requests for such services.
Servers are classified by the services they provide. For example, a web server serves web pages and a file server serves
computer files. A shared resource may be any of the server computer's software and electronic components, from programs
and data to processors and storage devices. The sharing of resources of a server constitutes a service.
Whether a computer is a client, a server, or both, is determined by the nature of the application that requires the service
functions. For example, a single computer can run a web server and file server software at the same time to serve different
data to clients making different kinds of requests. The client software can also communicate with server software within the
same computer.[2] Communication between servers, such as to synchronize data, is sometimes called inter-server or
server-to-server communication.
Client and server communication
Generally, a service is an abstraction of computer resources and a client does not have to be concerned with how the server
performs while fulfilling the request and delivering the response. The client only has to understand the response based on
the relevant application protocol, i.e. the content and the formatting of the data for the requested service.
Clients and servers exchange messages in a request–response messaging pattern. The client sends a request, and the server
returns a response. This exchange of messages is an example of inter-process communication. To communicate, the
computers must have a common language, and they must follow rules so that both the client and the server know what to
expect. The language and rules of communication are defined in a communications protocol. All protocols operate in the
application layer. The application layer protocol defines the basic patterns of the dialogue. To formalize the data exchange
even further, the server may implement an application programming interface (API).[3] The API is an abstraction layer for
accessing a service. By restricting communication to a specific content format, it facilitates parsing. By abstracting access, it
facilitates cross-platform data exchange.[4]
A server may receive requests from many distinct clients in a short period. A computer can only perform a limited number
of tasks at any moment, and relies on a scheduling system to prioritize incoming requests from clients to accommodate
them. To prevent abuse and maximize availability, the server software may limit the availability to clients. Denial of service
attacks are designed to exploit a server's obligation to process requests by overloading it with excessive request rates.
Encryption should be applied if sensitive information is to be communicated between the client and the server.
Three generations of Internet technology
Internet technology is an implementation of a 2 tier ‘thin client’ architecture. Most of the processing is done on central
server(s) and a Web browser essentially displays the results or information ‘served up’ by a Web server. More sophisticated
applications which require significant local processing or complex transaction processing capabilities will see a move
toward a 3 or ‘n’ tier architecture. This will require the adoption of object-oriented-based technology if the NHS does not
want to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s and early 1990s with the ‘fat client’ syndrome.
Simple Web server technology
A Web server is a computer that transmits information in HTML formats across a TCP/IP network using the http protocol to
the user's computer, which uses a Web browser to display the information. The browser can be a stand-alone executable
program, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, or it can be a Browser widget (essentially a
window with cut down browser capability) within another application. The Web server manages pages of HTML-formatted
text, which contains references to graphics, other multimedia content and programs residing on the server.
Technically the Web server maintains no state information. There is little or no security in this implementation with the
exception of a firewall (software or hardware that blocks suspicious incoming network traffic), although there can be simple
password/username protection implemented on the Web server. Performance and transaction integrity are not generally an
issue in this sort of implementation. If a user's request is not answered, or the reply never reaches the user, then the user
must resend the request.
Extended Web server technology
The extended Web server is an enhancement of the simple Web server. This is typical of e-Commerce applications
implemented by many organizations today. The Web server has more complex scripting, and information is now usually
partly or wholly password protected. Enhanced security, usually implemented using secure sockets layer (SSL) allows for
the encryption of sensitive information, such as credit card payments. On an Intranet it might include interactive completion
and validation of reporting forms, holiday applications and timesheets. The more robust password protection facility allows
an Extranet to be created. The server is required to support multi-step transactions and so needs to maintain state
information on the progress of the users’ interaction. For example, at least five steps are required: input and validation of
registration information, followed by the generation of a username, which then allows the patient to place an enquiry and
confirm appointment. This is stretching the Internet technology beyond its original purpose, so there are a number of
techniques that can be used. These divide into two main approaches: much enhanced server side scripting or downloading
code to the browser. Sometimes a combination of both is used. By using downloaded Cookies, Javascript, simple Java
applets or Active X components, the functionality available on the user's computer can be considerably extended. For
example, data input can be validated more easily and a more efficient connection can be established directly between the
user and the ultimate application to offer improved transaction processing capabilities. Unfortunately, downloading code to
the user's browser is controversial.
Advanced object-based Internet applications
The future of NHS applications (and the current situation for a few Trusts) is object-oriented technology, which is being
fundamentally integrated with Web service technology. Typically part of the application is downloaded as required to the user's
Web browser to create a true client–server application where significant processing can be performed on the user computer if
required. Performance is much enhanced and multi-step transactions are much more easily supported. In this scenario the basic
http protocol is only used to download the basic client side applet or component (such as a Java bean or an Active X component).
Thereafter, more efficient protocols, such as DCOM, CORBA IIOP or Java's RMI, are used. There is research to show that these
protocols are up to 200 times faster than the http/cgi technology used by basic Web servers (Gallivan, 2001).
The key technical issue is which object technology to use. There are two competing standards, DCOM and CORBA, supported by
Microsoft and their commercial competitors, respectively. This is where Java comes into the picture. It is an object-oriented
programming language with a number of built-in features that enable Internet application development and deployment. The ‘pure
Java’ camp wants to use Java, in conjunction with CORBA, to bypass Microsoft's lock on the PC-operating system (DCOM is
supported by Microsoft's-operating systems). Microsoft naturally opposes this strategy. The strength of this approach is that a
robust application architecture can be implemented. Control continues to rest at the centre, as software is downloaded as required
to the client side from an application server.
Some examples of such systems are:
● Artificial intelligence system
● Computing platform
● Data warehouses
● Decision support system
● Enterprise resource planning
● Enterprise systems
● Expert systems
● Geographic information system
● Global information system
● Management information system
● Multimedia information system
● Office automation
● Process control system
● Search engines
● Social information systems
