Page 410 - Encyclopedia of Business and Finance

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Information Systems

the organization and for descriptions of the projects of its area of problems and generate advice, recommendations,
employees. and solutions.
Office automation systems: One of the earliest infor- Problem areas for which ISS has been applied include
mation systems to emerge was the office automation sys- early detection of conditions, patterns to identify fraud in
tem (OAS). Functions of the office such as document accounting, voice recognition, computer security and
processing, imaging, photocopying, data transfer, data password encryption, health diagnosis and prognosis, and
storage, and communications have been forged into single disaster planning.
software systems.
The effects of OAS have had a tremendous impact on
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
who does the work. In much of the business environment,
CLASSIFICATION
positions such being a secretary to an individual or being Information architecture is the conceptualization of the
in a pool of clerical office workers have changed. Most
information requirements of a core business of an organi-
employees in organizations do much of their own clerical
zation as well as the ways in which those requirements are
work on their own desktops. Employees who were for-
met. Information architecture can be centralized, such as
merly isolated in offices and pools now have a much richer
array of job duties and responsibilities. for communications architecture, data architecture, and
business architecture. Other strategic, managerial, and
Decision support systems: Decision support depends on
operational architectures may be decentralized.
how structured a particular problem that needs solving is.
For example, some problems are unstructured in that sim- System architecture is the specific technologies—
ilar problems have not occurred before and no ready rou- such as computers, networks, databases, and communica-
tine exists for problem solving. Other problems have tion devices—that anchor the information system. For
example, an insurance company or an inventory company
occurred routinely and a decision process exists for the
problem. may have a system architecture that anchors the remain-
der of the institution’s information system.
Decision support systems (DSS) contain decision-
modeling routines, such as what-if analysis, whereby users A frequent way of classifying information systems by
can try particular decisions in simulations before actual system architecture is by focusing on the device structure
implementation. Problems needing decisions can be where the actual computing or calculating happens. For
developed into scenarios where users enter what they example, the anchor technology may be a mainframe
know about the problem, enter possible decision designs, computer, strategically located stand-alone computers, or
make choices among the designs, implement decisions, a distributed or networked system of desktop computers.
and observe effects. Once the effects are within the level of
tolerance set by management, the decision is made. Mainframe Computers. A mainframe computer contains
Group support systems: Group support systems (GSS), the computing power of the system. Computer terminals
sometimes called groupware, are interactive computer- that have no computing power contend for access to the
based systems that allow groups of people throughout an mainframe computer for computing that is then sent back
institution to work on the same projects. The software to the respective computer terminal. Information systems
contains routines for generation of ideas, resolution of using a mainframe are referred to as distributed because
conflicts, and freedom of expression. computing results must be distributed to users at various
A major problem encountered in group work is the locations. Mainframe architecture is frequently used
development of negative behaviors, such as destructive where the applications place heavy mathematical demands
miscommunication. Another problem is groupthink, a on the computer’s brain, the central processing unit
condition in which group work emerges as unimaginative (CPU).
and the members resist taking responsibility for the work.
GSS contain functions that make information instanta- Stand-Alone Desktop Computers. Desktop computers,
neous and build consensus to make sure that members also known as personal computers, have the CPU in the
remain excited about the project. GSS also provide for unit on the users’ workspace. The desktop stand-alone
early and continuous voting. may come with devices on board such as compact disks,
Intelligent support systems: Intelligent support systems digital video devices, and digital video recorders, in addi-
(ISS), sometimes referred to as expert systems, are one of tion to input and output devices such as keyboards, stor-
the more advanced forms of information systems. The age devices, monitors, and printers. Since a stand-alone
premise of such systems is that they can apply reasoning— with such devices represents multiple elements, it is also
sometimes called artificial intelligence—to a particular an information system.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION 387