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Backbone: A high-speed communication line that links multiple subnetworks. It is usually a fiber optic line.
Icon: A small picture on a computer screen that is used to represent some object or indicate a command. A classic example is the trash can used to delete files on the Apple Macintosh.
Accounting journal: Raw financial transaction data are collected by the accounting department and stored in a journal. Modern accounting requires the use of a double-entry system to ensure accurate data.
Benchmark: A set of routines or actions used to evaluate computer performance. By performing the same basic tasks on several machines, you can compare their relative speeds. Benchmarks are especially useful when the machines use different processors and different input and output devices.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII): American standard code for information interchange. A common method of numbering characters so they can be processed. For instance, the letter A is number 65. It is slowly being replaced by the ANSI character set table and the use of international code pages that can display foreign characters.
Mass customization: The ability to modify the production line often enough to produce more variations of the main product. The goal is to cover virtually all of the niche markets.
Materials requirements planning (MRP): An early production system, where at each stage of production, we evaluate the usage of materials to determine the optimal inventory levels.
Font size: An important characteristic of text is its size. Size of type is typically measured in points. For reference, a capital letter in a 72-point font will be approximately 1 inch high.
High-Definition Television (HDTV): Transmission of television signals in digital form. It provides clearer reception. It also supports encrypted transmissions so broadcasters can control who receives the images. HDTV also supports compression, so more data (better pictures or more channels) can be transmitted in the same frequency space.
Local area network (LAN): A collection of personal computers within a small geographical area, connected by a network. All of the components are owned or controlled by one company.
Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR): A special typeface printed with ink containing magnetic ink. It can be read rapidly and reliably by computers. Banks are the primary users of MICR. Checks are imprinted with MICR routing numbers. MICR readers are more accurate than straight OCR because they pick up a stronger signal from magnetic particles in the ink.
Mathematical model: A model that is defined by mathematical equations. This format is easy to use for forecasts and for simulation analyses on the computer. Be careful not to confuse precision with accuracy. A model might forecast some value with great precision (e.g., 15.9371), but the accuracy could be quite less (e.g., actual values between 12 and 18).
Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (Basic): An early computer programming language designed to be easy to program and to teach. Visual Basic is a current version for Windows programming.
Antitrust laws: A variety of laws that make it illegal to use monopoly power. Some basic (economic) actions to achieve a competitive advantage are illegal. Strategic plans must be evaluated carefully to avoid violating these laws.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI): An organization responsible for defining many standards, including several useful information technology standards.
Hot site: A facility that can be leased from a disaster backup specialist. A hot site contains all the power, telecommunication facilities, and computers necessary to run a company. In the event of a disaster, a company collects its backup data tapes, notifies workers, and moves operations to the hot site.
Fault-tolerant computer: A computer or a system that is designed to continue functioning properly even if some of the components fail. Fault-tolerant machines rely on duplication of subsystems with continuous monitoring and automatic maintenance calls.
Attributes: Descriptions of an object or entity. For example, a customer object would at least have attributes for name, phone number, and address.
Authentication: The ability to verify the source of a message. Dual-key systems are a useful technique. The sender uses a private key to encrypt the message. The recipient applies the sender's public key. If the decrypted message is readable, it had to have come from the alleged sender, because the keys always work in pairs.
Groupware: Software designed to assist teams of workers. There are four basic types: communication, workflow, meeting, and scheduling. The most common is communication software that supports messages, bulletin boards, and data file transfers and sharing.
Group decision support system (GDSS): A type of groupware that is designed to facilitate meetings and help groups reach a decision. Each participant uses a networked computer to enter ideas and comments. Votes can be recorded and analyzed instantly. Comments and discussion are automatically saved for further study.
Hypertext markup language (HTML): The standard formatting system used to display pages on the Internet. Special tags (commands inside angle braces, e.g., ) provide formatting capabilities. Several software packages automatically store text in this format, so users do not have to memorize the tags.
Facsimile (Fax): A combination scanner, transmitter, and receiver that digitizes an image, compresses it, and transmits it over phone lines to another facsimile machine.
Activity-based costing (ABC): ABC allocates costs by examining a detailed breakdown of the production activities. The cost of each process is computed for each different product. The detail provides a better picture of the production cost for each item.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP): A standard method of transferring files on the Internet. If you control a computer, you can give other users access to specific files on your computer without having to provide an account and password for every possible user.
Five forces model: Michael Porter's model used to search for competitive advantage. The five forces are: rivals, customers, suppliers, potential competitors, and substitute products.
Backward chaining: In an expert system, the user enters a "conclusion" and asks to see whether the rules support that conclusion.
Audit trail: The ability to trace any transaction back to its source. In accounting, transaction values are accumulated on the general ledger and used to create reports. An audit trail is a set of marks or records to point back to the original transaction.
Hacker: Primarily used to indicate a person who devotes a great deal of time trying to break into computer systems.
Feasibility study: A quick examination of the problems, goals, and expected costs of a proposed system. The objective is to determine whether the problem can reasonably be solved with a computer system.
Barriers to entry: Anything that makes it more difficult for new firms to enter an industry. Several possibilities would violate antitrust laws. An acceptable barrier is the increased use of information systems, which raises the cost of entering an industry because a rival would have to spend additional money on information technology.
Agent: An object-oriented program designed for networks that is written to perform specific tasks in response to user requests. Agents are designed to automatically communicate with other agents to search for data and make decisions.
Hardware: Hardware consists of the physical equipment used in computing.
File server: Computer on a network that is used to hold data and program files for users to share. To be effective, it should use a multitasking operating system.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): A packet-based network system that uses high-speed transmission lines (150 megabits and over) and routers to maximize network efficiency and throughput.
Fiber optic cable: A thin glass or plastic cable that is internally reflective. It carries a light wave for extended distances and around corners.
Hot links: See Dynamic integration.
Group breaks: Reports are often broken into subsections so that data in each section is grouped together by some common feature. For example, a sales report might group items by department, with subtotals for each department.
Binary data: A collection of ones and zeros called bits. Computer processors operate only on binary data. All data forms are first converted to binary.
Forward chaining: In an expert system, the ES traces your rules from the data entry to a recommendation. Forward chaining is used to display questions, perform calculations, and apply rules.
Advocacy role: Someone in MIS, usually the chief information officer, who bears responsibility for exploring and presenting new applications and uses of MIS within the company.
Feedback: Well-designed systems have controls that monitor how well they meeting their goal. The information measuring the goals and providing control to the system is known as feedback.
Artificial intelligence (AI): An attempt to build machines that can think like humans. Techniques evolved from this research help solve more complex problems. Useful techniques include expert systems, neural networks, massively parallel computers, and robotics.
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II): An integrated approach to manufacturing. Beginning with the desired production levels, we work backward to determine the processing time, materials, and labor needed at each step. These results generate schedules and inventory needs. Sometimes known as a demand-pull system.
Media: For transmissions, the means of connecting computers in a network. Common methods include twisted-pair and coaxial cable, fiber optic lines; and radio, micro, and infrared waves.
Legacy systems: Information systems that were created over several years and are now crucial to operating the company. They probably use older technology, and the software is difficult to modify. However, replacing them is difficult and likely to interfere with day-to-day operations. Any changes or new systems must be able to work with the older components.
Assumptions: Models are simplifications of real life, so they require assumptions about various events or conditions.
Magnetic hard drives: Magnetic hard drives (or disk drives) consist of rigid platters that store data with magnetic particles. Data is accessed by spinning the platters and moving a drive head across the platters to access various tracks.
Hub: A network device used to connect several computers to a network. Commonly used in a twisted-pair LAN. A cable runs from each computer's NIC to the hub. The hub is often connected to a router.
Flow chart: An old pictorial method for describing the logic of a computer program. It has largely been replaced by pseudocode.
10Base-T: A system of connecting computers on a LAN using twisted-pair cable. The method relies on compression to increase raw transfer rates to 10 megabits per second.
Management information system (MIS): An MIS consists of five related components: hardware, software, people, procedures, and databases. The goal of management information systems is to enable managers to make better decisions by providing quality information.
Mail filters: Programs that automatically read e-mail and sort the messages according to whatever criteria the manager prefers. Junk mail can be discarded automatically.
Access speed: A measure of disk drive speed. Loosely, the time it takes a disk drive to move to a particular piece of data.
Biometrics: A field of study that is trying to determine how to identify people based on biological characteristics. The most common devices are fingerprint and handprint readers.

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Number of cards 55