Managing Information Technology, 7e (Brown)
Chapter 6 Managerial Support Systems
1) A computer-based system that allows a police officer to consider a variety of alternatives for
allocating police officers to different neighborhoods is an example of a:
A) group support system.
B) transaction processing information system.
C) vertically integrated information system.
D) decision support system (DSS).
2) All of the following are examples of the use of a DSS except:
A) optimizing airline crew reassignments after a major schedule disruption due to storms.
B) estimating project costs when bidding for new construction work.
C) identifying the source of an input error for a sales transaction.
D) employing a pro forma financial statement generator.
3) An actual DSS application that assists in the decision-making process of an organization (e.g.,
a DSS for investment portfolio management or a DSS for staff scheduling) is referred to as a:
A) specific DSS.
B) DSS generator.
C) planning DSS.
D) DSS model.
4) Which of the following is not a major component of a DSS?
A) dialog management
B) inference engine
C) data management
D) model management
5) A DSS that provides a set of capabilities (such as a spreadsheet) to build a specific decision
support system quickly and easily is referred to as a:
A) specific DSS.
B) DSS generator.
C) planning DSS.
D) DSS tool.
6) An application that extracts data from a database and structures it by individual dimensions,
such as region, organizational unit, or dealer, is referred to as:
A) OLAP software.
B) data mining software.
C) data warehousing software.
D) expert system software.
7) In extracting information from large data warehouses, a data mining tool may use which of the
following techniques?
A) decision trees
B) regression
C) rule induction
D) all of the above
8) A technique to search for small “nuggets” of information from the vast quantities of data
stored in an organization’s data warehouse, using technologies such as decision trees and neural
networks, is called:
A) statistical inferencing.
B) data mining.
C) data regression.
D) analytic extraction.
9) Which of the following is not a typical application of data mining?
A) predicting customer attrition
B) fraud detection
C) production process planning
D) trend analysis
10) From a manager’s perspective, all of the following are potential advantages of using group
support systems except:
A) to encourage creative thinking.
B) to have more productive meetings.
C) to make it easier for higher-ranking participants to sway everyone else’s vote.
D) to obtain higher quality ideas and decisions.
11) A GSS can be used to support:
A) meetings at one physical location.
B) meetings with participants at multiple locations.
C) meetings of pre-existing teams or newly formed groups.
D) all of the above
12) A data mining product which has the ability to handle textual information, pulling data out of
letters, memos, medical records, tweets, and documents of all kinds, is called a:
A) neural network.
B) decision tree.
C) text miner.
D) text-to-data reducer.
13) Questions that a GIS can directly answer include all of the following except:
A) What is adjacent to this feature?
B) Is this the best site for a new business?
C) How many features are within a certain distance of a site?
D) Which site is the nearest one?
14) Which of the following statements is true?
A) Organizations must custom-develop a GIS.
B) The usage of census data is illegal.
C) No competitive uses of GISs are known to date.
D) none of the above
15) Mobile devices may use a type of GIS to:
A) find the fastest route to a location.
B) identify a store location.
C) find nearby restaurants.
D) all of the above
16) Which of the following is not a typical characteristic of an executive information system?
A) provides easy online access to current information about business conditions in an aggregated
form
B) requires the assistance of a user with a technology background
C) is a system used by managers at all levels of the organization
D) includes internal transaction data and may incorporate qualitative data from both internal and
external sources
17) Information extracted from executive information systems is typically displayed in any of the
following formats except:
A) spreadsheets.
B) charts.
C) detailed, nonaggregated information.
D) dashboards.
18) In many cases, EIS applications have evolved into which of the following type(s) of
application?
A) performance management system.
B) business intelligence system.
C) competitive intelligence system.
D) all of the above
19) Which of the following approaches to representing spatial data relies on dividing space into
small, equal-sized cells arranged in a grid?
A) vector-based GIS
B) coverage GIS
C) raster-based GIS
D) polygon-based GIS
20) In a “community of practice” knowledge management system, which of the following
statements is true?
A) There is usually very formal management and control of a COP KMS.
B) Each member of the COP is responsible for the knowledge content of the KMS.
C) The knowledge in the KMS is very carefully organized and packaged.
D) The likelihood is high that the knowledge in the KMS will be applicable to many members of
the COP.
21) The branch of artificial intelligence that is concerned with building systems that incorporate
the decision-making logic of a human expert is called:
A) expert systems.
B) fuzzy logic.
C) natural languages.
D) neural networks.
22) Which statement about business intelligence (BI) tools is not true?
A) Most BI tools are designed specifically for use by financial analysts.
B) BI tools are used to improve the outcomes from direct marketing campaigns.
C) BI tools are used to identify customer purchasing patterns.
D) BI tools are used in marketing to decide on promotions and online advertising.
23) A machine that possesses visual and/or aural abilities that affect the machine’s physical
behavior (response) is referred to as a(n):
A) programmed system.
B) perceptive system.
C) command-driven system.
D) expert system.
24) Three major pieces of any expert system are:
A) user interface, knowledge base, and workspace.
B) expert system shell, knowledge acquisition system, and explanation system.
C) knowledge base, inference engine, and user interface.
D) expert system shell, inference engine, and knowledge acquisition system.
25) The individual who is responsible for gathering an expert’s knowledge to be used to build an
expert system is called a(n):
A) systems programmer.
B) expert system manager.
C) knowledge programmer.
D) knowledge engineer.
26) Which statement about virtual reality applications is not true?
A) VR systems are being used to train professionals and to design new products.
B) Users of VR systems may use helmets, glasses, and/or gloves that immerse them into a virtual
world that seems real to one or more of their senses.
C) A “virtual tour” of a real estate property uses VR-like technology.
D) none of the above
27) The part of an expert system that automatically executes a line of reasoning when supplied
with the rules and parameters involved in a decision is called the:
A) explanation subsystem.
B) inference engine.
C) workspace.
D) knowledge base.
28) One way to develop an expert system is to use a development environment that contains all
the basic expert system components plus a limited but user-friendly special language with which
to develop a knowledge base. This development environment is referred to as a(n):
A) fourth-generation language.
B) high-level programming environment.
C) artificial intelligence shell.
D) natural language system.
29) The AI technology that is used to evaluate handwriting on credit card slips, select
undervalued stocks as part of portfolio pension plan management, and determine where to drill
for oil and gas is:
A) neural networks.
B) perceptive systems.
C) natural languages.
D) expert systems.
30) Which of the following is a key characteristic of neural networks?
A) They learn.
B) They are all designed at IBM and are named Watson1, Watson2, etc.
C) They monitor system changes.
D) They are always right.
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31) Participants in GSS sessions must identify themselves to eliminate any doubt about the
integrity of the source of information provided.
32) Data for executive information systems (EISs) come from both quantitative and qualitative
sources.
33) Once a neural network has established an acceptable level of predictive ability, no further
changes are made to the weights of the predictor variables.
34) The goal of a knowledge management system (or KMS) is to tap into the knowledge of the
individual and the organization and disseminate it throughout the firm to derive operational and
market improvements.