Introduction to Management Information System

 Why Do People Need Information?

 Individuals - Entertainment and enlightenment
 Businesses - Decision making and problem solving
 Gathering
 Storing
 Manipulating
 Data vs. Information
 Data
 A “given,” or fact: a number, a statement, or a picture
 The raw materials in the production of information
 Information
 Data that have meaning within a context
 Raw data or data that have been manipulated
 What Is a System?
 System: A set of components that work together to achieve a common
goal
 Subsystem: One part of a system where the products of more than one
system are combined to reach an ultimate goal
 Closed system: Stand-alone system that has no contact with other systems
 Open system: System that interfaces with other systems
 The Benefits of Human-Computer Synergy
 Synergy
 When combined resources produce output that exceeds the sum of
the outputs of the same resources employed separately
 Allows human thought to be translated into efficient processing of large
amounts of data
 In an organization, an information systems consists of:
 Data
 Hardware
 Software
 People
 Procedures
 Types of MISs
 Decision Support Systems (DSS)
 Contain models, or formulas, that manipulate data into information
 Often answer “what if?” questions
 Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) help groups generate
ideas, establish priorities, and reach decisions
 Executive Information Systems (EIS)
  Can gather information from vast amounts of data for high-level
executives
 Highly useful in control and planning
 Expert Systems (ES)
 Programmed with human expertise
 Can help solve problems of unstructured nature
 Geographic Information Systems (GISS)
 Represents local conditions or features
 Allows planning, decision-making, and monitoring of local
conditions or activities
 On-demand Output
 Managers can obtain reports tailored to their needs at any time

 Knowledge Workers
 Employers seek computer-literate professionals who know how to use
information technology.
 Degrees in IS
 Computer Science and Management Information Systems
 Information Systems Careers
 Systems analyst, specialist in enterprise resource planning (ERP), database
administrator, telecommunications specialist, consulting, etc.

• Businesses use many IT tools to manage and organize information for many
reasons
• Online transaction processing (OLTP) – gathering and processing information
and updating existing information to reflect the processed information
• Online analytical processing (OLAP) – manipulation of information to support
decision making
• OLTP
• Supports operational processing
• Sales orders, accounts receivable, etc
• Supported by operational databases & DBMSs
• OLAP
• Helps build business intelligence
• Supported by data warehouses and data-mining tools

• Database – collection of information that you organize and access according to

the logical structure of the information
• Relational database – series of logically related two-dimensional tables or files
for storing information
• Relation = table = file
• Most popular database model
 • Collections of information
• Created with logical structures
• Include logical ties within the information
• Include built-in integrity constraints

 Data dictionary – contains the logical structure for the information in a database
Before you can enter information into a database, you must define the data
dictionary for all the tables and their fields. For example, when you create the
Truck table, you must specify that it will have three pieces of information and
that Date of Purchase is a field in Date format.

 Primary key – field (or group of fields) that uniquely describes each record
 Foreign key – primary key of one file that appears in another file

 Database management system (DBMS) – helps you specify the logical

requirements for a database and access and use the information in a database

1. DBMS engine
2. Data definition subsystem
3. Data manipulation subsystem
4. Application generation subsystem
5. Data administration subsystem