Week Seven

1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information. Accuracy relates to the values and whether or not they are correct. So for example, whether the names of the candidates correct, and if thee are any spelling errors. Completeness relates to any missing values such as missing house numbers or street names Consistency refers to the summary information which is in agreement with detailed information. One example would consist of be is the total fields are equal to the true total of the individuals fields. Uniqueness refers to each transaction, entity and event and whether they are represented only one time in the information. So in other words, are there duplicate customers?  Timeliness relates to how current the information is in regards to the busines requirements. So is it updated daily, weekly or fortnightly. 2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management system. Databases consists of information regarding various types of objects such as inventory, transactions, people such as employees and places such as a warehouse.  Database management systems are programs used to manage a database and query a database. 3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database. Databases allow organisations to: Increase flexibility: databases deal with changes quickly and easily Increased scalability and performance: adapting to increased demand  is important and organisations are able to do this trhough the use of a database as it can quickly process transations etc.  Increased information security - Many security functions are available including passwords and access controls which means that unauthorised people are not able to use the database.  4. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model. A relational database stores information in a two dimensional table. For example: The main concepts in this include entities (which are persons, places, things, events or transactions), attributes (which are the characteristics of an entity), keys (which is a field that uniquely identifies an entity in the database) and relationships (which is the foreign key that allows a user to search large amounts of data with one query). 5. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website. Development: The website owner is able to make any changes at any given time without (or with little) training in regards to updating the website. Content management: a static website is problematic mainly because the middleman (the programmer) is needed to make any updates to the data-driven website, slowing any changes which need to be made. Future expandability: The site is able to grow quickly when comparing a static website to a data-driven website Minimisation of human error: All information entered is correct due to "error tapping" Stability is increased: content cannot be lost and thus the data-driven website is a lot more stable. 6. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation Both data warehouses and data marts are important to organisations as they are storage facilities for the large amount of data which is generated each business day. The warehouses keep information in a single repository allowing employees easy access to the data which will help them make a better informed business decision.The information is already sorted into the manner in which they need.