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NSWInformation Processes and TechnologyQuick questions
Option: Decision Support Systems
Quick questions on Data mining, OLAP and expert systems in HSC Information Processes and Technology
5short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is data warehousing?Show answer
A data warehouse is a large, integrated store of historical data collected from an organisation's transaction systems and external sources, organised for analysis. Unlike an operational database tuned for fast daily transactions, the warehouse is structured to support querying across long time spans and many dimensions. It is the data foundation a serious DSS analyses, holding cleaned, consistent data that decisions can rely on.
What is online analytical processing?Show answer
Online analytical processing (OLAP) lets a user explore warehouse data interactively across multiple dimensions. Data is viewed as a cube whose dimensions might be time, product, region and customer. The user can drill down from year to quarter to month, roll up from store to region to country, and slice the cube to isolate one product line. OLAP answers planned business questions quickly, such as how sales of a product varied by region over three years.
What is data mining?Show answer
Data mining searches large data stores automatically for patterns, trends and relationships that no one specifically asked for. Where OLAP answers questions the user poses, data mining discovers things the user did not know to ask, such as which products are frequently bought together, which customers are likely to leave, or which transactions look fraudulent. It uses statistical and machine learning techniques to surface associations, clusters and predictions from the data.
What are expert systems?Show answer
An expert system is a DSS that captures the knowledge of human experts in a narrow field and applies it to advise or decide. It has a knowledge base of facts and IF-THEN rules elicited from experts, and an inference engine that chains the rules against the facts of a case to reach a conclusion, often with an explanation of its reasoning. Examples include systems that help diagnose faults or assess loan applications. Unlike a general DSS that supports a person's judgement, an expert system attempts to reproduce the expert's reasoning itself.
What are group decision support systems?Show answer
A group decision support system (GDSS) helps several people make a decision together, especially when they are not in the same place. It provides shared access to models and data, and tools for brainstorming, ranking options and anonymous voting, so a group can pool information and converge on a choice. It addresses the coordination and communication problems that arise when many stakeholders must decide jointly.
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