MBAD 6201 / INFO 8201 FALL 2006 FINAL EXAMINATION

The study material for the exam includes textbook chapters, readings, and class presentations and discussions. To help guide your preparation for the exam, I am giving you a list of questions. Answering those questions will be an excellent preparation for the exam. I should point out, however, that you will still be responsible for all for the material assigned.. For the questions marked with a , you will have the option of bringing with you prepared responses. Such responses, unless otherwise specified, must be limited for each question to two (2) typewritten pages, using 1 spacing, 11pt Times font, and 0.75 margins all around. If you choose to submit one or more of your prepared at home responses, you will not have the opportunity to amend it in class. If you choose to reply to the questions in class, you will have adequate time to do so. In-class, hand-written responses will be allowed up to three pages. These are NOT group exercises. You are expected to consider, plan, and complete your responses on your own! Providing answers that are entirely or to a large extent word-for-word copies from original sources is NOT acceptable! Academic integrity standards - including those relating to plagiarism will be strictly applied. The exam will consist of two parts: The first part will include selected questions from those marked with a and which you have a choice of answering at home. The second part of the exam will consist of questions coming either directly from the list (marked or unmarked) or a variation/combination of one or more of the list questions. Such question(s) may be broader than the ones on the list. In any case, they will be based on the textbook, readings, presentations, and class discussions. Complete answers should integrate material from the textbook, the readings, and other materials and where possible provide examples. Please note that the standard for your answers prepared at home will be higher than if they were prepared in class! That applies to content, grammar, and spelling. You will be able to bring with you to the exam one 3x5 white index card with notes only on the lined side. You may hand write or type (using 10pt Times New Roman font). There are 12 lines on one of these cards. The agreement is that you can write up to 12 lines of notes. The spirit of having this card is not to copy (abbreviated or otherwise) the book, but rather to avoid having to memorize every little list in the readings. Violating that spirit will result in me taking away the card and/or imposing grade penalties.

Question List
DATA WAREHOUSING
1) Data warehousing holds great hope for large enterprises and their attempts to

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3) 4)

5) 6) 7)

8)

use information strategically. Discuss data warehousing, and its likely impact on information in such large commercial enterprises as major banks, retailers and insurance houses. Discuss the application of the Dimensional Modeling approach to data warehouse modeling. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Dimensional Modeling. Draw a diagram describing the structure and components of a typical data warehouse. Explain what each component does. What are some of the reasons why many data warehousing projects get into difficulties and what are some important success factors for data warehousing systems? Describe the functionality needed as data passes from the operational, legacy environment to the data warehouse environment. Discuss the important steps in the planning and implementation of DW security. Your CEO came back from a conference where she heard people talking about ERP Data Warehouses. She has asked you to prepare a white paper on the topic describing what is involved, reasons to invest in this area, and major issues to consider. Definition & comparison of terms: data warehouse, data mart, data mining, grain, star schema, snowflake schema, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), MOLAP, ROLAP, drill-down, data warehouse bus architecture, data quality, metadata, aggregates, data scrubbing, conformed dimensions, surrogate key, additive facts, Extracttransform-load (ETL), data staging area, degenerate dimension, semiadditive facts, fact table, dimension table, dimensional modeling, independent data mart, dependent data mart

DATA MINING
9) Discuss the term data mining from multiple perspectives. Relate it to other

terms such as KDD and business intelligence. 10) Describe the major data mining problem types, give examples of data mining techniques used for each, and examples of potential applications. 11) What is CRISP-DM? Describe (not just identify) its phases and major tasks. 12) Discuss the major modeling issues and data difficulties in data mining. Describe strategies to address each. 13) What are the important steps and decisions needed to be made in developing a decision tree in SAS? 14) Describe the steps in the KDD process. 15) Describe the SAS SEMMA process. 16) Compare and contrast text mining with data mining. 17) Discuss why text mining is important? Use examples for support.

18) Definition & comparison of terms: Data mining, KDD, business intelligence, CRISP-DM, text mining, recursive

partitioning, lift chart, SEMMA KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

19) Your CEO came back from a conference where he heard people talking about

knowledge management. He has asked you to prepare a white paper on the topic describing what is involved, reasons to invest in this area, and major issues to consider. 20) Summarize the knowledge traps and the lessons learned from them as described by Soo et al. (2002) 21) Describe Nonakas model of knowledge creation. 22) Discuss Wilsons arguments against the term knowledge management. 23) Distinguish between shallow and deep knowledge. Why are both important to an organization? 24) Distinguish between tacit and explicit knowledge. Why are both important to an organization? 25) What according to the literature are some expected developments in the area of knowledge management? 26) Definition & comparison of terms: Data, information, knowledge, tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, communities of practice
Note: There may be a couple more questions added to the list following the briefings.