Chapter 4

1. What are some of the difficulties in managing data?

Managing data has a small number of constraints that make the process difficult. The problems associated with data management:

• Amount of data increases exponentially.
• Data comes from many sources - either internal or external
• Data security, quality and integrity are critical areas for any business

2. What are the various sources for data?

Data is a collection of facts made up of text, numbers and dates. Data has an important and critical role in the business to allow for effective communication channels and for the collaboration of information. Data can come from a variety of sources that being primary – observations, tests and recorded results. It also can come from secondary – reports, articles and newspapers. Data can be processed and transmitted via channels that allow for the distribution of information that allows us the end user to convert into knowledge to apply in a variety of different business scenarios.

Following image shows a variety of sources of data

3. What is a primary key and a secondary key?

Primary keys are a unique identifier e.g. a student number. This allows for each record to have its own unique table - this will become the primary key field. A Primary Key Field is a field that will contain no duplicates and no blank values. This differs from a Secondary key where other fields that have some identifying information but typically do not have complete accuracy with the file.

4. What is an entity and a relationship?

In relation to data an entity is any person, place, thing or event. A record is a good description of an entity. A relationship relates to the connection or association of any records that allow for a specific connection between areas. Entity-Relationship Model show’s this process of attributes and entities connection.

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of relational databases?

The Advantages to using a relational database system:

The use of tables to create the relationship. The use of the tables are primary and alternative keys. The primary keys create the relation between the tables with the alternative keys. The use of unique records to show specific aspects.

The Disadvantages:

Information i.e. keys overlap in the requests made by the creator. Often hard and difficult to process. Users may find the use of primary keys difficult to understand.

Image below shows a common database

6. What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the processes/technologies involved in creating, desginging, disseminate and utilising data for knwoldege. This process allows for the successful use of data for orgnaisations. Common examples include world’s best practices such as benchmarking, Just in Time etc.

7. What is the difference between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge?

Both tacit & explicit knowledge fall under the knowledge management area. Tacit knowledge simply states that education or training is learned through experience, common areas would be insights, expertise and trade secrets. While explicit is the opposite this relates to training or knowledge that is deemed learned technical/rational documented data. Common examples would include procedural guides, reports, manuals, goals etc.

Following video show's different types of knowledge in regards to databases http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nik3pyJwaYI