What is a system?

System Analysis and Design:

What is a system?
System is a collection of components that work together to realize some objectives.

Explanation:
Generally a system is a collection of components. These components can be anything that made the system, either physical components or non-physical components such as procedures, methods, rules and regulations, theories, etc.

Look at a car for example! How many parts are there? There are thousands of small parts from small nuts & bolts to large wheels, tires, etc. These are the components of a system.

A system can also contains components that can be considered as sub-systems. As an example, the engine of a car is another system in the car system. Therefore a system can be made of subsystems with other components as well.

System analysis and design

System analysis and design is the first chapter of Information Systems subject. In this chaper we are basically discuss about the process of building an information system. First of all we need to understand the meaning of information and system. These are two different words having different meanings.

Information are called as a collection of data that is useful to humans to make decisions. Decision making is an important part of our day to day life. You can find it out yourself!!! Think about your daily routine, how many decisions you take in a day. You make a decision when you need to eat something (lunch as an example) depends on information sends to your mind by your body. That information are the feelings of hungry, thirty, etc. Depends on the weight of these information, you decide when and what you want to eat.

System in other hand is a collection of small functioning units that work together towards achieving a common goal(s). A single functioning unit can not consider as an system. As an example get your pen. The clip of the pen is not an system alone. It does not do any productive work or it doesn't has a goal. But when we consider the pen as a whole, it is a system. The objective of the system is write some thing in a paper. There are many functional units working together to achieve this goal. Pen clip, ink, ink tube, head, ball point, body tube, etc. All these units together create the system called Pen.

So, what is an Information System? We know that information is a collection of data in its simplest explanation. But information alone is useless, we need peoples to get use of information. People need a way to get and use information. That means we need a process of obtaining information and get use from it, as an example reading a book or report. So here the process is 'reading' a book. To read we need a book, and this is called as the interface. Interface is the medium we use to obtain information.

Above we talked about 4 units, information, people, process and interface. So, these are the functional units of an information system. Together all these units we called it as an information system. In an information system we use data to process information, so we used the word data instead of information in an information system.

"Information system is a collection of data, people, process and interface that work together to achieve goals of making decision in a business organization to support and improve data to day works"

Information Systems (IS) Syllabus

Information Systems (IS) Syllabus

1. System Analysis & Design
   
   • What is a systems?
     
     • Real world systems
     • Factors to be considered when developing a system
     • What is an information system
   • Software Development Process
     
     • The linear or the waterfall model
     • Incremental development process
     • The RAD model
     • Prototyping
   • Methods of collecting data (Fact finding techniques)
     
     • Questionnaires
       
     • Interviews
       
     • Observations
     • Report Inspections
   • Methodologies
     
     • HSM (Hard System Methodology)
     • SSM (Soft System Methodology)
     • OOM (Object Oriented Methodology)
   • Human Computer Interface (HCI)
     
     • User Interface design
     • Factors to consider when designing an interface
     • Information presentation
     • Color in interface design
     • User guidance
     • Error messages
   • Testing
     
     • Verification and validation
     • Black box and white box testing
     • Unit testing
     • Integration testing
     • System testing
   • Implementation
     
     • Planing & control
     • Site preparation
       
     • New equipments
     • Education & training
     • System testing
     • Implementation - the change over
   • Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) Tools
     
     • Type of CASE tools
     • How CASE tools are useful in practical environment
2. Data Management
   
   • Introduction
   • Basic concepts and definitions
     
     • Data
     • Meta-data
     • File
     • Components of a database
     • Data types
     • Methods of data capture (inputting data)
   • File Processing
     
     • Traditional file processing systems
     • The database approach
       
     • Data model
     • Database architecture
     • Client server database architecture
       
     • The database administrator
     • Database management system
     • Introduction to relational database
   • Logical database design
     
     • The normalization process
     • Anomalies
     • Worked examples
   • Data protection
     
     • Database security
     • Data integrity
     • Database integrity
     • Database recovery
     • Transaction
     • Transaction recovery
     • What is a backup file?
     • The ACID properties
     • System recovery
     • Concurrency
     • Multimedia
     • Hypermedia
     • Physical database design
   • File Organization
     
     • Serial file
     • The sequential file organization
     • The indexed sequential
     • Hashed file organization
3. Organization
   
   • Classification of organizations
     
     • Classified by ownership
     • Classified by scale
     • Classified by objectives
       
     • Classified by sector
     • Stakeholder groups
   • Organization structure
     
     • Entrepreneurial structure
     • Functional structure
     • Divisional structure
       
     • Geographical based structure
     • Matrix structure
   • Management and organization
     
     • Functions of management
     • IS related roles and positions
     • Levels of management
     • Types of functional managers
     • Information Systems for different levels
     • Project Management
     • Modern business / IS practices
     • Quality assurance
   • Social considerations
     

Introduction to Information Systems Subject

Information Systems (IS) subject in the certificate level of BCS Higher Education Qualifications (HEQ) exams is the most easiest subject to pass. But there are lots of things to read and memorize rather than practicing. Most of this subject consists of theory parts.

Information Systems subject discuss about software systems, processes and methods involve in developing a software system, management of information, how an information system used in an organization, different kinds of organizations and their structures, etc. In the certificate level, it only discuss briefly about these different aspects. So, it is not hard to get a pass mark for the Information Systems subject.

The syllabus of Information Systems subject mainly consists of three parts;

1. System Analysis & Design
2. Data Management
3. Organizations

Systems Analysis & Design section discusses about the process of creating an information system (software system) in an organization. This includes software development process, analysis, testing, ad implementing of an information system.

Data Management section discusses about managing of information in an organization. This includes file processing, logical database design, data protection, file organization, etc.

Organizations section is about the structure and management of an organization and how information systems are used in an organization. This includes classification of organizations, organization structures, management and quality assurance.

We will be discussing on these areas in future posts.

BCS Certificate Level

BCS Higher Educational Qualifications (HEQ) are consists of three stages;

1. Certificate Level
2. Diploma Level
3. Professional Graduate Diploma (PGD) Level

In these three levels, the PGD level is the most easiest level of all and the most difficult level is the certificate level. If you could pass the certificate level all three subjects, them you surely can pass the PGD level. But the core subject in the diploma level is also another great challenge in the path.

The certificate level is consists of three subjects.

• Information Technology
• Computer and Network Technology
• Software Development

The most difficult subject in the certificate level is the software development subject. Some students found that the computer and networking technology subject is also hard for them, but actually there are few areas that you can easily gain marks and save time to answer for other questions that need more time at the exam. So, if you planned properly, passing the CNT subject is not difficult at all.

But, to pass the software development (SD) subject, you really need to work hard and prepare for it. Because there are only few questions that might be able to provide straight answers. Most of the time you need to think and write answers. You need to have a fair enough practice to write programs in the very short time. Therefore you need to spend some more time on basically writing and understanding of the program codes, etc.

There are questions in the software development subject that you need to write descriptive answers such as testing. But, some how there is a question or part of a question that you should write some program codes.

But, if you could understand some basics of program writing and structuring, then writing a program within few minutes is very easy. You can joined with BCS Tutor to lean these techniques on how to improve your coding skills quickly and easily. I will provide some guidelines here in the BCS Tutor Blog in future articles.

Welcome to BCS Tutor

BCS Tutor (www.bcstutor.com) is an online tutoring website for BCS (British Computer Society) Higher Education Qualifications (previously known as BCS Professional Examinations). This is the BCS Tutor Blog and this blog will be updated with lots of posts that is related to BCS Examinations.

I will discussing lots of issues and theories related to BCS Professional Examinations (Higher Education Qualifications) basically for the Certificate Level exams and Diploma Level Core subject. The most difficult subjects in BCS Examinations are Software Developments in the certificate level and the Core subject (Professional Issues in Information Systems in Practice) in the diploma level. Lots of students found that passing these two subjects if the greatest challenge in the whole BCS examinations.

So, I decided to guide you in easy way to understand and get you through these difficult subjects. Additionally this blog will be discussing on related information form the industry and IT Now magazines. Most of the BCS students don't read this IT Now magazine, even they get it for free with the BCS membership. Because IT students and people are spending lots of time in front of the PC and they are more often using the internet to find the information they need.

If you keep in touch with the BCS blog, you will be informed the highlights from the IT Now magazine as well as from other magazines in the IT industry.

If you like to do your BCS studies completely online for the cheapest tuition fees, then you can register with the BCS Tutor website at http://www.bcstutor.com and comfortable study for the certificate level examinations. I will teach you all the complex theories in a way that you can simply understand. These online lessons are very interactive, easy to understand and it will develop confidence you need to face to the examination successfully.

Hope to see you more often in the BCS Tutor blog as well as in the BCS Tutor website.