Screening Exam Questions for Spring 2014 IST302: Database Concepts
SoCal Automobiles has grown rapidly over the past few years, but lately, sales have not been as easy as
they were in the past. In particular, repeat sales, are very low. The management team has investigated
this problem and believes that the customer experience in the Service Department is poor and that this is
affecting repeat sales. They have asked you to design the database for a Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system to solve this problem.
The CRM will only be used for this issue, that is, to manage the customer experience in the Service
Department. As such, the management team is interested in the data related to: service department
customers; service performed; customer-facing service representative; technician that performed the
service; customer feedback related to their experience with the service department; and the Service
Department location (SoCal Automobiles has many dealerships throughout Southern California).
The management team wants to immediately follow-up with a customer should their feedback indicate a
negative Service Department experience. Feedback is gathered from the customer once the service is
performed at the point-of-sale (customers are asked to rate their experience on a scale of 1-10 with 10
being the highest score). The management team wants the CRM to automatically send a notification to
the Service Manager to contact the customer if the rating/score is a 3 or below.
The management team is a busy team and very mobile; they travel throughout Southern California
checking-in on their dealerships and will occasionally need to interact with the CRM through their
Smartphone. However, they don’t want to access the entire CRM but want to be able to “ask” specific,
predefined, questions of the CRM such as: “what is the average customer feedback score at location X?”
or “what were total sales in Service Department X over the past week?”.
In addition, the management team would like to specifically incorporate various social media information
(Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc.) into their system to better understand what their customers are saying
about them and the service they provide. They do not have an exact plan or strategy yet as to what they
want to do, but they know that they want to utilize this information.
Design a database for this CRM:
1. Draw the database model; there should be at least four (4) entities as well as their relationships.
Clearly describe and explain all the symbols used in your database design. This diagram must contain
complete and comprehensive detail such that the DBA will be able to implement your database in a
database management system with very few follow-up questions. (30)
2. Describe at least one trigger for this project in detail (10); explain why using this trigger would be a
good idea (10); and use pseudo-code and SQL to demonstrate what the trigger would do (10).
3. Describe at least one stored procedure for this project in detail (10); explain why using this stored
procedure would be a good idea (10); and use pseudo-code and SQL to demonstrate what the stored
procedure would do (10).
4. Lastly, state what social media information you would recommend and explain how it might be used
within the CRM? (10)
IST303: Software Development
1. The following questions concern software development.
a) Explain what version control is. Describe how VC typically happens. (20)
b) Explain what a build is. Describe how builds typically happen. (20)
c) Explain what continuous integration is. Describe how CI typically happens. (20)
d) Explain how VC, builds, and CI are interrelated. Which one is (ones are) most important, and
why? (20)
e) Explain why VC, builds, and CI have more/less/the same importance for agile methods compared
with other software development methods. (20)
IST304: Communications & Networking
Answer the following questions:
1. The IT department at Globalthinkers.com is using subnet addressing for their network purposes.
You are given an address 201.222.10.67/26.
i) What Class is this address? (10)
ii) How many subnets can Globalthinkers.com create with this? (10)
iii) How many usable hosts are there per subnet? (10)
iv) On which subnet does the host 201.222.10.67 reside? (10)
2. A fundamental challenge in communication networks is how fast we can send data (in bps) over a
channel.
i) Assume that a channel is noiseless with bandwidth B Hz and a transmission device uses
L possible levels of voltage. What is the maximum data rate you can get? Explain. (20)
ii) Assume that the channel has some noise. Ω is the average received signal power over the
bandwidth, measured in watts (or volts squared); and ϒ is the average noise or
interference power over the bandwidth, measured in watts (or volts squared). If the
bandwidth of the channel is B Hz, what is the maximum data rate? (20)
3. Assume you are driving a car and you have a cell-phone. Your phone is currently in cell A. As
you cross the cell border and move over to cell B, explain what happens? What is this process
called? (20)
IST305: Management of IS&T
Since Steve Ballmer (the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers) passed the torch to Satya Nadella
(the current Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft) earlier this year, changes in Microsoft were expected
and have happened.
A surprising one is a shift toward a service model and what appears to be an understanding that as long as
people are running Microsoft tools, the hardware and underlying operating system don’t matter.
This is a huge acknowledgement from Mr. Nadella who believes that the value of selling services (the
platform and services strategy) will be higher than the old Windows-Office model in which you bought
Windows and ran Windows software (the conventional product strategy model).
1. This idea of services on many devices and operating systems is a major change for Microsoft.
Identify up to 5 fundamental principles that can stand the test of time and help Nadella to truly
make this change. (60)
2. Provide Nadella with ways to understand how best to deal with internal politics and a strong
culture, and adapt to a new way of working. (40)
IST306: Delivering Business Value Through IS&T Leadership
Disruptive technologies are changing how the IT organization has traditionally operated. Recently, the
McKinsey Center for Business Technology researched the evolution of technology-driven business
performance. What stood out were three key areas where companies have applied technology to redefine
the competitive playing field.
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Customer Experience: creating a single view of customers, complemented by seamless multichannel sales and support capabilities,
Process Effectiveness: creating more efficient and nimble internal processes, focusing on
speeding up decision-making and execution, and
Business Integration: rethinking the supplier interaction model and ease of use of data sharing
throughout the partner ecosystem.
Use one of the above key areas as a ‘use case’ and suggest expert advice on following topics:
1.
How businesses can elevate IT capabilities to drive innovation and move far out in front of
competitors. (60)
2.
As IT becomes more central to the enterprise, the role of the IT Leader becomes less inward
facing and more strategic. Suggest three ways to re-brand the IT Leader as a driver of digital
innovation. (40)