Ch 1.
Case Study
Can Technology Catch You Having an Affair?
Well, it may seem like an odd question… but when you think about it, technology certainly has the capability to aid in catching you having an affair? People could use technology to test your DNA. People could use a special form of technology (called a global positioning system) to track your movements. There are many ways actually. But how technology caught one man in Colorado having an affair was quite by accident.
Commerce City, Colorado law enforcements officers installed automated photo radar systems at many intersections to catch people both speeding and running stop lights. As it turns out, a man ran a stop light, at which time a computer took two photos – one of the back of the car to capture the license plate and one of the front of the car to capture who was in the car. Guess what? The person in the car with the man was a woman with whom he was having an affair.
If that wasn’t bad enough already, the system automatically generated a traffic violation ticket and sent it to the man’s house along with the photos. Can you imagine what would have happened had his wife opened the letter? Fortunately or unfortunately, the man got to the letter first, paid the ticket, and destroyed the evidence.
Technology is certainly pervasive today, and often invasive. Even by accident, technology can creep into your life. And, by specific design, technology can monitor many of your actions. Utility programs on the Internet track your movements from one
Web site to the next. You probably figured this out when you started receiving spam
(unsolicited e-mail) from sites you’ve visited.
The simple reality is that you cannot escape technology. Of course, we all hope other people are using technology for good reasons as opposed to bad. And our focus in this first chapter and throughout the book focuses on both the good and the bad in two ways.
First, we want to introduce you to technology and all the good ways in which individuals and organizations can use it. Second, we want to turn the tables on occasion and alert you to the bad ways in which technology can be used. As we do, we’ll certainly tell you how to protect yourself, your information, and the technology you own.
By the way, because of the potential of photo radar systems catching people having an affair, the Colorado legislature has introduced a new bill called the “adulterers amendment.” It still allows law enforcement agencies to use automated photo radar systems (a good use of technology in the eyes of many). But it protects the privacy of citizens by requiring that the photos be kept by the law enforcement agencies and shown only to the person receiving the ticket, hopefully thwarting a potentially bad use of the technology.
Chapter 2
DO NOT DISPLAY A CASE STUDY ATOM FOR THIS CHAPTER.
Chapter 3

Case Study
High Tech Battles High School Truancy
The Boston public school system is charged with monitoring the daily attendance of over
63,000 students throughout its district. And, while daily average attendance sits at a comfortable 92.7 percent, tracking information on the remaining 7.3 percent of the students is a daunting task.
Currently, attendance officers working in the field must carry a printout of student records that is about as thick as a 3-inch phone book. The printout contains information including student names, school ID numbers for each student, contact information, names of their schools, and homeroom teachers. Lugging around a printout that’s 3-inches thick doesn’t make much sense in the information age.
The field attendance officers are then given a list of students not in attendance on a particular day. Each attendance officer must correlate that list with the information in the printout. Then the attendance officer must perform his or her duties in following up on the student and the reason the student is not in attendance. It’s a time-consuming, but very necessary and important, task. Unfortunately, working with paper-based information only leads to more time spent.
So, the Boston public school system in teaming up with AirClic, Inc. to create a wireless truancy system. The system will allow attendance officers in the field to use either cell phones or PDAs to access student attendance information. By simply typing in a student’s name or ID number, an attendance officer can view all of the student’s information and even make updates to a central database. The central database tracks hundreds of pieces of information per student, including a daily attendance record.
The estimated cost of the system is very minimal, as both AirClic and Nextel have agreed to donate their time, services, and technology.
The real “information age” aspect of this system isn’t necessarily the wireless accessing abilities of cell phones and PDAs. The heart of this system is the central database.
Databases are fundamental technologies that help organizations of all kinds today organize and manage information. When information in a database is organized in the most effective way, anyone can easily access it, even with a cell phone or PDA.
But, as organizations begin to organize their information in the form of a database, we have new and bigger issues to consider. For example, if all attendance records are located in one electronic database, what’s to stop anyone (including other students) from accessing them? As you might well guess, security then is a key issue. While it’s true someone could steal the 3-inch printout of student information, it’s actually much easier to steal information in electronic form. Not only that, but when someone does steal electronic information, he or she really only takes an electronic copy of it, often leaving no trace that the information has been stolen.
You also have to consider who should have access to the information. If you consider a typical business that sells retail products, it might choose to store its payroll information in a database. But should everyone in that business have access to the payroll information? The answer is obviously no. So now, in addition to security, you need to consider the privacy of the information. That is, you have a responsibility to your employees to protect their information privacy. In the case of the Boston public school system, it must ensure that it protects the privacy of its student information, especially

since that information can now be accessed by a wireless device such as a cell phone or
PDA.
As you’ll read in this chapter, organizations do need databases (and data warehouses) for organizing and managing information. But, as we’ve stated all along, the technology itself is often easy to implement. It’s the implementation of security and privacy measures that’s difficult.
So, your task is really two-fold in learning this chapter. First, you need to understand how and why organizations use databases and data warehouses to organize and manage information. Again, that’s the relatively easy part. You’ll learn about the structure of databases (in particular, the relational database model) and the software tools within a database management system (DBMS) that help you organize, manage, and access information in a database. You’ll also learn about the structure of a data warehouse and various data mining software tools that help you access the information in a data warehouse.
Your second task is the most important. It is one of ensuring the security and privacy of information in a database and/or data warehouse. We can’t give you concrete steps for this task. Each situation is unique and therefore requires unique considerations.
Chapter 4
Case Study
Continental Airlines Flies High with Decision Support
In 1992, things looked bleak for the major airlines. The weather was very bad and they lost $4.8 billion. In 1999, the weather was bad again AND labor costs were higher AND jet-fuel prices were higher. However, that year, the airlines had earnings of $4.8 billion.
The problems were greater in 1999, but the business decisions were better—largely because of decision support systems.
Continental Airlines is a case in point. In 1993 Continental Airlines didn’t even have e-mail. In 1994, a new team of executives took control after bankruptcy reorganization, and hired IT specialists to develop decision support software.
For years Continental executives had made decisions based on the information that employees dutifully compiled, by hand, from paper tickets—information that was weeks old. While they were copying numbers from one bit of paper to another, market conditions (fares, demand for tickets, competition) were changing all around them.
Then information technology came to the rescue. Continental’s new decision support systems provide up-to-the-minute information on each flight. Continental can now analyze that information together with other variables such as the daily cost of jet fuel.
Continental has discovered lots of new information, such as the fact that 18 percent of its flights were operating at a loss. Continental was under the impression that its hub in
Greensboro, North Carolina, had made a profit in 1993, but with more detailed information and decision support analysis, they found out that the hub was actually losing money—to the tune of $60 million per year.
Continental has about 2,200 flights a day with 30,000 possible routings. Its decision support system can analyze whether a seat on a particular flight should be sold for $100

or should be held back in case a last-minute business traveler wants the seat, and will pay
$1,000 for it. Sometimes it may actually make more sense to sell to the low-paying customer if there’s a high likelihood of even higher-paying passengers showing up at a stop-over location. The part of the system that figures this out by itself raised
Continental’s revenue by about $50 million.
Another decision support system calculates the cost of cancelled or delayed flights.
Yet another shows the amount of revenue “aboard” each flight, even before it takes off, and makes suggestions such as holding a flight for high-paying customers whose connection is late.
No detail is too small for decision support. The system can flag planes full of cheap-ticket vacationing passengers and assign snack sacks, while planes that show a significant proportion of business travelers get hot meals.
A test of Continental’s efficiency came in the first quarter of 2001, when almost all major airlines posted large losses. The exceptions were Continental and Southwest Airlines, both of which actually made a profit. Later in 2001 airlines were hit hard by the events of
September 11th, Continental had the IT infrastructure in place to make things easier for customers, staff members, and rerouted flight crews.
Chapter 5
Case Study
Building The Unbelievable – The Hoberman Arch
Have you ever looked at a 100-story skyscraper or a professional football stadium and wondered how in the world was that enormous structure created? Who comes up with the brilliant ideas to build these impossible structures and how do they actually go about building them? Think about the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. Imagine how those ideas probably began on a piece of paper and were transformed into larger than life structures.
The Hoberman Arch is a prime example of how one individual pushed the technological envelop and created a new unbelievable structure. The Hoberman Arch is the world’s largest unfolding structure to date at 36 feet high and 72 feet in diameter. The
30,000 pound arch is a semi-circular aluminum curtain that towered over the Olympic
Medals Plaza in the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Every night during the games the 96 aluminum panels – each approximately nine feet by five feet – spiraled outwards and upwards in a radial motion forming a ring to reveal the Olympic medals stage. The transforming motion of the structure was similar to the iris in your eye.
Throughout the Olympics 65 medals ceremonies seen by over 3.5 billion people worldwide watched the unbelievable unfolding aluminum structure transform its size and shape. The arch, constructed of 16,000 pounds of aluminum, is named after Chuck
Hoberman, the world-renowned inventor and toy designer whose best-known invention is the plastic expanding and contracting geometric ball known as the Hoberman Sphere.
The Hoberman Sphere's unique link system is based on a mathematical principle that allows a structure to expand while keeping its shape. We bet you are wondering how did
Chuck Hoberman analyze, design, and build the Hoberman Arch. How did he take an idea he applied to children’s toys and transform it into a 16,000 pound giant structure?

The process you use to take an idea and make it a reality is similar whether you’re building a skyscraper, an information system, or baking a cake. In the most general of terms you literally follow the same steps including plan, analysis, design, develop, test, implement and maintain. Following these steps is how Chuck Hoberman designed and built the Hoberman Arch and how information systems are developed.
It’s easy to be impressed by a large structure built by a talented individual, but have you ever been impressed by a large information system? The answer to this question is probably no because an information system is difficult to see with the human eye. Just imagine the type of talent and creativity it takes to develop an on-line banking system, a telecommunication billing system, or an airline reservation system.
If you’re the least bit curious about how information systems are built then we welcome you to the glorious and challenging world of systems development. We think you’ll enjoy this chapter as it provides a high level overview of how many wonderful and brilliant information systems are developed and brought to life by following the systems development life cycle.
Chapter 6
DO NOT DISPLAY A CASE STUDY ATOM FOR THIS CHAPTER.
Chapter 7
DO NOT DISPLAY A CASE STUDY ATOM FOR THIS CHAPTER.
Chapter 8
DO NOT DISPLAY A CASE STUDY ATOM FOR THIS CHAPTER.
Chapter 9
DO NOT DISPLAY A CASE STUDY ATOM FOR THIS CHAPTER.