The Innovative Inventions of Information Technology - Assignment Example

The software development lifecycle Lecturer Executive Summary Information technology (IT) is being used rapidlyin today’s life. Information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) plays a very important role for the development of almost all kinds of organizations. Information technology (IT) contributed positive impacts in majority of the fields. Large numbers of areas are getting benefits from the innovative inventions of Information technology (IT). Some common areas where information technology presenting expertises are: in education sector, in the field of medical and medicine, engineering, mobile technology, management sciences, business and industrial applications and many more areas are covered with the information technology. The growth rate for emerging innovations in this field is functioning on its peak. In this article use of Information technology (IT) is elaborated through a real word example that maintain collage data in excel sheets, which is better than traditional paper work. But still need improvement and required to merge up in a database of access and get more benefit from Information technology (IT) features. The database is designed and discussed in the article. Database maintains the data in organized manner. Provide the facility to create quick and easy reports, show many kinds of relationships among tables. All these features are useful for effective management of collage essential information. The software development lifecycle Introduction Social and organizations are grown up due to the great benefits of Information technology (IT). The use of Information technology (IT) is at its peak in all fields of life. Education is almost dependent on the internet and a computer system that is again comes under the subject of Information technology (University of Waterloo, 2014). Another use of information systems and information technology within the field of project management is a useful feature for organizations. Specific systems are designed to deal with project management using computer and internet technology. These systems have decision making feature that is highly recommended for managers within an organization. The numbers of organizations use the internet and social media for promotion of new products. Information technology is being used for marketing purpose by the different organizations. Information technology approach targets customers directly and quickly through the internet technology (Canielsa & Bakensc, 2012). The information technology plays vital role for innovations for children’s. The children use to play games of computer systems, on internet, and improve their level of satisfaction. The creativity is invoked in the game player that use to play games and in future find something new to add in the fast race for development of information technology (Jackson et al. 2011). Recognize the characteristic benefits/limitations and impact of IS/IT in particular contexts: One area covered by information technology is regarding Project Management Information system (PMIS). It has roles, which are highly beneficial for organization in many aspects. Along with this it also has some limitation for some kinds of projects or need more features in it. The need of innovation is always there in the products of information technology and it is due to the change in nature of information technology (Canielsa & Bakensc, 2012). Jakson (2010) explained about the benefits and limitations of information systems. He described that information system provided many positive and some negative impacts for different users. Globalization is one of the good benefits of information technology, the world of internet make communication easy and fast. Experts present in one side of the globe can suggest the concerned party through information technology. New jobs are available due to the emergence of information technology. Jobs like computer programmers, system analyst, hardware and software designers, etc. Due to the high dependency upon the services given by information systems, demand of man work force is reduced, which results into unemployment. In developed countries many factories are only handled through the programmed machines and consumption of human power is decreased due to this reason. Information technology becomes reason to expose some one’s privacy, such as email hacking. Internet is the great feature introduced by information technology, which is useful to improve the child growth, provide entertainment through different websites, online gaming, online study materials, cooking recipe sites, and etc. same benefits sometimes becomes disadvantage if not used correctly, like social media sites are purposely used to interact quick interaction with old and new friends that is positive impact of information technology, but the case when social media is use for long hours by youngsters and forget to study becomes disadvantage of information technology (Lepicnik-Vodopivec & Samec, 2012). Incorporate into the discussion key environmental drivers for the use of IT/IS: The implications of features of information technology and information systems are incorporated very strongly. The information technology key environmental drivers are the need of features that improves the efficiency of specific organization. The demand of applying the services offered by information technology is due to the high rate of benefits as compared to the traditional process flow of organizations. The aspect of viewing all relevant material in front of one’s eye is the best highest feature of information technology. (Access programmers, 2014) The eye view keeps the best level of management for different categories of complex system. Project management systems working for business organizations, educational software’s and websites are means of communication among educational authorizes and concerned persons. On one single click huge amount is transferred across the world, the services offered by banks of online banking mostly free of cost and it possible due to the improvement in the functions of information technology. Data centres are used to store data for particular organization and accessed according to the request of users. The latest concept in the field of information technology is data ware house, where all type of information that includes text, pictures, sound, videos and other formats are arranged in such manner so that query process is fast and accurate (Accenture, 2011). Main Findings Report to Vice Chancellor: The current record keeping process of college is based on the MS Excel Sheets. The records about all the Students, Tutors, Courses are maintained and managed in the excel file system. Traditional method needs improvement to get better way of management of college records. Information technology always demands the innovation and same is the case for up grading of college records from excels file system to the MS Access Database system. Access database provides several benefits over excel in terms of management concerns. Excel is spreadsheet, where as Access is relational database composed of tables that contain rows and columns, although both are used to view the data and information on the computer screen. Database is flexible in nature to add, remove, search and present different kinds of queries. The main concern of excel records is the proper management is complex when data increases. The specific query process is easy due to proper structure of tables; the method of normalization is formed for reducing redundancy. Addition by creating macro is good feature of MS Access database. Report generation by applying some simple steps is considered wonderful function provided by access instead as in excel report generation is directly not possible. It takes lot of time to arrange the required material in excel to produce a relevant report. Another effective feature of Microsoft Access is production of relationships among tables. According to needs and demands, different kinds of relationships could be defined among tables. Relations among two tables are made through easy steps. All the information stored in the created table in the database gives the complete automation to the data for specific organization or to college in this case. The Access feature are high profiled as compared with excel feature, so by the adoption of access instead of excel improves the performance for the management of college information (Chung, N.D). Only authorized users are allowed to access the database by entering password at the time of opening. The administrator can add, modify, and delete specific table or particular record in the tables. Same is performed for creation, modification and deletion of form, quires, and reports. In a table restriction could be added against each entry, like for entering name of student it must be of type text, for date of admission only date could be added in the cell. This improves the correctness of data to be entered in the tables. It reduces the chances of error maintains in the data (Learn-it admin, 2013). The use of Access database provides command on data, the ease of access, organize, manage, and query specific information. The process of sorting of data results accurate in access, analyzing and summary making is also simple. The understanding level is not so complex to handle data in Access database. The complications are reduced for the presence of primary key available feature in the creation of table. Primary key auto generates the initial entries in the tables, which avoids the chances of duplication values (Microsoft Office, 2014). Systems Design - Input and output specification: In MS Access Database many kinds of features are available. The core functions are Tables, Form, Quires, and Reports. In the process of creation of tables list of parameters are required to follow. Different types of data types are available for use. The user can select the type according to demand of underlying system. The data types are: Text: used for mixture of alphabetic characters, strings, digits or may be special character. All combinations are possible to add in it. Memo: it is used for long text based items. All possible combinations of text could be added into in. Number: it consists on digits from 0 to onward. This could be used for mobile numbers, any price values. Date/Time: it is specifically used for entering date values and time. The date of birth, start date to specific project comes under this data type. Currency: it is used to enter the amount, price along with currency figure. Auto Number: it is used to store numbers in digital form and specifically used for Long Integers. Yes/No: this is used as selection or option purpose. Only yes or no is possible to select in this data type. Hyperlink: it is used to connect another link may exist within the document, other table or other database. Attachment: it is used to attach the files from other locations. Internal Use: the developed database is internally used by the management of the college. All data regarding college that was previously maintained in the excel files is transformed into the access database. College students’ record will be stored in the student table created in the database. The records about all the tutors of college are maintained in the tutor table of College Management System (CMS) created in MS Access. The other relevant concerns of the college are also part of database. Tables like: Courses, Class, management, clerks, and library are added into the database. Figure 1: Tutor Table Figure 2: Course Form Output method: The output method is most of time is displayed on screen. But it could print out if required by college concerned persons. For example the reports form or quires could print out for different purposes. Output type: Form display the outputs regarding student information, or tutors information or information on courses. The output could produce according to need of college users. If it is request to display report against the result of particular class, for this class table is accessed and against the required class output is generated. The student registration procedure is followed by using the record data into the student table. Figure 3: Student Table All relevant material will be stored in single table and single student data could be retrieved from this table by applying specific query against it as shown in the following figure. Fig.4 Query Student Record Evaluation Review Report The voice chancellor of the college is concerned about the developed database. The database is created in the Microsoft Access. The name created for database is College Management System (CMS). The CMS contains Tables, Form, Quires, Reports and relationships. The developed database will provide great benefits to the college management. The whole necessary working of the college could be achieved through the CMS. The CMS is fully automated system. Once the tables are created, further the user of CMS can add records in it. The record could also modify or delete according to the need. The management and process of storing information get easy through the use of CMS. According to the need of college users different tables could be added, deleted and modified within the CMS. Initially created tables could also modify through design view of tables. The records stored in the table are restricted according to the column name created. In name field only text characters could be added. In date field only date in proper date format could be added. Same is for student fee field can accept digits along with currency sign. Relationships are defined between two tables according to the demand of collage users. Relationships have defined types like, one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many. For creation of relationships among tables some logic is important to have like a student had a course, a class is taught by tutor, and more relations like this. Figure 5: Relationship between Tables The feature of Query created in CMS is very useful for the case when specific questions are raised from college users. The query is created from the existing tables created in the CMS. The purpose of query is the quick access from large amount of data stored in the tables. Query is basically considered as question and results in the form of answer with quick response. It is like searching specific entries from a large database. Reports generation is another very effective feature of CMS. The reports could be generated for specific purposes. The report of all student of college got first position in the current year. By entering the query all results are available on screen, and by creation of report this could be printed out for evaluation. Many formats are available for report generation. Figure 6: Student Report The benefits of using MS access database are greater as compared with excel sheet. The authentication is provided in access, which promotes the privacy and security to the personal records of students and tutors. The management of college can fully dependent on the CMS for all kind of management concerns required in the college. The backup is maintained for CMS for the case of emergency. The regular update process will work for making backup up to date. The CMS is very convenient to the management to deal with all kind of processing regarding college. The CMS is possible to access in disconnected environment without having internet technology. Finally, the benefits of CMS database are enough to handle the effective management of the college. There is possibly to face some issues while using CMS but issues could be resolved for getting good performance. Conclusions This work is about the development of Microsoft Access Database, named as College Management System (CMS). Previously college management was handling the records about college in Microsoft Excel files. Due to the improved factors of access database all the record are transformed into the CMS database created for the college. Information Technology always accepts changes and improved features are added day by day to make more effective results. So by adopting the database of CMS instead of Excel effectiveness is also improved for the college management. Initially report was written to the voice chancellor of the college to accept the need of development of CMS. In which all related benefits of using CMS are highlighted. The differences are exposed clearly to get better understanding for approving the development of CMS by the voice chancellor of the college. In the last, developed CMS database is evaluated for all the features it contains. All aspects are presented and explained with examples. Pictorial representation is also given the documentation of CMS. That is useful to get quick understanding of the developed CMS system. References: Accenture (2011). Accenture Identifies Eight Trends Driving The Future of Information Technology. Available from: http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5144 Accessed on 4/18/2014. Access Programmers. (2014). Benefits of Using Access. Available from: http://www.access-programmers.com/benefits.aspx Accessed on 4/18/2014. Canielsa, M.C.J., and Bakensc, R.J.J.M. (2012). The effects of Project Management Information Systems on decision making in a multi project environment. International Journal of Project Management. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263786311000688 Accessed on 4/18/2014. Chung, L. (N.D) Microsoft Access versus Microsoft Excel for Data Analysis and Reporting. Available from: https://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftAccess/DataAnalysis/versus-excel.html Accessed on 4/18/2014. Jakson (2010). what are some advantages and disadvantages of information system. Available from: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101026165149AAB9bza Accessed on 4/18/2014. Jackson, L.A., Witt, E.A., Games, A.I., Fitzgerald, H.E., Eye, A.V., and Zhao, Y. (2011). Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the Children and Technology Project. Computers in Human Behavior. Available from: http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/11/33ba0f16-a2e9-4d36-b063-2f540f115970.pdf Accessed on 4/19/2014. Learn-it admin. (2013). Know the Advantages And Disadvantages Of Microsoft Access. Available from:http://www.learnitanytime.com/4031/know-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-microsoft-access-2/ Accessed on 4/18/2014. Lepicnik-Vodopivec, J., and Samec, P. (2012). Advantages and Disadvantages of Information-Communication Technology Usage for Four-Year-Old Children, and The consequences Of Its Usage For The Children’s’ Development. Available from: http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_2_No_3_February_2012/8.pdf Accessed on 4/18/2014. Microsoft Office. (2014). Benefits of using a database. Available from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/get-to-know-access-RZ006118141.aspx?section=2 Accessed on 4/19/2014. University of Waterloo (2014). Impact of information systems on society. Available from: http://impactofinformationsystemsonsociety.wordpress.com/ Accessed on 4/18/2014. Read More