System fundamentals

System Fundamentals

We are concerned with how systems integrate into organizations and how people use them.

The big ideas in system fundamentals

Systems in Organizations

A computer program or computer system is used by people who work in organizations. It is very helpful to understand how people, computers, and organizations work together.

System Design

Components of a computer system

• Hardware, software, peripheral, network, human resources
• Computers in a networked world
• Ethics

System Design and analysis

• Planning and stakeholder involvement
• Getting requirements from stakeholders
• Gathering information for solutions
• Illustrate system requirements
• Prototypes
• Iteration during the design process

Planning and system installation

• Change management
• Legacy system
• Testing
• Implementation methods
• Data migration
• Compare the implementation of systems using a client’s hardware with hosting systems remotely

User Focus

• User documentation
• User training

System Backup

• Data loss and preventing data loss

Software Deployment

• Managing releases and updates

Human interaction with the system

• Usability
• Problems with usability
• Improve the accessibility of a system
• Moral, ethical, social, economic and environmental implications of the interaction between humans and machines (see also ethics)

Standards

• Identify the relevant stakeholders when planning a new system.
• Describe methods of obtaining requirements from stakeholders.
• Describe appropriate techniques for gathering the information needed to arrive at a workable solution.
• Construct suitable representations to illustrate system requirements.
• Describe the purpose of prototypes to demonstrate the proposed system to the client.
• Discuss the importance of iteration during the design process.
• Explain the possible consequences of failing to involve the end-user in the design process.

• Identify the context for which a new system is planned.
• Describe the need for change management.
• Outline compatibility issues resulting from situations including legacy systems or business mergers.
• Compare the implementation of systems using a client’s hardware with hosting systems remotely.
• Evaluate alternative installation processes.
• Discuss problems that may arise as a part of data migration.
• Suggest various types of testing.
• Describe the importance of user documentation.
• Evaluate different methods of providing user documentation.
• Evaluate different methods of delivering user training.
• Identify a range of causes of data loss.
• Outline the consequences of data loss in a specified situation.
• Describe a range of methods that can be used to prevent data loss.
• Describe strategies for managing releases and updates.
• Define the terms: hardware, software, peripheral, network, human resources.
• Describe the roles that a computer can take in a networked world.
• Discuss the social and ethical issues associated with a networked world.
• Discuss the social and ethical issues associated with the introduction of new IT systems
• Define the term usability.
• Identify a range of usability problems with commonly used digital devices.
• Identify methods that can be used to improve the accessibility of systems.
• Identify a range of usability problems that can occur in a system.
• Discuss the moral, ethical, social, economic and environmental implications of the interaction between humans and machines.

Produce a plan, simulation or model.

Provide an answer from a number of possibilities. Recognize and state briefly a distinguishing fact or feature.

Give a detailed account or picture of a situation, event, pattern or process.

Develop information in a diagrammatic or logical form.

Prove or make clear by reasoning or evidence, illustrating with examples or practical application.

Offer a considered and balanced review that includes a range of arguments, factors or hypotheses. Opinions or conclusions should be presented clearly and supported by appropriate evidence.

Produce a plan, simulation or model.

Give a detailed account including reasons or causes.

The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

Give a brief account.

A state in which two things are able to exist or occur together without problems or conflict.

Assess the implications and limitations; make judgments about the ideas, works, solutions or methods in relation to selected criteria.

Propose a solution, hypothesis or other possible answer.

Give the precise meaning of a word, phrase, concept or physical quantity.

a group or system of interconnected people or things.