Information System Management

Terrorist attack can be regarded as the greatest issue in the last decade after the incident of September 11. In order to reduce the chances of terrorist attack, a terrorist watch list was being introduced by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre. Information system management plays an important role in compiling and consolidating the terrorist watch list.

In this paper, concepts of information system management such as data warehouse, data mining, business intelligence, OLAP and databases and database management system will be discussed and linked to the case study. Besides, both benefits and weaknesses and solutions to the weaknesses will be presented.

Being listed below are the major concepts of information system management:

1. Data Warehouse

Data Warehouse refers to a database that is being formed by the on going process of data collection from different databases and standardization of these data to ensure a consistent presentation of data is being provided to different parties at different point of time. (Laudon and Laudon, 2009 p. 251).

From the case of Trouble with the Terrorist Watch List Database, FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre (TSC) was being erected after the terrorist attack on September 11. The compilation of terrorist watch list is an on going process of data collection and standardization of terrorist information on each agency's list.

TSC produces and presents the terrorist watch list of suspected terrorists by building a data warehouse that effectively and efficiently collects and standardize information from databases maintained by different government agencies.

2. Data Mining

Information is being generated by data mining through the processes of associations, sequences, classifications, clustering and forecasts, carried out by the system. (Laudon and Laudon, 2009)

3. Business Intelligence

According to Laudon and Laudon, Business Intelligence refers to a set of tools that perform various functions, such as consolidating, analysing and presentation of data to users, in order to transform these data into meaningful information that are relevant in making a decision, or adjusting the decision made earlier to achieve a better result.

From the case, the terror watch list is being tailored and exported to several government agency systems to monitor the movements of terrorists across borders. In example, government agencies pull data out of the database to determine whether or not an individual is a terrorist by matching the name to watch list and hence decide whether it should take any further actions on the individual.

4. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a tool of business intelligence that allow database users to match an aspect of information