MIS Discussion: Data Visualization and Geographic Information

 

Week 11 Discussion Forum (Click to Read Instructions)

Data Visualization and Geographic Information Systems

As an IT manager, discuss how you would use the materials in Chapter 11 of your textbook communicating IT information to other department. Use APA throughout.

I have attached the material below. Please use APA format throughout and write 300 words.

Chapter 11

Data Visualization and Geographic Information Systems

Prepared by Dr. Derek Sedlack, South University

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives

Enterprise Data Mashups

Digital Dashboards

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems

Data Visualization and Learning

Data Visualization and Learning
Chapter 11
Figure 11.3 Tools and technologies in this chapter fall into three related categories.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Visualization and Learning
Heat Maps
Use colors to represent data categories that are more quickly identified at a glance in high pace environments.
Visuals are used to accent what you want to learn or convey.
Tag Clouds
Represent the relative frequency of words and terms by their sizes.
Help to better understand word patterns and use.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Visualization and Learning
Learning, Exploring, and Discovery
Data discovery: discovering hidden relationships through visualization.
Used with predictive analytics to improve departmental decisions.
Summary data rather than statistical data for higher level absorption.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Visualization and Learning
Visualizations
Dials, charts, graphs, timelines, geospatial maps, and heat maps with interactivity and drill-downs making it easier to understand data and identify patterns.
Returned more quickly than completed reports.
A common mistake is to invest in the analytics foundation—tools, quality data, data integration, touch screens—but overlook the most crucial component—namely, users’ ability to interpret the visual reports and analyses correctly.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Visualization and Learning
Performance Management Visualizations
IBM SPSS Analytic Catalyst
Advanced analysis designed for experts in statistical software.
Tableau
Easier to implement, requiring just basic database information.
Roambi Analytics
Leading mobile reporting and data visualization app designed for iPads and iPhones.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Visualization and Learning
How does data visualization contribute to learning?
How do heat maps and tag clouds convey information?
Why are data visualization and discovery usage increasing?
Give two examples of data visualization for performance management.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Suggested Answers:
1. Visuals are the single best way our brain processes information. Data visualization harnesses the power of analytics and adds a visual display to capitalize on how our brains work. Visual displays make it easier for individuals to understand data and identify patterns that offer answers to business questions. By using data visualization, companies are able to discover hidden data relationships and learn how to improve performance.
 
2. Heat maps use colors to convey information at a glance. A heat map is like a spreadsheet whose cells are formatted with colors instead of numbers.
 
Tag clouds use data, typically from unstructured content, and represent the relative frequency of words and terms by their sizes.
 
3. Answers may vary. Data discovery is expected to take on a greater role in corporate decision making. Companies are investing in the latest data discovery solutions largely because of their speed and flexibility. Data visualization software vendors continue to focus on business users of all levels and backgrounds. Experts and non-experts can collect data quickly from disparate sources and then explore the dataset with easy-to-use interactive visualizations and search interfaces. Drill-down paths are not predefined, which gives users more flexibility in how they view detailed data. Today’s data discovery technologies provide greater data exploration and ease of use to help users find answers to “why” and “what if” questions through self-service analytic apps. Enterprise apps for Androids, Apple iPads, and BlackBerry Playbooks are replacing static business reports with real-time data, analytics, and interactive reporting tools.
 
4. Answers may vary.
 
Vendor Aqumin provides real time visual interpretation solutions for the financial services industry. Aqumin’s OptionVision enables traders, risk managers, and market participants to spot opportunities, risk, and market changes. AlphaVision for Excel enables visual interpretation capabilities directly within the Microsoft Excel platform, and AlphaVision for Bloomberg is developed for professional portfolio managers, traders, and risk analysts and is connected directly to the Bloomberg Terminal to leverage data provided by Bloomberg.
 
IBM SPSS Analytic Catalyst has made sophisticated analytics accessible. Analytic Catalyst enables business users to conduct the kind of advanced analysis that had been designed for experts in statistical software. The software fast tracks analytics by identifying key drivers, selecting an appropriate model, testing it, and then explaining the results in plain English.
 
Roambi Analytics is a leading mobile reporting and data visualization app designed for iPads and iPhones. The app can take data from most sources, including Box, Google Docs, spreadsheets, BI systems, databases, and Salesforce.com, and transform them into interactive data visualizations.
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Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives

Enterprise Data Mashups

Digital Dashboards

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems

Data Visualization and Learning

Enterprise Mashups
Combine business data and applications from multiple sources—typically a mix of internal data and applications with externally sourced data to create an integrated experience.
Does not require a huge investment and can be developed in hours rather than days or weeks.
Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups
Figure 11.7 Architecture of enterprise mashup application.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Enterprise Data Mashups
Combinations of data from various business systems and external sources, often in real time, without necessarily relying on a middle step of ETL (extract, transform, and load) from a data warehouse.
Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Enterprise Mashup Types
Customer: provides a quick view of customer data for a sales person in preparation for a customer site visit.
Logistics: displays inventory for a group of department stores based on specific criteria.
Human resource: provides a quick glance at employee data such as profiles, salary, ratings, benefits status, and activities.
Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sketch or describe the architecture of an enterprise mashup application.
What is an enterprise data mashup?
What are the functions and uses of enterprise mashups?
Explain why business workers may need data mashup technology.
What are three benefits of mashup technology to the organization?
Chapter 11
Enterprise Data Mashups

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Suggested Answers:
1. Figure 11.7 illustrates the architecture of an enterprise mashup application.
 
The general architecture of an enterprise mashup application integrates data from operational data stores, business systems, external data (economic data, suppliers, information, competitors’ activities), and real-time news feeds to generate an enterprise mashup.
 
2. Enterprise mashups are combinations of data from various business systems and external sources, often in real time, and without necessarily relying on a middle step of ETL (extract, transform, and load) from a data warehouse.
 
3. Enterprise mashups improve operational efficiency, optimize the sales pipeline, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive profitability. In an enterprise environment, mashups can be used to solve a wide variety of business problems and day-to-day situations. Examples of these types of mashups are:
Customer. A customer data mashup that provides a quick view of customer data for a sales person in preparation for a customer site visit. Data can be pulled from internal data stores and Web sources, such as contact information, links to related websites, recent customer orders, lists of critical situations, and more.
Logistics. A logistics mashup that displays inventory for a group of department stores based on specific criteria. For example, you can mash current storm information onto a map of store locations and then wire the map to inventory data to show which stores located in the path of storms are low on generators.
Human resource. An HR mashup that provides a quick glance at employee data such as profiles, salary, ratings, benefits status, and activities. Data can be filtered to show custom views, for example, products whose average quarterly sales are lower than last quarter.
 
Data mashup apps are used in organizations:
For real-time awareness and data freshness
To feed data to cross-functional dashboards
For competitive analysis
To monitor compliance and manage risk
For disaster monitoring and disaster response
To generate external vendor reports
 
4. Using data mashup apps, nontechnical users can easily and quickly access, integrate, and display BI data from a variety of operational data sources, including those that are not integrated into the existing data warehouse, without having to understand the intricacies of the underlying data infrastructures or schemas.
 
5. Below is a summary of benefits of mashup technology to an enterprise:
Dramatically reduces time and effort needed to combine disparate data sources.
Users can define their own data mashups by combining fields from different data sources that were not previously modeled.
Users can import external data sources, e.g., spreadsheets and competitor data, to create new dashboards.
Enables the building of complex queries by non-experts with a drag-and-drop query-building tool.
Enables agile BI because new data sources can be added to a BI system quickly via direct links to operational data sources, bypassing the need to load them to a data warehouse.
Provides a mechanism to easily customize and share knowledge throughout the company.
15

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives

Enterprise Data Mashups

Digital Dashboards

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems

Data Visualization and Learning

Digital Dashboards
Dashboards
A style of reporting that depicts KPIs, operational or strategic information with intuitive and interactive displays.
Custom programmed to automatically and securely pull, analyze, and display data from enterprise systems, cloud apps, data feeds, and external sources and then display the metrics.
Components of dashboards are:
Design
Performance metrics
API
Access
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Digital Dashboards
Dashboard – Real Time Data
Having real-time, or near-real-time, data is essential to keep users aware of any meaningful changes in the metrics as they occur and to provide information for making decisions in real time.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Digital Dashboards
Dashboard Functions
Displays company performance metrics, automatically updated in real time.
Improve the information synthesis process bringing in multiple, disparate data feeds and sources, extracting features of interest, and manipulating the data so the information is in a more accessible format.
Eliminates need to log into multiple applications to view business performance.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Digital Dashboards
Dashboard Benefits
Visibility: blind spots are minimized or eliminated; Threats and opportunities are detected as soon as possible.
Continuous improvement: custom designed to display the user’s critical metrics and measures.
Single sign on: save time and effort logging onto numerous corporate information systems.
Budget or planning deviations: metrics can be programmed to display deviations from targets.
Accountability: employees tend to be motivated to improve their performance when tracked.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Digital Dashboards
Describe business dashboards and their functions.
Why do you think dashboards must be in real time and customized for the executive or manager?
How do business dashboards differ from other types of visual reports?
Explain the components of dashboards.
What are benefits of dashboards?
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Suggested Answers:
1. Dashboards are a style of reporting that depicts KPIs, operational or strategic information with intuitive and interactive displays. An executive dashboard displays a company’s performance metrics, which are automatically updated in real time (every 15 minutes) based on custom programming and connectivity with existing business systems. Dashboards improve the information synthesis process by bringing in multiple, disparate data feeds and sources, extracting features of interest, and manipulating the data so the information is in a more accessible format. Users no longer need to log into multiple applications to see how the business is performing.
 
2. Answers may vary.
The purpose of dashboards is to give users a clear view of the current state of KPIs, real time alerts, and other metrics about operations. Having real time, or near real time, data is essential to keep users aware of any meaningful changes in the metrics as they occur and to provide information for making decisions in real time. Users can take corrective actions promptly.
Dashboard design is a critical factor because business users need to be able to understand the significance of the dashboard information at a glance and have the capability to drill down to one or more levels of detail.
 
3. Dashboards are often mistakenly thought of as reports consisting of various gauges, charts, and dials, but the purpose of business dashboards is much more specific and directed. The purpose of dashboards is to give users a clear view of the current state of KPIs, real time alerts, and other metrics about operations. Dashboard design is a critical factor because business users need to be able to understand the significance of the dashboard information at a glance and have the capability to drill down to one or more levels of detail. Having real time, or near real time, data is essential to keep users aware of any meaningful changes in the metrics as they occur and to provide information for making decisions in real time. Users can take corrective actions promptly.
 
4. Components of dashboards are:
Design. The visualization techniques and descriptive captions to convey information so that they are correctly understood. Infographics are widely used because they convey information in interesting and informative designs.
Performance metrics. KPIs and other real time content displayed on the dashboard. All dashboard data should reflect the current value of each metric.
API. APIs (application programming interfaces) connect disparate data sources and feeds to display on the dashboard. The alternative is for users or IT to manually enter data to the dashboard. Dashboards created in this manner tend to fail because of the risk of incomplete, outdated, or wrong data, which users learn not to trust.
Access. Preferred access is via a secure Web browser from a mobile device.
 
5. The interrelated benefits of business dashboards are:
Visibility. Blind spots are minimized or eliminated. Threats and opportunities are detected as soon as possible.
Continuous improvement. A famous warning from Peter Drucker was “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Executive dashboards are custom designed to display the user’s critical metrics and measures.
Single sign on. Managers can spend a lot of time logging into various business systems and running reports. Single-sign-on dashboards save time and effort.
Deviations from what was budgeted or planned. Any metrics can be programmed to display deviations from targets, such as comparisons of actual and planned or budgeted.
Accountability. When employees know their performance is tracked in near real time and can see their results, they tend to be motivated to improve their performance.
21

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives

Enterprise Data Mashups

Digital Dashboards

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems

Data Visualization and Learning

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information System (GIS)
Captures, manages, analyzes, and displays multidimensional geographic data, also called geospatial data.
Geospatial Data
Where things or people are and where they are going—with descriptive data—what things are like or what customers are doing.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems
GIS
GIS is not a map, with multiple layers of information for many ways of thinking about a geographic space.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems
Global Integration
Cellular and Internet service providers, sensors, Google Earth, GPS, and RFID systems know the location of each connected user or object.
Foursquare, Google Maps, and other mobile apps rely on GPS locations.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems
GIS Business Applications
Learn how store sales are impacted by population or the proximity to competitors’ stores.
Use GIS to identify relevant demographics, proximity to highways, public transportation, and competitors’ stores to select the best location options.
Food and consumer products companies can chart locations of complaint calls enabling product traceability in the event of a crisis or recall.
Sales reps might better target their customer visits by analyzing the geography of sales targets.
Chapter 11

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.