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Threat modeling is one of the most important components of staying secure online. It is essentially the process of deciding what data you want to protect and who you’re trying to protect it from. It is figuring out what you are most worried about being hacked. To attempt to keep information secure online, the government has placed regulations involving data protection and cybersecurity. Some of these regulations include the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which is a regulation for privacy and personal data protection. Some more government cybersecurity regulations include: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the 2002 Homeland Security Act which includes the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). One way data can be breached is through ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware from crypto-virology that threatens to publish the victim’s personal data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid, usually in Bitcoin. Hospitals are often a main target of ransomware because they provide critical care and rely on up-to-date information from patient records. Without quick access to their patients records such as drug histories, surgery directive and other information, patient care can get delayed, causing the hospital to likely pay the ransom rather than risk delays that could result in death and lawsuits. Although data breaches can sometimes be inevitable, there are ways you can protect yourself online. Some of these can include: Ad blockers, antivirus’s, avoiding dogs plug-ins, back-up files, disabling macros, firewalls, and VPN’s. Protecting yourself online is very important in ensuring your data and personal information is not leaked. In class, we downloaded the software 1Password, which is a password manager to help keep your data secure. It lets you know if your password is strong enough or if it needs to be changed. Aside from data security, another interesting relatively new form of technology is becoming increasingly popular, artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. The three main types of AI’s include narrow (ANI), general (AGI), and super intelligence (ASI). an ANI is one of the more commonly used AI’s, appearing in all computers. The most commonly used ANI’s is Siri in Apple products. AGI is the type of adaptable intellect found in humans, a flexible form of intelligence capable of learning how to carry out vastly different tasks, which can include anything from haircutting or reasoning about a wide variety of topics based on its accumulated experience. ASI is described as any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest. Alan Turing is known as the father of AI and computer science. He was a cryptanalysis during WWII, and cracked the code that enabled the allies victory. He founded the Turing test, which is a method of inquiry in AI for determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. 

 

An ERP is an acronym for enterprise resource planning. It is basically a software or system that integrates functions, streamlines processes, and manages core business. An ERP can create value by integrated databases, collaboration, flexibility & mobility, and lowers costs. An ERP can also refer to a type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations. A legacy system is an old or out-dated system, technology or software application that continues to be used by an organization because it still performs the functions it was initially intended to do. They are also typically still used within a company because they tend to be reliable and familiar for their users. There are issues with legacy systems since they typically no longer have support and maintenance and they are limited in terms of growth. They also cannot easily be replaced. Since businesses evolve constantly due to changes in the economy, new laws, market conditions, management, reorganizations, etc., systems tend to become obsolete over time. Additionally, another system commonly used in companies is a CRM (customer relationship management). Sales, marketing, HR, strategy, and accounting typically use CRM’s. A CRM is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. It can be a form of customer service. The goal or purpose of a CRM is to improve business relationships to grow your business. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability. The main difference between a CRM and an ERP is that the ERP has an internal focus on the business, while a CRM has an external focus on its customers. They are both similar because they have shared data with a goal of increased profit. Additionally, two terms that relate heavily to data and CRM’s/ERP’s is velocity and veracity. Velocity refers to how quickly data is generated and how quickly that data moves. This is an important aspect for companies need that need their data to flow quickly, so it’s available at the right times to make the best business decisions possible. Veracity refers to the quality and accuracy of data. Gathered data could have missing pieces, may be inaccurate or may not be able to provide real, valuable insight. Veracity, overall, refers to the level of trust there is in the collected data. These terms relate to data integrity because it allows the company to have proof that the data is truthful and real, not made up. They also allow data scientists to derive more value from their data while also allowing the scientists’ organization to become more customer-centric.

Your digital identity is the body of information about an individual, organization or electronic device that exists online. It is a permanent collection of data about you or an individual that is online. It can represent who you are from an online standpoint. If you Google yourself, your name may come up with information about you. Your digital identity is very important, especially for applying for jobs in the work force. Your identity can stretch from your social media accounts, your purchase history online, your credit history, your grades for college, etc. There are many ways for you to manage your digital identity. One beneficial way to manage your digital identity is by creating an e-portfolio. Creating an electronic portfolio about you gives potential employers one specified platform that gives information about you, from your standpoint. It can include your hobbies, characteristics about you, and your resume. In this course, we created a e-portfolio on the MIS community platform. According to the Temple MIS website, the MIS community platform and The Temple Community Platform (TCP) is a cloud-hosted platform built on top of WordPress that consists of three distinct innovations:

1. New type of learning management system (LMS) that applies social and open concepts to change learning and student development.
2. A structured measurable professional development program that gets undergraduate students ready for the workplace.
3. A model and associated software for offering 100% online graduate degree programs at low cost to achieve very high retention and satisfaction.

 

An ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) is a visual representation of different data using conventions that describe how these data are related to one another. It is made up of an entity (noun), attribute (adjective), and relationship (verb). A rectangle symbolizes an entity, an oval symbolizes an attribute, and a diamond represents a relationship. There are two different notations for ERD’s: Chen’s Database Notation and Crow’s Foot Database Notation. The main difference between these ERD’s is that Chen database notation uses a diamond and connecting lines with symbols to describe relationship and cardinality, while Crow’s Foot database notation just uses lines with symbols on the end. Cardinality is essential for showing the numerical relationship between entities. Cardinality also describes a fundamental relationship between two entities or objects. There are three relationship types or cardinalities: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. These cardinality are differentiated by different symbols. Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams are used to describe the cardinality in databases. The relationship’s within Crow’s foot notation is a straight line connecting multiplicity of one and a mandatory relationship. The key idea behind a ERD is to help to identify different system elements and their relationships with each other. Another aspect that I previously described in Week 2 is Salesforce. Salesforce is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management software and applications. Within Salesforce, there are dynamic dashboards. Dynamic dashboards enable each user to see the data they have access to. With a dynamic dashboard, you can control data visibility without having to create a separate dashboard, with its own running user and folder, for each level of data access(Salesforce.com). 

Throughout digital systems, our class focused heavily in the beginning weeks on the use of Salesforce, through Max Labs Assignments. Salesforce is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management software and applications. Our course uses Salesforce because we gained exposure to a platform that delivers cloud-based systems products. Salesforce is also very beneficial in enabling and enhancing businesses allowing them to communicate with their customers in a professional manner. Salesforce is also used across many different companies today so it is very beneficial for us students to gain experience in working with this platform. The benefits of creating a database in Salesforce is to keep records of important tasks such as leads, tasks, opportunities, accounts and notes. It’s also a way for the customer and the provider to keep in contact professionally. In Salesforce, there are also a variety of record types that allow linking different business processes to users, customers, and admins based on their user profiles. Aside from Salesforce, another important business process is a swim lane diagram, which is a flowchart that distinguishes a process and visibly differentiates job sharing and responsibilities for sub-processes of a business process. There are 5 symbols to a swim lane diagram which include: a circle (signifies the starting and ending of an event in the process, a rectangle (represents an activity in a process), a diamond (represents a decision that must be made in the process), an arrow (indicates the flow of the process), and lastly a cylinder (represents stored data). An actor is a user role or system within the system. For example, in an Italian restaurant swim lane diagram, the manager is an actor, the server is an actor, the computer is an actor, the chef, and the customers (etc.), are all actors. They contribute to the system and all have their own role within the diagram. Actors do not have specific names, just specific roles. For example, you would not call the manager by his real name, it would just be listed as manager. Swim lane diagrams are a form of process mapping. Process mapping is a technique used to visually map out workflows and processes. It is very beneficial for a company to use process mapping because it can help the company stay organized, but also make sure every role within the company is filled and every task has someone to complete it. Process mapping is very beneficial, similar to swim lane diagrams because they both allow corporations to stay organized, and have a visible flow of the system and how it is accomplished. The following swim lane included (I will include a photo of it in this post) has four mistakes in it. The most visible mistake I noticed right away is that the stock manager is labeled as John Smith. This is a mistake because the actor should not be an individuated name, just their role within the company. The next mistake I noticed is located in the first decision diamond, because it does not have a “No” option for the decision, only a yes. It is saying now that nothing happens if the order is not in stock. Another mistake I noticed is the starting and ending symbols on the diagram. They should be circles to signify the beginning and ending of the process, however they are both rectangles. The last mistake I noticed was the cylinder symbol- it should be a rectangle because delivering is an activity in the process, not stored data. 

 

The main difference between the models waterfall and agile, is that with the waterfall model, software development is to be completed as one single project, which is then divided into different phases: Requirement Analysis, Designing, Coding, Testing and UAT(Bug). However, with the agile SDLC, it can be considered as a collection of many different projects, which are nothing but divided into sprints and each Sprint is divided into Requirement Analysis, Designing, Coding, Testing and UAT(Bug). This means that every sprint has to go through all the phases specified, so the Agile model produces quality output. MIS’s definition is management information systems. It is the study of people, technology, organizations, and the relationships among them. Professionals who specialize in MIS help firms realize maximum benefit from investment in personnel, equipment, and Buisness processes. It is also a people-oriented field with a prominence through technology. MIS professionals main job is to use technology to solve day-t0-day business problems. An information system is an integrated set of components for collecting, storing, and processing data, as well as providing information, knowledge, and digital products. The main aspects of a system is people + process + technology, which are all managed by MIS professionals. These systems surround us everyday electronically through phones, computers, tablets, etc. The 4 core processes of designing a UX (user experience) is problem definition, documenting business processes, process decomposition, and data modeling. System analysis is another big part of information systems, it is the process of observing systems for troubleshooting or development purposes. System analysis is typically conducted to study a system or its parts in order to identify its objectives. It’s more of a problem solving technique to improve the system and ensure that all parts of the system work efficiently to accomplish their specified purpose. 

source: https://aecom.com

Week 10

A JavaScript function is a chunk of code designed to perform a particular task, such as calculation. Every function has a name, a list of parameters to the function, enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas, and statements that define the function, inside curly brackets.

Here is a example of a simple function

console.log(‘Hello World’);

If you want to have an alert box, you can type:

alert(“Hello World”);

if you want to have the words, write:

document.write(‘Hello World”);

Week 11

Why do we use if/else statements?

It is used to perform different actions based on different conditions.

The if/else statement executes a block of code if a specified condition is true. If the condition is false, another block of code can be executed.

It works like:

if name = “Joe”;
{
alert(“hey Joe”);
}
else if (name = “Bob”);
{
alert(“Hey Bob”)
}

HTML is a coding language that is used for the structure of a webpage. HTML is considered to be the foundation of all web markup languages. HTML was developed in the late 1990’s, so it has stood the test of time as being a valuable coding language.

HTML is used for many foundations tasks for building a website. It is sued for formatting the content featured on the site. This includes images, database integration, and interactive content. 

One of the greatest pros of using HTML is that the language is rather intuitive. Tags can be easily used to format content. One of the major cons of using HTML is that there are many lines of code. It is easy to make a mistake by simply missing a single letter.

Looping in JavaScript is a feature which executes a set of instructions repeatedly. In an example we went over in previous classes, if we wanted to say “hello world” ten times. This set of instructions could be done in two different ways. One method is to write the command “hello world” ten separate times. A much more efficient to get this result is to use a for loop. 

An example of what a for loop would look like in JavaScript is shown below:

vari;

for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)

{

document.write(“hello world”);

}

The first i shows that the program will begin at zero. The second i shows that the program will not generate “hello world” more than ten times. The third i shows that i will increase in increments of one.