Victorian Certificate of Education 2011

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: IT APPLICATIONS
Written examination

Monday 14 November 2011

Reading time: 11.45 pm to 12.00 pm (15 minutes)
Writing time: 12.00 pm to 2.00 pm (2 hours)

QUESTION AND ANSWER BOOK

Structure of book

• Students are permitted to bring into the examination room: pens, pencils, highlighters, erasers, sharpeners and rulers.
• Students are NOT permitted to bring into the examination room: blank sheets of paper and/or white out liquid/tape.
• No calculator is allowed in this examination.

Materials supplied

• Question and answer book of 18 pages.
• Answer sheet for multiple-choice questions.

Instructions

• Write your student number in the space provided above on this page.
• Check that your name and student number as printed on your answer sheet for multiple-choice questions are correct, and sign your name in the space provided to verify this.
• All written responses must be in English.

At the end of the examination

• Place the answer sheet for multiple-choice questions inside the front cover of this book.

Students are NOT permitted to bring mobile phones and/or any other unauthorised electronic devices into the examination room.

SECTION A - Multiple-choice questions

Instructions for Section A

Answer all questions in pencil on the answer sheet provided for multiple-choice questions.

Choose the response that is correct or that best answers the question.

A correct answer scores 1, an incorrect answer scores 0.

marks will not be deducted for incorrect answers.

No marks will be given if more than one answer is completed for any question.

Question 1

A club offers every new member the chance to buy one scarf and/or one badge and/or one poster.
The most efficient technique for validating each member's selection when they complete an online membership form would be

A.      a set of three text boxes.
B.      a set of three check boxes.
C.      a drop-down list with three items.
D.      a link to a blank order form to print.

Answer is B.

Explanation - checkboxes allows any or all of the items to be selected.
Text boxes are hard to validate since they can contain all sorts of content; a dropdown list only allows one item to be selected. Printing a form to be filled in by hand and then entered electronically is very inefficient.

State average - to be announced

Question 2

Which of the following components connects multiple networks?

A.      router
B.      switch
C.      wireless access point
D.      network interface card

Answer is A.

Explanation - A router allows networks to connect, and it acts as a firewall to protect a LAN against the other networks (including the rest of the internet.) Switches connect devices within a LAN. A WAP lets wireless devices connect to a wired LAN. A NIC does the same for a non-wireless device.

State average - to be announced

Question 3

The analysis of a proposed website solution to support a VCE online community would include

A.      reporting the extent to which the solution meets the requirements of the clients six months after the clients have started using the website.
B.      specifying a timeline, outlining what data will be collected and by what methods and techniques, and how the data relates to the criteria.
C.      determining the evaluation criteria and what measures will be used to judge whether or not the solution requirements have been met.
D.      identifying the constraints of the solution. Typically these include cost, speed of processing, requirements of users, security, compatibility, level of expertise, capacity and availability of equipment.

Answer is D.

Explanation - <A> is done after implementation, during evaluation.
<B> is confusing. Analysis does involve data collection, but what do the criteria relate to? Is it evaluation again?
According to VCAA, determining evaluation criteria is done during design. Dog knows why, but that't what they reckon. So it's not <C>
Identifying constraints is done during analysis. Why all the examples of constraints is given is anyone's guess. Most odd.

State average - to be announced

Question 4

A firewall is used to

A.      illegally destroy data on a network.
B.      upload and download files from the Internet.
C.      minimise the risk of fire in a networked information system.
D.      prevent unauthorised access to data and information on a network.

Answer is D.

Explanation - a hardware or software firewall protects a network from intrusion. I love <C>, however :-)

State average - to be announced

Question 5

Determining the benefits a solution has for a user is stated in the

A.      scope.
B.      requirements.
C.      functionality plan.
D.      data manipulation document.

Answer is A.

Explanation - You know this or you don't. It's mentioned in the study design's description of the PSM... "Determining the scope of the solution. What can the solution do? What can't the solution do? What are the benefits of the solution to the user?"

Of course we all read the details of the study design, didn't we? If not, you could have eliminated the other options because they don't exist.

State average - to be announced

Question 6

The design below shows the Y and Z tables of a relational database.

The relationship shown from the Y table to the Z table is one to many. This means that

A.      I is a foreign key in Z.
B.      F is a foreign key in Y.
C.      D is a foreign key in Y.
D.      G is a foreign key in Z.

Answer is A.

Explanation - the primary key is the key field(s) in the current table (Y). The foreign key is the corresponding key in the related table (Z). So if you're in table Y, the foreign table is Z and the key field there is I. From table Z's point of view, field I is the primary key and field D in table Y is the foreign key. I think.

State average - to be announced

Question 7

This section of a data sheet for use by a school's sports administrator shows primary and foreign keys.

The primary key for this data sheet is

A.      CoachID
B.      PlayerlD
C.      Team
D.      AgeGroup

Answer is B.

Explanation - this was a nicely interesting one. At first sight you mutter, "But you can't tell just from that. You need to know..." but then you look at the sample data. You see 0004 repeated in the CoachID field. That means that the values are not unique and, by definition, it can't be a key field. You check the other fields: all of them except PlayerID have duplicate values. So the only field with unique values, PlayerID, must be the primary key field. I liked this question.

State average - to be announced

Question 8

An effective validation technique in a database is evident when

A.      all data is reasonable.
B.      all reports are accurate.
C.      records are sorted reasonably.
D.      calculated fields return correct answers.

Answer is A.

Explanation - repeat after me children: the word "data" is plural; "datum" is the singular. So "all data are reasonable". Illiteracy award. Anyway, validation only checks that data is reasonable, not that it's accurate. e.g. if you filled in that you were 14 years old and you were actually 15, there is no way any validation could tell it was wrong. However if you said you were 239, "cat" or -3 year old, validation could flag that as unreasonable. <B> and <D> would be discovered by testing.

State average - to be announced

Question 9

A retail business based in country Victoria sells poultry at one location. To make a tactical decision about selling poultry at an additional location, what information would the owner need?

A.      yearly profits
B.      monthly sales
C.      long-term profit objectives
D.      poultry production rates in Victoria 2007-2010

Answer is B.

Explanation - this is not an easy one. Personally, I would have viewed the establishment of a new location as a big strategic decision, but the question insists it's tactical so you learn to live with that and move on. You think about the scope of tactical decisions: they are measured in months, so long term profit objectives <C> are not relevant as they are clearly strategic and not tactical. <D> is irrelevant to the internal decision making of the business on this issue. That leaves <A> and <B>. Monthly sales could show that sales are good enough to deserve a second location, so I'd choose that. Sure, more sales will improve yearly profits, but you wouldn't need to know the current profits before deciding to open the second location.

A question that takes a bit of thought. I always dread the strategic/tactical/operational question in exams: they're rarely clear-cut.

State average - to be announced

Question 10

Sandra manages a Victorian local council's communication projects. She has obtained from a friend a copy of a customer database belonging to a large sports gear company.
Sandra wants to promote the council's new recreation centre and asks the IT project officer of her website to create a mailing list from the customer database so she can mail vouchers to the homes of potential members of the recreation centre. The legislation the IT project officer should cite to convince Sandra her idea is a bad one is

A.      Spam Act 2003.
B.      Copyright Act J968.
C.      Health Records Act 2001.
D.      Information Privacy Act 2000.

Answer is maybe D.

Explanation - this is a hairy question, and your knowledge of the legislation need to be pretty keen. The Spam Act forbids the sending of unsolicited commercial email but snail mail is not email, so it's not spam! So if it's not that, what law applies?

How she got the data is unclear, and whether the data could be said to be copyrighted is dubious.

The Health Records Act would apply to any Victorian organisation that held health data, but the sports gear database would not contain such data. Strike out <C>.

The IPA affects Victorian public service departments - does that include councils, I wonder? The IPA basically repeats the federal Privacy Act's privacy principles, but none of them seem to me to apply here. Using data for a secondary purpose than that for which it was originally collected? That's probably as close as we can get.

Did the examiners really mean to specify the vouchers are sent by snail mail, or did they mess it up during editing?

State average - to be announced

Question 11

The design tools to best represent relationships in the solution for a new website would include

A.      mock-up and storyboard.
B.      layout diagram and storyboard.
C.      hierarchy chart and site map.
D.      entity-relationship diagram and mock-up.

Answer is C.

Explanation - tools for representing relationships do not include mockups and layout diagrams - they design the appearance of web pages - so rule out everything except C. Both of the tools in C do show relationships, so go for that.

State average - to be announced

Question 12

The best description of a tutorial for a software product is

A.      a response to the current content the user is accessing.
B.      brief simple instructions on how to begin using the product.
C.      step-by-step instructions for using the features and functions of the product.
D.      important information about system requirements and configuration settings.

Answer is C.

Explanation - <A> is context-sensitive help (or "content sensitive" as the study design says. Mr Google reports 78,000 hits for "content sensitive help" and 1,860,000 for "context sensitive help". Mr Google knows best.) <B> would be a quick-start guide. <D> is technical reference or user manual. A tutorial teaches with step-by-step instructions.

State average - to be announced

Question 13

When the four items 34, 17, 6, 20 are entered as text data and sorted from A to Z the list returned is

A.      6,17,20,34
B.      17,20,34,6
C.      34,20,17,6
D.      34,17,6,20

Answer is B.

Explanation - Yes, folks. You got it wrong. "This is easy," you smirked. But you didn't realise that text data is sorted alphabetically, not numerically. So a "6" always comes after a "1", a "34". You may notice this sometimes when looking at files starting with numbers shown in a file manager. That's why clever people use leaving zeroes to force correct sorting. Moral: Always look for the sting in the tail of an "easy" question.

This smells much more like a Software Development question with its assumption of knowledge of ASCII codes. It really is not the province of ITA. Not a fair question.

State average - to be announced

Question 14

Which is the most appropriate design tool to represent the appearance of a new website solution?

A.      flow chart
B.      layout diagram
C.      entity-relationship diagram
D.      Input-Process-Output chart

Answer is B.

Explanation - a layout diagram is another name for a page/screen mockup. The others design processes (A), component relationships (C) or calculations (D).

State average - to be announced

Question 15

The following data sheet shows the bookings for a holiday house.

Which design for a query will return the cost of accommodation if adults pay $90 each per night and children each pay 50% of the adult price?

A.      Cost: [NumAdults]*[NumChildren]*[NumNights]*(90-0.50)
B.      Cost: [NumAdults]*[NumNights]+[NumChildren]*[NumNights]+(90-0.50)
C.      Cost: [NumAdults]*[NumNights]*90+[NumChildren]*[NumNights]*(90-0.50)
D.      Cost: [NumAdults]*[NumNights]*90+[NumChildren]*[NumNights]*(0.50*90)

Answer is D.

Explanation - the algorithm is: Total cost = (number of adults * number of nights * adult cost) PLUS (number of kids * number of nights * half adult cost)

Subtracting 0.5 from a number of dollars (A, B and C) does not calculate half the number of dollars. The only option left is the correct one.

Pretty easy: I would've given another option the correct "0.50*90" part and made a different error somewhere else.

State average - to be announced

Question 16

Bobby is updating a company's relational database so that the details of any customer who has not purchased anything since 2005 are removed from the customer table and are archived. The design for search criteria would be

A.      DateLastPurchase < = Today -6
B.      DateLastPurchase > 31/12/2005
C.      DateLastPurchase < 01/01/2006
D.      Date Last Purchase < = 01/01/2006

Answer is C.

Explanation - <A> means "6 days ago", not "6 years ago".
<B> means "after the end of 2005", not before. <D> is close, but includes the first day of 2006, which is not what the problem wanted.

State average - to be announced

Question 17

A small business plans to replace a weekly full backup of data stored on two removable hard drives with a daily incremental backup stored online.
Which is the best criterion to evaluate the effectiveness of the new backup strategy?

A.      Do staff find the new backup procedure easier?
B.      Is all the data backed up online at the end of each week?
C.      Does the online backup process slow down transactions?
D.      Is it cheaper to use the online backup than the removable hard drives?

Answer is B. But it's wrong.

Explanation - this question is odd in more than one way. Why would any business do away with full backups? It's insane. How could you recover your data if only new or changed data is ever being backed up? However, the question is trying to see if you know what effectiveness means.

<A> is ease of use, which the study design says is efficiency. I disagree, but let's not gnaw old bones here.
<C> is speed, which is also efficiency.
<D> is cost, which is also efficiency.

That leaves <B>, but it's wrong. If only incremental backups are being done, only new and changed data will be backed up. Existing data will not be copied to the online backup. So, checking that "all the data" is backed up will not happen. Only new and changed data will be backed up online a the end of each week.

Perhaps the examiner meant to say "Is all of the data that should be backed up actually backed up at the end of each week?" It's badly worded, and confusing, and the premise is ridiculous.

State average - to be announced

Question 18

Georgie has received an email from her local sports club which offers her $15 for every person who buys a booklet of 20 cinema tickets on her recommendation. Georgie does not really want to buy a booklet of the tickets herself because she does not think it is good value and is wondering if recommending it to close friends is okay. Georgie is facing

A.      a legal obligation.
B.      an ethical dilemma.
C.      a technical protocol.
D.      a security procedure.

Answer is B.

Explanation - too easy. An ethical dilemma is where all of the options for a decision are morally bad options: Georgie either exploits her friends or misses out on the kickback. She can't behave properly and still win. That's an ethical dilemma.

State average - to be announced

Question 19

The forum post shown above does not conform to online social protocols because

A.      the topic heading is too long.
B.      it is signed with a nickname.
C.      the content text is all in upper case.
D.      the attachment has an unrecognisable file name.

Answer is C.

Explanation - UPPERCASE implies shouting, which can be impolite in online communities. There are no conventions about heading length, nicknames or filenames.

State average - to be announced

Question 20

The recovery plan in a disaster recovery strategy includes

A.      procedures to follow when shutting down equipment and removing files.
B.      an unannounced disaster simulation to help identify points of weakness in the evacuation procedures.
C.      identification of the information technology services that must be restored first and a secondary site where data can be processed.
D.      a listing of the people who are responsible for gathering the backup resources and for transporting them to a secondary processing site.

Answer is C. And perhaps D.

Explanation - interesting. The emphasis is the words "recovery plan", so we're focusing on the part of the strategy concerned with recovering from a disaster that has already happened.
<A> is shutting down, not starting up again.
<B> tests the recovery plan, but is not actually used during a real recovery.
<C> Identifying what to recover first and a place to continue processing during the recovery would be important to a recovery plan.
But <D> also seems relevant: you would want to know who has to do what during the recovery. I can't see why that's not important too.

I hope markers are told to accept <C> or <D>.

State average - to be announced

END OF SECTION A

SECTION B - Short answer questions

Answer all questions in the spaces provided.

Question 1

How should sales staff dispose of customers' contact and financial data stored on their laptops?

1 mark - 2 lines provided for the answer

They should be wiped rather than just deleted. Wiping overwrites the data many times to make it unrecoverable with undelete utilities.

State average: to be announced.

Question 2

Fashion Design is an electronic magazine being created for communicating the latest trends in teenage fashions. The magazine will collect data from users and store it in a database.

a.    At what stage of the problem-solving methodology should the solution be tested to see that it does what it was intended to do?

1 mark - 1 line

Development.

"Testing" is not a discrete step in the Problem Solving Methodology.

List two tasks typically involved in testing.

• Creating test data.
• Creating a testing table.
• Deskchecking (manual calculation to verify the output of formulae)
• Validation testing.
• Unit testing, integration testing, system testing.
• Acceptance testing (with a typical end-user)

2 marks - 3 lines

Question 3

Explain two benefits of normalising data in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS).

• Removing data duplication by storing data in only place rather than many times
• Removing duplication speeds up database operation because it's smaller
• This also maintains data integrity since a piece of data only needs to be changed in one location rather than in many. When the same data appears many times, if the data changes it must be changed in every case, otherwise data loses its integrity.
• Helping maintain referential integrity by ensuring that key field values used for lookups are not deleted.
• Allows more powerful data access through complex relationships.

2 marks - 6 lines

Question 4

Speedie Racers Car Club is developing its website to provide information to the public about the club and to provide forum facilities for its members. The home page is shown below.

a.    Identify one format used on the home page and explain how it enhances the effectiveness of the website for users.

Format - Explanation

Bold, large heading - makes the name of the club easy to find

Navbar in a box - makes the navbar a visual unit and separates it from the other text

Line under the welcome text - visually separates the static welcome text from the changeable event text beneath it.

Reversed colours for the buttons - makes them stand out clearly from non-button text.

2 marks - 2 lines

Were the examiners actually trying to get students to refer to design elements like proportion and contrast rather than formats?

b.   Recommend a test that could be used to ensure that the forum performs as it should for members. Justify your answer.

Typical member users should be asked to enter the forum and perform all of the functions supported by the forum (e.g. creating a post, editing a post, reading posts). They should report any features that do not behave as expected. Using typical users (rather than using managers, technicians etc) will better demonstrate the forum's performance when being used by real users.

2 marks - 6 lines

Question 5

Lawrence and his sister belong to a youth group that holds social functions where members can meet and discuss issues affecting young people. They both communicate with friends online and have suggested the youth group could set up a website with the aims of

a.    Suggest the type of website that would best suit the youth group's needs. Justify your answer.

The site should use more than one Web 2.0 tool since a single tool would not be suitable for all the jobs it needs to do. It should use a blog for announcing and promoting events, and a forum for discussing issues.

2 marks - 5 lines

b.   State two features that could be included in the website to assist in building the youth group's collective identity.

A wiki for the members to build community information sources.
Social networking so they can socialise informally.

2 marks - 3 lines

It baffles me why the study design believes that a wiki alone, or a blog alone is a "type of website". No real community site of any size has a single tool to accomplish all of its goals.

c.    Identify and explain two social online protocols, other than meeting legal obligations, that should be followed on the youth group's website.

They should set up an Acceptable User Policy which members must agree to before they can use the site's features. The AUP should specify:

• no spamming of members
• no abusive language
• no commercial promotion
• no misuse of shared resources
• no SHOUTING or flaming or trolling
• in the forum, do not start a new discussion topic as a reply to a post on a different topic
• never use another member's username or password
• etc

4 marks - 2 x 4 lines

Question 6

G Petto has been making puppets and toys for his family and friends for many years. His nephew Paul believes that he can create a website to help his uncle sell custom-made puppets and toys online.

G Petto - get it? Geppetto? The carver of Pinnocchio? Puppet maker? ROFL.

a.    List two different items of data that customers using the website would need to provide to successfully have the toys purchased and delivered.

• Name
• Address
• Credit card, direct debit, or Paypal information
• Probably also a registered username and password

2 marks

Is this really a year 12 level question?

b.   Explain why Paul should use a text box and not a drop-down list for the requirements of the custom-made puppets.

Because they are custom-made items, the number of possible requirements would be impossible to define in advance and put in a limited list. The textbox allows any type of requirement to be entered by the customer.

2 marks - 5 lines

c.    Recommend one technique to validate numeric customer data entered into the website. Justify your answer.

• range check - to ensure it lies within reasonable values
• existence check - to ensure vital data is entered at all
• type check - to make sure the number is in fact a valid number

2 marks - 5 lines

An awkward question, I thought. Asking students to give an example would have been far more informative than bland and non-specific validation theory.

Paul is developing a database to manage the data and information for his uncle's business. He has included a Customer table and a Toys table in the database.

d.   Complete the data types for each table.

2 marks

Explain how the CustomerlD and ToylD fields will enhance the effectiveness of retrieving information.

By uniquely identifying customers and toys in the tables, they avoid the problems of accidentally choosing the wrong record (e.g. two customers with the same name).

2 marks - 7 lines

f.    Draw an entity-relationship (ER) diagram to represent the tables shown in part d.

3 marks - the box filled 33% of the page

Drawing an entire diagram, let alone an ERD in its first year in the study design, is not playing fair in an exam, I reckon.

Question 7

Pete's Bathroom and Kitchen Equipment has been a successful business for the last four years. Pete has three sales staff working for him. He wants to analyse the sales figures and pay each staff member a $100 bonus when they sell more than $5000 worth of bathroom or kitchen equipment in a month.

Describe how Pete can use either a spreadsheet or a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) to create formatted reports that show

• the best selling item each month over a 6-month period
• staff bonuses calculated monthly over a 6-month period.

Your answer should include specific functions for manipulating data, and selection of appropriate test data. Indicate with a tick one software type your answer will refer to.

Spreadsheet

1. The best selling item each month over a 6 month period

In one report? That's not easy! You'd need to somehow group all sales by month, calculate a sales total for each item in that month, then plot that item's sales in a chart. But it's not easy to do...

How is the data stored? Is it a raw list of transactions with each row containing item ID, sale date and sale amount?

• In an empty column you extract the month from the date with =MONTH(Saledate) to get a number (1=January, 2=February).
• Create a filter on the 'month' column and select the month you're interested in.
• Use =SUMIF(items,1,salesamounts) to get the sales total for item 1, a similar formula for item 2 etc. That would give the total sales for each item in each month.
• Use the MAX( ) function to find the highest sales value for all items that month.
• Use the INDEX( ) function to extract the item number corresponding to that maximum sales value.
• Copy the value, item and month to another part of the spreadsheet and create a chart of the items' sales figures.

That's pretty unreasonable. Perhaps they want a pivot table? Do they want a line graph showing the monthly sales of each item on separate lines? That would still require grouping the monthly sales figures. Or am I overthinking it? Is there a bleedin' obvious method I've missed?

2. Bonuses calculated monthly over a 6 month period

The basic formula to see if someone gets a bonus would be

=IF(salestotal>5000,100,0)

where salestotal for a salesperson would be calculated by

=SUMIF(salespersonID,n,sales)

where n is the staff person's ID and sales is the column contain sales figures for the month in question.

Test data should include total monthly sales figures adding up to $4999, $5000 and $5001 to test that the bonus is awarded only for $5001.

Relational Database Management System

1. Best selling items by month

• In a table there should be fields for SalespersonID, salesDate (date type), SaleAmount (number or currency). This solution applies to Filemaker Pro.
• Sort the tranaction records by month, then by item.
• Create a summary field defined as SUM of SALES. This will add all records' sales fields in the group of records defined by the sorting order.
• Create a subsummary part when sorted by month, and another subsummary part when sorted by item.
• In the item subsummary part, put the summary field.
• You can also put the field in in the month subsummary part, to show the monthly total sales.
• This layout will show all sales, sorted by month. Within each month, records are sorted by item, and at the end of each item's records is a line showing the total sales for that item.
• At the end of each month's records, the monthly sales total appears.

2. Sales bonuses

• In another layout similar to the one above, create summary fields for SUM of SALES.
• Create subsummary parts when sorted by month, then another when sorted by StaffID. Set them up as described above.
• Create a new calculated field called BonusAmount with the formula
• IF(salestotal>5000,100,0)
• Put this field in the StaffID subsummary part, format it to show currency ($ with 2 decimal places, right justified) and it will show whether each staff member gets a bonus or not.

It's interesting how much quicker it is to do this in a database. In the exam, I certainly would have chosen the database option. I am still having trouble working out how to do it elegantly in a spreadsheet. The sorting, grouping and filtering is too much for my brain. It's either a bad question, or I'm really missing something.

8 marks - 18 lines

Question 8

After some problems with the theft of patient data by dishonest employees, a Victorian hospital has proposed new policies for all staff. These include a new procedure stating that all emails coming in to and going out from the hospital's network are available for managers to read. Many employees are upset by this proposed change.

a.    Explain one legal obligation the hospital has regarding patient data. State the relevant Act.

Under the Privacy Act 1988 (also the Health Records Act 2001 - either one will do):

• They must keep the data safe from unauthorised access, loss or damage.
• They must ensure it's accurate and up to date.
• They must not use it for any other purpose than that for which it was originally collected.
• They may not send it to another organisation overseas.
• They must publish a privacy policy stating what data they collect and how it's used.

They're the main national privacy principles worth mentioning

2 marks - 4 lines

b.   Discuss possible consequences for the hospital if the new procedure is implemented despite the negative feedback from employees.

• Resentment by staff, perhaps leading to absenteeism, lowered productivity, staff loss through resignation.
• Staff using unauthorised and unmonitored email services.
• Hostility towards management and reduced staff morale.

2 marks - 4 lines

c. The hospital decided to implement the new policy. A manager is checking the emails when he reads that one staff member is planning to take a sick day and go to the beach. The manager is faced with an ethical dilemma. Explain what the manager should consider before deciding whether to talk to the employee.

This knowledge was gained accidentally when trying to solve the completely different problem of data theft. The manager has to consider whether it is morally more right to punish the staff using this 'fruit of the poisoned tree' information, or whether whether the tainted information should be used for the benefit of the organisation. Not using it respects the staff member's privacy but hurts the hospital, and vice versa.

2 marks - 4 lines

d.   Recommend an alternative procedure the hospital could follow to reduce data theft.

• Publish a code of ethics which staff must formally sign up to before they are allowed to resume work.
• Educate staff about the contents of, and reasons for the code.
• Set up a decision support framework to guide management in deciding how to behave in different circumstances when the code is breached.
• Establish appropriate sanctions for violations of the code.

3 marks - 6 lines

Question 9

Visiting lecturers give lectures to students at colleges across the state. The data used to manage the lectures is shown below as spreadsheets as well as database tables.

Spreadsheet  - Lecture sheet

Spreadsheet  - Feedback sheet

OR

Database  - Lecture table

Indicate with a tick one software type your answers will refer to.

• Spreadsheet
• Relational Database Management System

a.    Describe how the lecture data could be manipulated to make it easier for lecturers to see where they are timetabled.

Spreadsheet:

Sort the Lecture Sheet by the ID_Lecturer column so a lecturer's lectures are grouped.

Or create a filter on the Lecture sheet to show only one lecturer's classes on demand.

RDBMS:

Sort the Lecture table's records by the ID_Lecturer field

Or use a find/query to show only one lecturer's classes in the Lectures table.

2 marks - 4 lines

b.    Explain how all lectures and colleges for lecturer BALR can be listed.

Spreadsheet:

On the lecture sheet, create a filter on the Lecturer_ID field so lecturers can select only their ID and have only their lectures shown.

RDBMS:

Use a find or query to find and display the records where the ID_Lecturer field contents match the ID of the desired lecturer.

2 marks - 4 lines

c.    Describe a software technique used to determine the total number of students attending all of the lectures.

Spreadsheet:

On the Feedback sheet, cell E6 (or elsewhere) put the formula =SUM(E2:E5)

RDBMS:

In the feedback table, create a summary field (in Filemaker Pro) defined as SUM of NUMBERSTUDENTS. In the Feedback table, create a subsummary part when sorted by ID_report. In the subsummary part, put the summary field. After the list of session records, a line will show the total number of students across all of the records in the table.

2 marks - 4 lines

What - no relationship question? What's going on here?

Question 10

ABC Golf Club has a website which provides general information to visitors and members. The current site map is shown below.

ABC Golf Club would like to have a Members Only section for their website. This would allow members to book a game online, keep their personal details up to date and access an online space on the match results.

a.   Name one appropriate navigation link ABC Golf Club could use in a new Members Only section.

1 mark

A link back to the open part of the site.

A link to any of: the game booking page, personal details page, or match results page.

Is that all? Hardly seems worthy of a mark.

b.   On the site map below, indicate where the new web pages would be shown.

3 marks

c.    Describe a technique for protecting the personal information of members on the website.

• Logins and passwords are required.
• Passwords must be strong (7+ characters, mixed case, symbols, digits).
• SSL or TLS encryption of all pages sent/received in the members' area.

2 marks - 4 lines

The online space for members will allow them to discuss the rules of golf. Some members have suggested a wiki, others a forum. Would you recommend a forum or a wiki? Justify your answer. Indicate your preference with a tick.     

Forum

Wiki

The aim is to discuss, which a forum is very good at. It allows threaded question/answer/replies on different topics. A wiki, on the other hand, is meant as a tool to collate knowledge into a single document. It does not support discussion.

2 marks - 3 lines

Draw a mock-up of the home page of ABC Golf Club including access to the new Members Only section.

3 marks - half a page box provided.

The homepage would want these things:

• big, bold headings; smaller body text
• an attractive logo
• a picture relevant to the club
• a navbar with links to 'About Us', 'Golf' and 'Membership', plus a new link to 'Members Login' (the login boxes could be on the homepage or member's login page)
• a privacy policy link (even though they don't have such a page, they need one)
• a link to the contacts page (to make it easy to find)
• subtle colours
• underlined links

Question 11

A team of seven biologists researching the eating habits and movements of koalas in a national park send descriptions, images and maps to each other and to head office while the biologists are working.

The team currently uses digital cameras to capture images and wireless laptops to input data and email attachments to head office. At the end of each day the data on each laptop is backed up to a removable hard disk carried in a backpack by one of the biologists.

If the biologists are not working in the same location, please explain how one of them will back up the data on each of the laptops. If they are all working in the same location, why do they need to send stuff to each other by wireless?

Head office has suggested that the biologists use cloud computing to back up their data as it is collected.

a.    Explain how this suggestion could improve the timeliness of their data.

Because the data is stored centrally as it's entered, it's immediately available to each of the biologies and head office as soon as it's required.

2 marks

b.    State a criterion for evaluating the communication of image data to the cloud.

• Speed
• Accuracy
• Security
• Cost

1 mark

The biologists are worried that criminals will intercept their data and use it to trap koalas for illegal zoos.

c.    Recommend equipment to prevent criminal access to the data as it is communicated.

Encrypt the data before it's sent (e.g. with Pretty Good Privacy which uses RSA public key encryption)

Use a cloud host which supports SSL or TLS connections.

Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) box to securely connect to the cloud host.

2 marks

Overall - a bit too easy.

Not enough on database relationships.

A very difficult "top selling item each month over 6 months" question.