Flensburg P: Personlig databehandling - Per Flensburgs hemsida

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Per Flensburg: Personlig databehandling Level 4: Fundamental theories Contributions to such theories are given below in section 7.5.3 7.5.1 Unverified hypotheses Since my investigation was an explanatory one, I was not able to provide any verified hypotheses. But one goal of such an investigation is to provide hypotheses for later verification. The following hypotheses are the most important in a greater set I think have chances of being verified, though I for the moment can't say anything about how to do that. • In order to do personal data processing, knowledge of both the tools and the underlying data model and model of the work are needed. • In personal data processing you use mainly about 10-15 different commands. • In personal data processing you use a set of tools and not a single one. • Education in personal data processing is through trail-and-error at the initiativ of the user. • The single manager starts with personal data processing quite by chance. • Conflicts with the data department are not necessary to occur. • An Information Center or similar is almost necessary for starting personal data processing in big companies. • The great benefits with personal data processing are not the rationalisation of routine work, it is through new possibilities to computations, collections and presentations. • People working with personal data processing are middle management in great organizations, top management in small organizations. • The work load increases at personal data processing, but the users think the quality of work increase, both in content and in typography. • Manuals för application generators are seen as messy and hard to overview. On the contrary, on-line help facilities are greatly appreciated. • Sending messages via the data system is much appreciated. • The protection against unauthorized access is not much developed in personal data processing. • It is possible for a group of users to construct a rather complex data base in the third normal form during 3-4 hours with a certain amount of handholding. 198
Per Flensburg: Personlig databehandling • It is not possible to use traditional requirements specification in personal data processing. Prototyping might on the contrary be quite useful. 7.5.2 Contributions to fundamental theories A common objective of a data system is to ensure that certain work is done according to the formulated explicit rules. This is achieved simply by letting the computer do the work. A systems analyst described it this way: "Why give the human a chance of doing a job wrong, when a computer can do it right?" I call this type of data system a control data system. In such a system the humans in the organization have to serve the computer with data in a certain format in order to make the computer do the work. The users are servants of the machine. There are, however, systems where this is not the case. I call these support systems. The purpose of such a system is to help the user to do his or her job. Thus the user is the complete master of the system. Decision support systems are one special case of support systems. The functions of a support system are many. During empirical investigation I have found the following ones: • To extract reports from common, or at least partly common, databases (Query languages, report generators). • To produce statistical diagrams according to extracted or computed data (Graphical packages). • To compute new figures from old ones according to an understood model of the organisation (Spreadsheet, decision generators). • To retrieve information from other data banks or from an individual's own data collection (Data base systems). The common database has strength, but also a weakness. A strength, since it is possible for people to communicate and exchange information, a weakness since the interpretation of the data representing the information is determined in advance by designers of the data base. It is thus a control data system. The common database might act as a gatekeeper, and not be able to provide the desired information if it has not been anticipated by the data base designers. A support system is a highly individual system. Using a common database perhaps violates the possibilities for the individual person to treat the data according to his or her own apprehension of reality. A common database implies a data model with certain information objects, properties of these objects and dependencies between them. Systems analysts and not the users of the data mostly build this model. Important tacit knowledge might disappear in this process. Alternative ways of building such models are suggested by some researchers (e g Lyytinen & Goldkuhl, 1983). 199
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Flensburg P: Personlig databehandling - Per Flensburgs hemsida

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