23-Ind-B4 Design of Information Systems · December 2017
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — December 2017 — 98-Ind-B4, Design of Information Systems. 3 hours; closed book, no calculator permitted. The exam comprises four parts: Part A (select 20 terms from the list given and explain each in a sentence or two, no more than 50 words, 2 marks each = 40 marks), Parts B and C (select 2 of 5 questions in each part, 11 marks each = 22 marks per part), and Part D (select 1 of 2 questions, 16 marks). Complete answers to every term and every question in all four parts follow below, not only the minimum selection a candidate would submit on exam day.
Reference texts: Laudon & Laudon, Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, 15th ed.; Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, 9th ed.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed over the internet: a user's browser sends an HTTP (or HTTPS) request for a specific resource, identified by a URL, to the web server responsible for that domain; the server processes the request — serving a static file directly or invoking application logic on an application server (Question 1, term 3) to generate the response dynamically — and returns the requested content, typically HTML augmented with CSS for presentation and JavaScript (term 4) for interactivity, which the browser then renders.
Every device on the internet is identified by a numeric IP address (IPv4, 32-bit, e.g., 192.0.2.1, or the newer IPv6, 128-bit, adopted as IPv4's limited address space is exhausted). Because numeric addresses are impractical for humans, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates a human-readable domain name (e.g., example.com) into the corresponding IP address through a hierarchical, distributed lookup: a root server directs the query to the correct top-level-domain server, which directs it to the domain's own authoritative name server, which returns the final IP address. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) then further specifies the protocol, domain, and path to one particular resource on that server.
The internet is a network of networks, interconnected via TCP/IP (Question 1, term 30): IP handles addressing and routing of individual packets across intermediate networks, while TCP handles reliable, ordered, error-checked delivery by breaking data into packets, tracking acknowledgements, and retransmitting anything lost. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connect end users and organizations to this network, and Internet Exchange Points allow different ISPs' networks to interconnect and exchange traffic directly rather than through a third party, keeping traffic between nearby networks fast and local.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) structures a page's content; CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) controls its visual presentation, separated from content so the same HTML can be restyled without being rewritten; JavaScript adds client-side interactivity and, via AJAX, lets a page fetch new data from a server and update itself without a full page reload. HTTPS layers TLS encryption over HTTP so data exchanged with the server — including passwords and payment details — cannot be read or altered in transit. Web services and APIs let one application programmatically consume another's functionality over the same HTTP infrastructure, which is how most modern web applications are actually assembled from many cooperating components rather than as one monolithic program.
