[Year 12 Its] IS Exam initial thoughts

[Kevork Krozian]

Hi Folks,

     With Basil as the system designer and Manuel as the Systems Analyst and Polly as the programmer employed by Manuel, and Sybil as the hotel manager for the Hotel Torquay I am thinking the exam committee were using reruns of Fawlty Towers to pad out the wee hours as they were working on the case study to inflict on the students this year. A pity most students would not be contemporaries of this genre ....... que ???
 
   More seriously, a good exam that will clearly separate the high end of performance. There were a few questions that would have stressed different apects of the course to varying levels of depth  -- but aren't there every year  ?  I am still going through the exam but on an initial reading a few questions jump out for comment :


           Section A Q11 - I wonder how many teachers would have taught Project Management to this level of detail ?? Rather unexpected and I would think a little unfair when no Outcome requires any Project Management analysis . More an IPM question. 
            
           Section A Q14 -  A very broad security question. 3 marks sounds like 3 strategies.  Does this include protection against key logging programs installed on customer machines that reports back to a hacker ? or are we talking about specific direct access to a bank's system without using on line banking details of a customer ? 
There are many steps a bank can take to help protect itself and its customers from firewalls to requiring users to regularly change login details. However, one of the weakest links is "social engineering" where customers are manipulated into revealing information under the guise of security checks or some other required procedure to ensure security of their accounts. 
  An interesting aside is that with many European banks there is a requirement to log on using what is known as a Level 3 security. This is a 2 step process where firstly STATIC authentication information is entered eg. Username and password. Thereafter the system there generates a 4 or 6 or 8 digit code to which a response is required from the customer. The customer can be given a device ( like a calculator or PDA ) to generate the correct numerical response ( another 4 or 6 or 8 digit code ). Only when this response is correct is the customer allowed to proceed. Also, each transaction or movement of money in a banking session also requires another authentication with this device. The advantage of this is that every session is then a DYNAMIC process where the same system generated code and customer response is NEVER the same thus thwarting key logging programs.  I hope that was not too confusing and since I discussed this very issue with my class, I hope the examiners do know and understand this system .......

 
         Section B --  Q 9 - a  little hard as there are different types of ROMs from very slow to very fast. Hopefully the examiners are expecting only the very fast variety to be discussed. I expect the 2 advantages are speed ( faster ) and non erasable unlike a hard drive - handy for a small program. However I caution, the slowest ROM access speeds are 200ms compared to a slow hard drive speed of 30 ms.

    
          Section B Q 11 - was that last item in the table meant to read " The speed of a guest booking into the hotel must be INCREASED by 30% on average " ?    or the waiting time must be DECREASED ?

          Section B Q12 - Component 3 has to be a switch. Component 2 should be a router BUT a server could sit there with 2 network cards and do the job of a router , therefore it has to be accepted as a valid answer. Finally, Component 1 has to be a modem.

          Section B Q 13   -- good question. Fair errors in algorithm  (only prints total if booking is off-peak and calculates an extra day for cost of booking ).

      So my verdict is a very good exam. Thanks to all the hard working examiners and the many hours of work they carried out. I hope the questions noted above allow room for 
     What do others think ?


Best Wishes



Kevork Krozian
IT Manager , Forest Hill College
k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
Mobile: 0419 356 034