LBSC 690 Section 0201 Midterm Exam                  October 22, 1997 
 
Read each question carefully.  The maximum possible score on this exam
is 100 and the minimum possible score is -8.  You may use your own
personal copy of Oakman (including any notes made in your own
handwriting), an electronic calculator, and the Excel, Access, FTP,
telnet and calculator software on your teaching theater computer.
 
You may not display or execute any file on the teaching theater
computer or on any other computer that existed before taking this test
except those that you are asked to manipulate in a question on this
test.  In particular, you may not refer to any electronic class notes
or to the class web page, and you may not use Word, Powerpoint, or any
web browser.  It is a violation of academic integrity to provide
information about this exam directly or indirectly to any student in
LBSC 690 who has not yet completed the midterm exam, regardless of
which section they are taking.
 
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1. [20 pts total] Short Answer 
 
You work in a mid-size library and your supervisor has asked you to
select an asyncronous communication system that would permit many
people to recommend books for your library to purchase and that would
allow other users to comment on those recommendations.
 
a) (10 pts) Identify a specific type (or types) of software that you
could use to accomplish this, and briefly describe how it would be
used.
 
b) (10 pts) Answer the same question as in part a) for a synchronous 
commmuncations system. 
 
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2. [20 pts total]  Stort Answer

Take a minute to study the Java application (program) at the end of
this question.
 
a) (5 pts) Identify one of the methods defined in the program by
giving the name of the method.
 
b) (10 pts) The program works (I tested it!).  Reproduce the expected
output from the program in your exam booklet.  State exactly what
should appear on the screen - each character that the program will
print should be in your answer.
 
c) (5 pts) Give one good reason why it would have been better to use
a spreadsheet than Java to perform this computation.
 
/** 
 *      Compute the overall score for LBSC 290
 */

class TestScore {

  public static void main(String[] args) {

    int score;
    TestScore test = new TestScore();


    score = test.computeScore(80, 10, 70, 40);
    System.out.println("The score is " + score);

  }

  private int computeScore(int hw1, int hw2, int exam1, int exam2) {

    double homeworkScore, examScore;

    if (hw1>hw2) {
      homeworkScore = hw1 * 0.25;
    } else {
      homeworkScore = hw2 * 0.25;
    }

    if (exam1 > exam2) {
      examScore = (exam1 * 0.5) + (exam2 * 0.25);
    } else {
      examScore = (exam1 * 0.25) + (exam2 * 0.5);
    }

    return (int) (homeworkScore + examScore);

  }

}
 
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3. [24 pts total] Multiple Choice (6 pt for each correct answer, -2 
for each incorrect answer) 
 
a) Information retrieval systems can be designed to find documents 
using which of the following techniques? 
	A) Boolean matching 
	B) Vector space similarity 
	C) Probabilitity ranking 
	D) All of the above 
 
b) Which of the following is NOT true of java 
	A) it can be used over the Internet 
	B) it can be run on many types of computers 
	C) it is optimized for database applications 
	D) it is an object oriented language
 
c) Which is typically the fastest way to get a 100 MB file that you
have just generated from your computer to one that is in a room down
the hall?
	A) CDROM
	B) Ethernet local area network (LAN)
	C) 28.8 kb/s modem 
	D) floppy disk
 
d) Which of the following is NOT true of spreadsheets 
	A) They can be used for computation 
	B) They can be used to generate well-designed reports 
	C) Several tables can be combined using a "join" operation
	D) They can be used for "what if" analysis
 
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4. [36 pts total] The TinyTots preschool needs to maintain a list of
students, the students home addresses, their home phone numbers, their
parents name, and their parents work numbers and information about the
class they are in. The executive committee for the school calls a
meeting to decide on how to do this.
 
At the meeting, one person noted that they used a spread sheet at home
to keep track of her daughter's girl scout cookie sales and that they
may want to do using the a simlar spreadsheet.
 
a) (5 pts) Give a reason why this may NOT be such a good idea. 
 
b) (5 pts) Give one reason why using a flat file may not be a good
idea either
 
Later, a graduate student from LBSC 690 comes and creates a home page
for each student with their color picture on it.  The school needs to
save as much disk space as possible so they do not want to save the
pictures in raw form.
 
 
c) (5 pts) What alternative do they have to storing the images in raw
form?
 
d) (5 pts) If there is an alternative, what type of representation 
should they use? 
 
 
After deciding on a relational database and entering all of the data,
one teacher of a 3 year olds class has decided to have a special
"Parents Day".  He has asked for a list of all of his students that
contained ONLY the each child's name, their parents name and their
parents work phone number.
 
 
e) (16 pts) Copy the tinytots.mdb and tinytots.ldb database files in
the n:share/class directory into your M: directory.  Using Microsoft
Access (on the tinytots.mdb file), use the necessary tables to
generate a query for Mr. Mills' class.  Save the database (including
your query) in your M: directory under the name exam.mdb
 
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