[Informatics] Informatics exam - C7

[Garth, Lucas A]

Hi Mark
I’m still here – I think that the aim of the question is to explain how Mary’s proposal benefits the business as part of its information management strategy.
Mary’s proposal could decrease risks through the use of off-site cloud storage (provided it was with a reputable provider) and only if the current database server is unreliable.  Otherwise surely InformUs should have both a local and cloud-based copy of the data if the aim is to decrease risk.

A benefit of reducing risk in Mary’s proposal is that the business will be able to have more ready access to their data and be less likely to have a situation of catastrophic data loss, a situation where meaningful data critical to the business is lost without hope or restoration.

However, I think there is a fair case to show that Mary’s proposal would INCREASE business risk, because there is a great deal of benefit to be gained from real-time conversations with people (even if not explicitly face to face) over a survey conducted over the internet, due to the ability to ascertain emotion in the voice of the participants, and the ability to ask additional follow-up questions for clarification.  InformUS runs the clear business risk of being more efficient in data collection, but clearly less effective.  If InformUS’ core business is in the quality of their data, then I’d suggest this is a clear risk that needs evaluating.

The election of Donald Trump to US President despite often automated opinion polls regularly favouring Hillary Clinton would be a real-life example that confirms this viewpoint.

As for the writing of the question, I hope the assessors reward both of your answers because there was clear ambiguity.

I would like to know if this exam has been keenly reviewed by EAL teachers to check whether questions can be worded in a more clear manner and not to be written in the passive voice (just state what you need, don’t beat around the bush).  I went through this process by giving my Year 11 exam this year to two EAL teachers in my school and was able to have a number of questions rewritten to improve clarity, which had the effect of improving the standard of answers from ALL of my students, not just my EALs.

Lucas
Lalor SC

From: informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Tuesday, 29 November 2016 12:43 PM
To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Informatics] Informatics exam - C7

Anyone? Anyone at all?

You can email me if you're too shy to answer in front of the class.

Regards,
Mark

On 28 November 2016 at 12:23, Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>> wrote:
This question is confusing me.

Mary, the marketing manager, has come up with an idea to help cut costs. She has proposed that her online marketing department use email to contact InformUs' participants rather than the telemarketing department calling participants individually.
Under Mary's plan, participants would complete a survey online and the results would be saved to the cloud rather than on the database on InformUs' file server.

Explain one benefit of minimising risk for the InformUs information management strategy that Mary's proposal would have.

What does that question actually mean?

It is asking:

- How will Mary's proposal minimise risk to the strategy?

or (what the actual words are saying):

- What is a benefit of minimising risk?

To which the answer is ... "One benefit of minimising risk for the information management strategy is that the strategy will face fewer risks."

I don't know how students interpreted the question, and I feel sorry for the ESL kids trying to work out what on earth it means.

I tried the old trick of reading the examiner's mind and working out what the mangled question was probably trying to say, but I honestly can't do it this time.

How did you guys read this question?

--

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>
http://vceit.com



--

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>
http://vceit.com

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