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System analyst
This is a specialist who translates business problems and requirements into information
requirements and systems, acting as liaisons between the information systems department and
the rest of the organization.
System development life cycle
This is a traditional methodology for developing an information system that partitions the
systems development process into formal stages that must be completed sequentially with a
very formal division of labour between the end users and the information systems specialists.
Tools that may be used by the analyst to model the systems requirements:
1. Data flow diagrams (DFDs)
These are visual tools that show the various processing steps and data flow through a
system. DFDs are constructed using four major components:
o External entities
These are sources of data input to the system or the destinations of data from the
system. The standard notation for an external entity is a square.
o Data stores
They represent the stores of data within the system. Examples are computer files or
databases.
o Process
These are events that change the state of data fed to them. The standard notation for
a process is a circle.
o Data flows
They are movements of data from one component to the other. The standard
notation for a data flow is a unidirectional, labeled arrow
2.System flowcharts
These are diagrammatic representations that illustrate the sequence of operations
performed to get the solution to a problem. They are useful in understanding the logic of
complicated and length problems.
3.Entity relationship models (ERMs)
They are detailed logical representations of the data for an organization or for a business
area. They are expressed in terms of the entities in the business area, the relationships
among the entities and the attributes of the entities and their relationships. An entity is an
object of interest (i.e. a thing or concept) about which data is to be stored. An attribute is a
property or characteristic of an entity.
4.Entity life history diagrams (ELHs)
These are diagrammatic representations of the lives of entities from their creation to
deletion. The life of an entity is expressed as the permitted sequence of events that can
cause an entity to change. An event may be thought of as whatever brings a process into
action to change entities.
5.Data dictionary
This is a central storehouse of data about an information systems data and data
transformations. Data dictionaries are necessary because it is impossible to fully describe all
components of DFDs and E-R models. Data dictionaries describe in detail data flows, data
stores, external entities, data structures, system processes and data elements.
gregorymasila answered the question on November 21, 2017 at 19:57
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