MIS 374 – Sample Mid-Term Exam Name ______________________________
Page 1
For each of the following questions complete your answer in the space provided. Do not
use additional paper. Complete sentences are not required, but clarity is important. Please
check to see that you have all 5 pages and 4 questions. When finished, fold the exam
lengthwise and write your name on the outside.
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Case Problem Background -- Overview
BookPlace, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of a major U.S. conglomerate that also
operates companies in publishing, consumer products, and entertainment. The three divisions of
BookPlace are Popular Books, Textbooks, and Rare Books. Our interest is the Rare Books
division, which buys and sells rare books and manuscripts, interacting with collectors throughout
the world. Within the Rare Books (RB) division is the acquisitions and sales (A/S) department,
which is managed by William Ellison. Acquisitions/Sales must perform several activities:
maintaining records of clients and client contacts, processing acquisitions and sales, maintaining
records of sources and current book inventory, and generating management reports.
Automating Rare Books.
Currently, the Rare Books division of BookPlace is an “Apple Lovers Haven;”the sales
and acquisition (A/S) clerks use Macs for web research, but all their bookkeeping is manual and
all data are maintained as paper records. As you can imagine, maintaining all these paper
records and processing sales and acquisitions using them are labor-intensive, time-consuming,
error-prone processes. Today processing a single order for just one book consumes
approximately two hours of staff time. William wants this reduced to 15 minutes or less.
William believes that, with better information, he can double the number of sales processed and
the sales revenue within one year. William has requested funding to develop an information
system to support sales and acquisition processing. Ted MacCromick, the president of
BookPlace, has allocated four months and $150,000 to the project and has hired a team of 3
consultants to perform the analysis, design, and implementation of a sales and acquisitions
processing system. The A/S clerks have no on-the-job computer experience and consider their
work to be highly specialized and not conducive to automation because personal relationships
with buyers and sellers are so important. President MacCormick has specified that the
consultants must deliver a system that can be maintained easily by the corporate information
systems staff of BookPlace and that the A/S clerks should be well trained on the system before
the consulting engagement ends in 8 months. (The other 2 divisions at BookPlace have been
automated for 2 decades.)
Current Rare Book Sales Processing -- Detail View from Interview with William Ellison
“Processing a sale requires the following activities. When a client submits an Intent to
Purchase, one of my clerks completes an invoice form in triplicate. First, the client’s address on
the Intent to Purchase is compared to the client’s record in the client file (if any) and updated if
necessary. The current address is entered on the sales invoice form. Then, an invoice number
and date are assigned to the invoice. Next, data about each book -- including book code, author,
title, publication date, edition, and selling price -- are entered by accessing the appropriate book
records from the book files. Next, the invoice subtotal, sales tax, and total are calculated. All
three copies of the invoice are then forwarded to Accounting. One of the clerks in Accounting
sends the white copy of the invoice to the client and files the yellow and pink copies in
Accounting’s accounts receivable folder. When the client submits payment along with the white
invoice copy, Accounting retrieves the pink and yellow copies from the accounts receivable file
and marks all three copies “Paid.” Accounting files the yellow invoice copy in its payments
folder and forwards the pink and white copies to A/S. An A/S clerk accesses the appropriate
book records, annotating the records to include the sales date and the name of the client who
purchased the book. The annotated notecard is then filed in the Books Sold card catalog
drawers. Finally, the clerk ships the white invoice copy and books to the client and files the pink
