AQA ICT Info 3 Pre Release June 2011

Original post by l0livia

Hey everyone, i just found something that might be useful for the pre relase in terms of sustainable procurement
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/keydocs/gpphandbook_en.pdf

thanks, that's brilliant :smile:

Reply 225

Jasmin11

6

Original post by thairshan

no problem ill be updating it soon with questions on each topic so you can test yourself and see whether you know everything and btw should have mentioned its my blog i wanted to share my notes so people could have a better understanding of each topic.

Could you maybe put the answers up as well so we know we're answering them correctly? Thanks :smile:

Reply 226

Original post by Jasmin11

Could you maybe put the answers up as well so we know we're answering them correctly? Thanks :smile:

no probz will do

Reply 227

does anyone know the break down in marks from part A and B? is it 50/50?

Reply 228

Original post by Matt416

+1

you can get mind maps on the essential ict book there really good ill probably put a copy of it on my blog will update it later on today

the mind maps covers each topic and the essential key terms

so yh heres the link check it out later on today

Reply 229

Jasmin11

6

Does anyone know why you should use packages rather than bespoke???

Reply 230

http://a2icthelp.blogspot.com/2011/06/green-ict-pre-release.html

Reply 231

Original post by Kaskade

Okay, so I have got some points to support the questions on the analysis but i've only done source A so far:

• What are the arguments for reducing energy?
- 2% of carbon emissions come from manufacture and use of ICT
- Being sustainable saves money. If an organisation is paying high energy costs, this affects the cost of the product going out to the customer as essentially customer sales will need to cover costs of the business.
- A third of employees in the UK don't switch of their PC's when they leave the office costing the UK £23 million in electricity.
- 60% of departments are using less than half their available server space.
• How can organisations alter their ICT strategy to make the environment better?
- Encouraging customers to do online billing to reduce paper costs.
- Automated Power Managment - software solutions are available that will shut down PC's automatically. These can be implemented in organisations.
- Extending equipment Lifecycle - by extending the period of time you replace PC's you reduce the organisations carbon footpring. Repairing computers can have financial benefits.
- Equipment recycling and reusing. When equipment reaches the end of its life, organisations can donate their equipment, ensuring they are adhering to the data protection act.
- Reducing travel - through audio/videoconferencing. Saves money and carbon emissions.
- Encourage working at home. Intranets, mobile phones and laptops make this possible.
- Monitor departments carbon footprint and make the provide evidence of it.
• What are the benefits to an organisation when reducing their carbon footprint?
- FINANCIAL - carbon footprint reduction commitment (CRC) sets out the risks to organisations if they fail to reduce carbon emissions. Financial implications can result in thousands, even millions of pounds who fail to meet standards.
- RECOGNITIONS - with the CRC publishing league tables, the media will have access to the performance information of all organisations. As such, the ones that are doing best will benefit from recognition of achievement and publicity.
- COST SAVINGS - as well as reducing carbon emissions, organisations will save money by reducing their energy bills.
REPUTATIONS - many companies want to know that the organisation they are dealing with are green. By reducing their carbon footprint, they encourage supporters of the green movement to make contracts with the company.
• How can ICT change their policies to ensure they are being green?
- Toner and ink cartridges are to be refilled instead of thrown away.
- Computers and monitors need to be switched off when not in use.
- Remove screen savers - these can consume more energy than they save, set monitor to turn off.
- Set printers to greyscale. Restrict the amount of paper that can be printed.
- Email usage - use emails rather than paper where possible.
- Outsourcing - ensure subcontractors have an ICT policyy for the environment that ensures their energy costs and carbon emissions are low.
- Procurment policies - check suppliers green credentials. Take into account hardware packaging. Take into account power consumption. Energy star is a label found on many computers that ensures hardware is energy efficient.
• New Hardware Considerations.
- Toner and ink cartridges are to be refilled instead of thrown away.
- Procurment policies - check suppliers green credentials. Take into account hardware packaging. Take into account power consumption. Energy star is a label found on many computers that ensures hardware is energy efficient.
- Extend Equipment lifecycle where possible.
- Printers - if you buy 10 laserjet printers, you can cannibalise parts from one printer rather than throwing it away.
- Ensure outsourced equipment has an environmentally friendly policy.
- RAM - before throwing away computers that are slow, increase the RAM as this increases the speed.

Any help on the ones I can't answer...? Getting on to source B in a bit. If there's any questions I need to add/any points that i need to add can you let me know? thanks :smile:

• Advantages of using packages as opposed to bespoke?
HELP?
• Benefits in enhancing legacy systems as opposed to new systems?
HELP?

The advantage of the bespoke approach is that the retailer gets a system truly customised to their needs, and is able to conceal from the marketplace any intellectual property it develops. Some disadvantages are that it is very expensive and have a high probability of project failure rarely meeting the original goals on time. Even when it is a success the expense of maintenance and the inflexibility can make this an undesirable victory - the organisation foregoes the vast amount of technical innovation in the marketplace available to specialist software vendors.

Reply 232

got more here as well

Advantages & disadvantages of a bespoke software solution

Advantages

The cost of the development is spread across the estate of stores. Unit cost reduces with increasing size of chain.

No need to adjust operating model in stores to conform to restraints of Generic EPoS system or Off-the-shelf system.

Withhold IP of business model from competitors.

Disadvantages

More expensive to develop comparable functionality to that available with Generic EPoS or Off-the-shelf systems.

Difficulty in accurately scoping the system requirements which often drives up the ultimate cost of the project , over what is initially planned for.

Expensive to maintain the constant evolution in the requirements of enterprise and retail store management systems.

Inflexible system once development is complete.

Risk
High probability of project failure, or project cost overruns.
Political pressures or strategic realignments within the organisation often threaten project timelines or development initiatives.

Flexibility
Can be difficult and expensive to modify the system once the initial development is completed.
Even if the desire is there, the architecture initially used may prevent future development of features and modules not scoped during initial project review, or as a result of evolution in optical sector requirements.

Reply 233

Companies spend a lot of money on software systems and, to get a return on that investment, the software must be usable for a number of years. The lifetime of software systems is very variable but many large systems remain in use for more than 10 years.
Some organisations still rely on software systems that are more than 20 years old. Many of these old systems are still business-critical. That is, the business relies on the services provided by the software and any failure of these services would have a serious effect on the day-to-day running of the business. These old systems have been given the name legacy systems.
These legacy systems are not, of course, the systems that were originally delivered. External and internal factors, such as the state of the national and international economies, changing markets, changing laws, management changes and structural reorganisation, mean that businesses undergo continual change.
These changes generate new or modified software requirements so all useful software systems inevitably change as the business changes. Therefore, legacy systems incorporate a large number of changes which have been made over many years. Many different people have been involved in making these changes and it is unusual for any one person to have a complete understanding of the system.
Businesses regularly replace their equipment and machinery with modern systems. However, scrapping legacy systems and replacing them with more modern software involves significant business risk.

Reply 234

Original post by Jasmin11

Does anyone know why you should use packages rather than bespoke???

I dunno, I was trying to work it out myself... This is all I got: I think it's because when using bespoke systems, you are tied down to using out of date hardware and such. When the bespoke system was made for you, it was made specifically for a certain type of printer, certain type of operating system and so on. Therefore, when you have to change your old bespoke system because "business or legislative changes" are required, you have to throw away all that hardware that you had (that might still be in perfect order) because you need to get a new system and so buy a load more hardware. However if you had application system, it is the application designer's job to update there system so it suits legislative changes and so your hardware will still work fine on it...

But then there's so many ways that could be wrong haha, i just hope a question doesn't come up on that :frown:

Reply 235

sam6666

anyone know what "purging storage" is?
its the only thing in pre-release material i don't get.

Reply 236

Original post by thairshan

Companies spend a lot of money on software systems and, to get a return on that investment, the software must be usable for a number of years. The lifetime of software systems is very variable but many large systems remain in use for more than 10 years.
Some organisations still rely on software systems that are more than 20 years old. Many of these old systems are still business-critical. That is, the business relies on the services provided by the software and any failure of these services would have a serious effect on the day-to-day running of the business. These old systems have been given the name legacy systems.
These legacy systems are not, of course, the systems that were originally delivered. External and internal factors, such as the state of the national and international economies, changing markets, changing laws, management changes and structural reorganisation, mean that businesses undergo continual change.
These changes generate new or modified software requirements so all useful software systems inevitably change as the business changes. Therefore, legacy systems incorporate a large number of changes which have been made over many years. Many different people have been involved in making these changes and it is unusual for any one person to have a complete understanding of the system.
Businesses regularly replace their equipment and machinery with modern systems. However, scrapping legacy systems and replacing them with more modern software involves significant business risk.

Thanks, that's great :smile:

Although I'm trying to link it to the environment? How does using application systems become more environmentally friendly than the bespoke systems? That's what the material is trying to get at :/ any ideas?

Reply 237

kp_10

Anyone have any ideas what the 20 marker will be on? Emerging technologies came up last year i think, so i doubt will come up again!

Reply 238