1. What technology is used for storing information on bank cheques?
MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition). Cheques are encoded with magnetic ink characters. Magnetic ink is used because it is (i) machine readable and (ii) because it is hard to forge.
2. What is an Input device? What are some reasons for using automated data capture technology.
An input device is hardware that provides data for processing. A barcode reader, keyboard, scanner and microphone are all input devices. We use automated data capture because of : (i) reduces time required to handle input (ii) increases the accuracy of input (iii) increases the productivity of workers by taking away tasks that are more easily and effectively carried out by machines (iv) increases the profit of a business using such technology (v) enables a business to offer new services (differentiate) hence helping a business to gain more customers than competitors.
3. What is OMR? Provide an example of how this technology is used.
Optical Mark Recognition. This technology is used to read marks on preprinted forms. It is used for reading multi choice questions for examinations and for election results. It can be used for any situation where all that is required is that boxes are ticked rather than a user having to write text.
4. What is OCR? Provide an example of how this technology is used.
Optical Character Recognition. OCR is used to process a scanned image and produce a correctly formatted mixture of text and graphics. For instance, we can scan a page from a book and then use OCR to convert the scanned page into a word processing document that we can edit.
5. What is MICR? Provide an example of how this technology is used?
Refer to the answer to question 1.
6. What are three pieces of information often stored on a bar code?
(i) What is stored depends entirely on what industrial standard for bar codes is being used. Are we talking about a book (ISBN), a grocery item (UPC) or some other type of barcode used for a specific application? The Uniform Code Council (USA) includes the following information on a barcode (i) A beginning code number (101) that indicates where to start reading the barcode from (ii) a code for product type (iii) manufacturer identification number (iv) centre separation bars (spacing) (v) a five digit product identification number (vi) check digit (vii) and end code to indicate the end of the bar code.
7. What is an ISBN and what is a UPC?
International Standard Book Number. A number, usually stored in a bar code label, used to uniquely identify a book. Universal Product Codes uniquely identify products for sale.
8. What is an advantage of using bar codes?
If bar codes are used then we can use automated data capture with all the advantages that that brings when inputting data for processing.
9. What is a disadvantage of using bar codes?
The cost of changing a business or organization over so that it can use bar codes can be very high.
10. What is a magnetic strip used for?
A magnetic strip is a strip of magnetized media on the back of a credit card or debit card. It is used for identification purposes and can be read by such devices as the card reader in an ATM machine. The magnetic strip contains a very small amount of information about the card holder. It is a security feature of a credit card.
11. Name an input device that is often used for input when using a Computer Aided Design program
A digitiser can be useful to a person using a CAD program. A stylus can be moved over a paper diagram and movements of the stylus are reflected on the screen of an attached computer. An operator could trace over a map and this would then appear on the screen in digital form.
12. What is a graphics tablet used for?
A graphics tablet is a pressure sensitive layer under an LCD screen that is used for digitizing user input. A user can use the tablet to "hand write" information and this will then be digitized and converted into text inside the computer. Powerful OCR software can be trained to "read" hand writing (no matter how bad) as long as the writer is consistent.
13. What is speech recognition? What uses can you think of for speech recognition.
Speech recognition is the ability of a computer system to respond accurately to verbal commands. There is an increasing number of applications for this type of technology ranging from controlling household appliances to turning down the music in your car without the need to remove hands from the steering wheel. Some handphones are voice activated. In industry voice recognition is useful when an operator is busy using their hands for something else. A dentist might control equipment with verbal commands rather than have to put sterile fingers on a dirty keyboard and then back in the mouth of the poor patient!
14. What is the difference between a hand held scanner and a flatbed scanner? Put images of each in your answer.
A hand held scanner is passed over an image. These small scanners are portable and with the addition of wireless communications become very useful for doing things like scanning product codes in a large warehouse. Flatbed scanners are larger than hand held scanners. They have a glass plate upon which we place the document to be scanned. The scanned image is generally of a very high quality when a flatbed scanner is used. This is not the case with a hand held scanner.
15. What would be the best system to use when reading data from a printed document? How successful were you when you tried using OCR software.
We would use a flatbed scanner to read an image of a document into a file that can be saved on a disk. The file can then be used as input for OCR processing.
