The article adeptly begins with a provision of the authors’ professional information. This serves to put the reader at a level of conceptualizing what they are reading. It provides an introduction of the authors to the reader of the article. Other information about the authors is provided at the end of the article.
The purpose of the discussion is to address businesses and especially the people who are in managerial positions. They are brought to understand key issues like for instance definition of terms and the total description of what they entail. When such basic information is given, it forms the basic foundation of the intended meaning to be delivered.
The research is well written that is the grammar used is standard and up to the level of the reader and the information is logically presented. The stream of data given is comprehensible and the vocabulary used by the writers is well-chosen and appropriate. Neutrality is maintained by the choice of terms that do not favor any side as better than the other. In this case, there is no room for providing biased information.
Though the information presented is systematic, the authors have not been able to state how to apply the data. They only give information in general that is, describing what should be done.
It is noted that the sample of the study on data warehouses is given by introducing basic details about it. This topic is selected based on the need to have managerial decision-making. Four basic themes are explored in detail and they are; integration, implementation, intelligence, and innovation. Selection is important because it outlines the major areas of weakness that are established and how to manage them.
In the study given, no factors or variables are outlined that indicate the impact of the outcome of the research. In addition, the methods of measuring results are stated but they are not explained explicitly. In such a case, one is not sure whether the expected results will occur.
The writers have used several illustrations to support their work. For instance, there is an extract on data warehousing lateral architecture. It gives an overview of the responsibilities and research challenges found in the four data warehouse architecture layers. Illustrations have advantages in that it is easy to interpret the information given. They are also necessary because they help make meaning clearer and a large chunk of information is compressed into manageable data.
Many citations have been quoted at the end of the research paper. They are quite a large number in that they fill a whole page. They date as early as 1960 to the year 2004. I think it’s uneconomical to have some of these references because they are obsolete. Current bibliographic material should be used because they give up-to-date information. Citations are an important part of research to support the writer’s arguments.
As one reads through the article, you come across several terms that have been defined. The definitions are specific and the authors have tried to expound on them. This allows for an easier understanding of content in the various contexts as applied. Terms like business intelligence have been described in such a way that they are specific to the meanings intended.
In summary, the authors have done detailed research and with improvement from weaknesses pointed out, they should continue doing more research in their areas of specialization.
References
Berndt, D., Hevner, A., and Studnicki, J., (2003). “The CATCH Data Warehouse: Support for Community Health Care Decision Making,” Decision Support Systems, Vol. 35, pp. 367-384.
Inmon, W. H., (2002). Building the Data Warehouse, 3rd ed., New York: Wiley.
Kimball, R. and Ross, M., (2002).The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling (Second Edition), New York: Wiley.
Power, D., (2003). “Categorizing Decision Support Systems: A Multidimensional Approach, in volume Decision Making Support Systems: Achievements, Trends And Challenges for New Decade” Idea Group Publishing.