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Basic Information Concepts: According To Wikipedia

1) Information is interpreted data that provides meaning and value to a recipient. Data on its own is just raw facts and figures but becomes useful information when organized and structured in a particular context. 2) An information system gathers and disseminates data with the goal of providing useful information to users. Management information systems specifically analyze organizational data to produce information to aid management decision making. 3) Information can be classified by characteristics like strategic, tactical and operational or by application like planning, control, knowledge and functional information. How information is organized and interpreted determines whether it is useful for decision makers.

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61 views

Basic Information Concepts: According To Wikipedia

1) Information is interpreted data that provides meaning and value to a recipient. Data on its own is just raw facts and figures but becomes useful information when organized and structured in a particular context. 2) An information system gathers and disseminates data with the goal of providing useful information to users. Management information systems specifically analyze organizational data to produce information to aid management decision making. 3) Information can be classified by characteristics like strategic, tactical and operational or by application like planning, control, knowledge and functional information. How information is organized and interpreted determines whether it is useful for decision makers.

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مہر علی حیدر
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© © All Rights Reserved
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BASIC INFORMATION CONCEPTS

Overview

Information is meaningfully interpreted data. If I give you a number 0417654321, it


does not make any sense on its own. It is just raw data. However if I say Tel: 041-
7654321, it starts making sense. It becomes a telephone number. If I gather some
more data and record it meaningfully like:

Address: 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor


New York, NY 10118-3299 USA
Tel: +1-212-290-4700
Fax: +1-212-736-1300

It becomes very useful information - the address of New York office of Human Rights
Watch, a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization.

So from a system analyst's point of view information is a sequence of symbols that


can be construed to a useful message.

An Information System is a system that gathers data and disseminates information


with the sole purpose of providing information to its user.

Main object of an information system is to provide information to its users and


Information systems vary according to the type of users that use the system.

A Management Information System is an information system that evaluates,


analyzes and processes an organization's data to produce meaningful and useful
information on which the management will take right decision to ensure future growth
of the organization.

Information Definition

According to Wikipedia:

"Information can be recorded as signs, or transmitted as signals. Information is any


kind of event that affects the state of a dynamic system that can interpret the
information.

Conceptually, information is the message (utterance or expression) being conveyed.


Therefore, in a general sense, information is "Knowledge communicated or received
concerning a particular fact or circumstance". Information cannot be predicted and
resolves uncertainty."

Information Vs Data:

Data is unprocessed facts and figures. Plain collected data, as raw facts cannot help in
decision making. However, data is the raw material that is organized, structured and
interpreted to create useful information systems.

Data is defined as 'groups of nonrandom symbols in the form of text, images, voice
representing quantities, action and objects'.

Information is interpreted data; created from organized, structured and processed data
in a particular context.
According to Davis and Olson:

"Information is a data that has been processed into a form that is meaningful to
recipient and is of real or perceived value in the current or the prospective action
or decision of recipient."

Information, Knowledge & Business Intelligence

Professor Ray R. Larson of the School of Information at the University of California,


Berkeley provides an Information Hierarchy, which is:

 Data - The raw material of information

 Information - Data organized and presented by someone

 Knowledge - Information read, heard, or seen, and understood

 Wisdom - Distilled and integrated knowledge and understanding

Scott Andrews' explains Information Continuum as follows:

 Data - A Fact or a piece of information, or a series thereof

 Information - Knowledge discerned from data

 Business Intelligence - Information Management pertaining to an organization's


policy or decision-making, particularly when tied to strategic or operational
objectives

Information /data Collection Techniques

The most popular data collection techniques include:

 Surveys: A questionnaires is prepared to collect the data from the field.

 Secondary data sources or archival data: data is collected through old records,
magazines, company website etc.

 Objective measures or tests: An experimental test was conducted on the subject


and data was collected.

 Interviews: In which data is collected by the system analyst by following a


rigid procedure and collecting the answers to a set of pre-conceived questions
through personal interviews.

CLASSIFICATION OF INFORMATION

Information can be classified in a number of ways; this will give two of the most
important ways to classify information:

Classification by Characteristic
Based on Anthony's classification of Management, information used in business for
decision making is generally categorized into three types:

 Strategic Information: strategic information is concerned with long term


policy decisions that defines the objectives of a business and checks how well
these objectives are met. For example, acquiring a new plant, a new product,
diversification of business etc. comes under strategic information.

 Tactical Information: tactical information is concerned with the information


needed for exercising control over business resources, like budgeting, quality
control, service level, inventory level, productivity level etc.

 Operational Information: operational information is concerned with


plant/business level information and is used to ensure proper conduction of
specific operational tasks as planned/intended. Various operator specific,
machine specific and shift specific jobs for quality control checks comes under
this category.

Classification by Application

In terms of applications, information can be categorized as:

 Planning Information: these are information needed for establishing standard


norms and specifications in an organization. This information is used in
strategic, tactical and operation planning of any activity. Examples of such
information are time standards, design standards.

 Control Information: This information is needed for establishing control over


all business activities through feedback mechanism. This information is used
for controlling attainment, nature and utilization important processes in a
system. When such information reflects a deviation from the established
standards, the system should induce a decision or an action leading to control.

 Knowledge Information: knowledge is defined as "information about


information". Knowledge information is acquired through experience and
learning and collected from archival data and research studies.

 Organizational Information: Organizational information deals with an


organization's environment, culture in the light of its objectives. Karl Weick's
Organizational Information Theory emphasizes that an organization reduce
equivocality or uncertainty by collecting, managing and using these
information prudently. This information is used by everybody in the
organization; examples of such information are employee and payroll
information.

 Functional/ Operational Information: This is operation specific information.


For example, daily schedules in a manufacturing plant that refers to the detailed
assignment of jobs to machines or machines to operators. In a service oriented
business, it would be the duty roster of various personnel. This information is
mostly internal to the organization.

 Database Information: Database information construes large quantities of


information that has multiple use and application. Such information is stored,
retrieved and managed to create databases. For example, material specification
or supplier information is stored for multiple users.

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