COMPUTER AWARENESS FOR MANAGERS

LESSON 5:
DATA PROCESSING AND REPRESENTATION

Objective But data is usually not useful until subjected to a value added
The objective of this lesson is to give an insight into process where
• What is data • Its form is aggregated, manipulated and organized
• The hierarchy of data • Its contents are analyzed and evaluated
• Finding the data in a file • It is placed in a proper context for a human user.
• The data processing and its concepts Data is typically manipulated by activities such as calculating,
• Types of Data processing and Number Processing comparing, sorting, classifying and summarizing. These
activities organize, analyze, and manipulate data and convert
Introduction data into information for users. These quality of any data
We know that data is the basic requirement of whatever you stored in an information system must also be maintained by a
start doing. Don’t believe this. Then let us start seeing with continual process of correcting and updating activities.
some examples. Suppose you want to go to market. But for
what purpose you are going to market. Definitely to purchase Data Hierarchy
something. But what? Definitely something of your need. This Listed here in ascending order of complexity are the compo-
something is the data, which you were in need of before going. nents of the data hierarchy in an information system.
Now the name of the market where you are going is again data. • Bit: The term is bit is short form for binary digit. It can
The vehicle with which you are going is again data. So we can say assume either of two possible states and therefore can
that data is everywhere. represent either 0 or 1. In secondary storage a bit is used to
So we are in need to know the various types of data. represent data through positive or negative polarity of an
electrical charge on a magnetic recording medium such as
Now how to store this data and how to process data are still to
tape or disk. Semi conductor storage is usually used for
be known. So lets start with these contents.
primary storage. In semiconductor storage a bit is
Data represented by an electrical circuit that is either conducting
Data is a collection of numbers, characters, alphabets, and or not conducting electricity.
special symbols etc. that can be processed to produce some • Byte: The ability to represent only binary digits bits in a
meaningful information. The word data is a plural of datum, computer system is not sufficient for business information
though data is commonly used to represent both the singular processing. Numeric and alphabetic characters as well as
form and plural form. Now before proceeding further lets have wide variety of special characters such as dollar signs,
a look to the definition of data. question marks, and quotation marks, must be stored. In a
“Data is commonly defined as raw facts or observations” computer system a character of information is called a byte.
These facts can be from physical processes, business transac- A byte of information is stored by using several bits in
tions, surveys, investigations etc. For example if a person went specified combination called bit patterns. One widely used
to mount Everest then when he will return back, he will bit pattern for personal computers and data
provide lot of data for the next person going to the mount communications is the American Standard Code for
Everest. Data are the objective measurements of the attributes Information Interchange (ASCII). ASCII uses seven bits
of entities such as place, people, things, and events. These to represent one character. Each 1 or 0 corresponds to a
measurements are usually represented by symbols such as single bit.
numbers and words or by codes composed of a mixture of • Field or Item: The next level in the data hierarchy is a field
numerical, alphabetical, and other characters. However, data or Item of data. A field or item of data is one or more
commonly takes a variety of forms including numeric data, text, bytes that contain data about an attribute of an entity in
voice and images. the information system. An entity in a payroll system is an
At this point I will like to tell you that data and information are individual employee. Attributes are the employee’s name,
often used interchangeably. But it is helpful to view data as raw pay rate, and so on. The basic pay is a field or item of data.
material. But this data when processed then it got converted • Record: A record is a collection of fields relating to a
into finished information product. specific entity. For example, a payroll record contains fields
of data relating to a specific employee. An analogy can be
made between a computer-based record and an individual
folder in a manual file. A folder in a payroll file may contain
much the same information as a record in a computer-
based payroll file. The field that identifies a record from all

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other records in a file is the record key. For example, the record is located. The concept is similar to that of the index
COMPUTER AWARENESS FOR MANAGERS

record key in a payroll record is usually the employee’s found at the end of book, which specifies the page where
provident fund number or social security number because each item of information can be located. The disk index
it is different for each employee. indicates the locations (i.e. track and sector) of each record
• File: A file is a collection of related records. For example, and where a particular record can be found. A key data field
the collection of payroll records for all employees in a in each record must be indicated by the programmer, which
company is a payroll file. The concept of a computer file is is used by the computer as the basis for establishing,
very similar to a manual file in a filing cabinet. address information in the index.
• Data Base: A database consists of all the files of an For example, if a payroll file is stored on a disk. To access any
organization, structured and integrated to facilitate update particular record, the user need only supply a particular key data
of the files and retrieval of information from them. The field, such as EMPLOYEE CODE or whatever has been
term has often been used rather loosely. Technically a defined at the time of programming. The computer then looks
database consists of those files that are part of a data base up the corresponding disk location for that particular record in
management system. However, database is often used to the index and seeks that record directly.
refer to all the files of an organization. . Introduction to Data Processing
All this is called as data hierarchy because databases are com- Let us examine the steps involved in data processing. You know
posed of files, files are composed of records, records are that data as such is the term given to all the facts that record an
composed of filed, fields composed of data bytes, and finally event, an activity or a situation. As isolated facts and figures may
data bytes are a group of bits. This is very well a hierarchical not be meaningful in themselves, they can be processed in
structure. Figure below displays the diagram of this hierarchy. various specific ways in order to give them a useful meaning.
The data hierarchy Data Processing embraces the techniques of sorting, relating,
Computers today interpreting and computing items of data in order to provide
meaningful and useful information. It will be evident that to
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arrive at certain figures, the data must be processed according to
Figure 1.9 predefined procedures and rules arranged in a specific order. It
½ page diagram would for instance, be pointless to add the number of lengths
of timber to the number of hours worked, the answer would
Data Access Methods be meaningless. The term Data Processing System relates to an
There are basically three types of file organization, which allow assembly of those steps in logical order.
sequential access to the data in a file and which allow direct access In simple terms, the steps by which data can be converted into
to the data in a file. useful information, which can be usable by either by an
• Sequential: With a sequential access file, records must be individual or by any number of users, can be labeled as data
read in the same order as they were written to the storage processing mechanism. For data processing, following steps are
media. The computer begins searching for a record in the generally followed:
file and then sequentially examining the next record and so • Preparation of Source Document: The first step is to
on until the required record is located. Certain storage obtain the relevant facts and figures and to set these out on
media magnetic tape will allow only sequential access to source documents, for example, in a population survey, the
data. In order for a record to be found on a reel of name, address, age, sex, occupation, etc., must be first
magnetic tape, the tape must be read sequentially , written down on to a survey sheet or some other
beginning with the first record. document. These documents may be so designed that
• Direct Access File: Direct - access file on the other hand, a information is recorded in the required order.
direct-access file allows immediate direct access to individual • Input of Data: Once the data has been extracted from the
records in a file. There are several techniques used to source document, it must then be transferred into some
accomplish direct-access file organization. Magnetic disks, form suitable for data entry into the computer so that
such as floppy disks, are by far the most commonly used processing can take place. The method will depend upon
devices for storing direct-access files. Direct access file the input media and the devices.
organization must be used whenever the application
• Manipulation of Data: Information, inputs for
requires immediate access to individual records. It is widely
processing may have to be classified or sorted. It is this
used today whenever the computer configuration includes
form of operation, or data manipulation, rather than pure
CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) terminals that display
computation, with which data processing is mainly
management information on demand.
concerned. For example, in the population survey we may
• Indexed Sequential Access File: The most common want to classify people by occupation or by age. We may
technique for accessing disk records directly is with the use wish to sort lists on alphabetical order or in any other
of an index. During the creation of records, the computer order. We may require employees to be grouped by
uses file-handling programmed routines to establish an departments for a pay roll program. All these forms of
index on the disk itself. The index indicates where each data manipulation will produce results, which can be
organized in the form of summaries.
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• Output of Information: The objective of results or Data Representation

COMPUTER AWARENESS FOR MANAGERS

summaries is to provide meaningful information to We know that data is usually combination of numbers,
Managers, Accountants, etc., and careful consideration, characters and special characters. This data has to be worked
therefore, should be given to the presentation of results so upon by the computer as well as it has to be ported from place
that they can be understandable easily and quickly. to place, i.e. data has to flow from place to place within the
• Data Storage: In most cases, the results of processing are computer hardware. As the computer is a electronic device and it
retained for future use or reference. In many cases, it may works with electronic pulses, this data or information should be
be necessary after updating, to compare the latest figures in the form which is machine readable and understandable, for
with the previous figures, perhaps, over different periods this reason, data has to be represented in the form of electronic
of time. This means that data processing installations pulses.
require a great deal of secondary storage space to store all The data has to be converted into electronic pulses and each
the programs and the different sets of data. pulse should be identified with a code. For these reasons, the
data is converted into numeric format first, by using world wide
Types of Data Processing
standard called ASCII i.e. American standard code for Informa-
Basically there are two types of data processing
tion Interchange, where each and every character, special character
Batch Processing and keystrokes have numerical equivalent. We will have a detail
With batch processing, changes and queries to file are stored for discussion on ASCII codes in the codes section. Thus using
a period of time, and then a processing run is made periodically this equivalent, the data can be interchanged into numeric
to update the file and to produce responses to the queries. format. For the numeric conversion we use number systems,
Batch runs can be made on a scheduled basis, such as daily, each number system has a radix or base, which indicates the
weekly, or-monthly, or they can be made on an as required basis. number of digits in that number system. Lets have a quick look
Examples of batch processing include generation of mark- at number systems.
sheets of students. Mark-sheets and results of school Number Systems
examinations are given to students only at the end of an In any number system there is an ordered set of symbols
academic year. So, a programmer can develop a program for this known as digit with rules defined for performing arithmetic
and the results can he printed at the required time. operations like addition, multiplication etc. A collection of these
Online or Immediate Processing digits makes a number which in general has two parts
In immediate processing, transactions are processed to update 1. Integer part
the file immediately or shortly after a real-world event occurs. 2. Fractional part
Information processing applications that use immediate
processing are often called real time application. A real time 3.
application can immediately capture data about ongoing events These two parts are separated by a point (.).
or processes and provide the information necessary to manage (N)b = d n-1d n-2d n-3———————d 1d 0. d -1d –2d –3————————-d – m
them. An airline-reservation system is an example of a real time Where
application.
N = A number
Real time systems must have real time files that are updated
immediately after the event occurs. Consequently, at any point in b = radix or base of the number system
time, the data in real time files should accurately reflect the status n = number of digits in integer portion
of the real world variables they represent. For example, when a m = number of digits in fractional portion
customer reserves a seat on an airline flight, the reservations d n-1 = most significant digit (msd)
agent keys in that fact and the inventory of non reserved seats
on the flight is immediately changed to reflect one less available d –m = least significant digit (lsd)
seat. Immediate processing requires direct-access files, since Let’s understand it:
immediate processing with sequential files would be impractical You are quite familiar with the decimal number system that is
because of the time required to search for individual records. the number system we are using in our daily life.
Batch processing, on the other hand, can occur with either Here base is 10 as it has 10 digits (0…9)
sequential or direct access files.
Suppose you are having a number
Examples of immediate processing or interactive processing
include air traffic and banking. In air traffic, as the flying speed N = 1 2 3. 8 9
increases control decisions have to be taken more quickly. d 2 d 1d 0. d -1d -2
Therefore, interactive processing is the only suitable system for where d represents the digits
air traffic control. In banking, where a customer is at the counter The base is 10
and the time to update his bank account will naturally take more
time if done by human, so a computer can give full updated n is 3
details of the customer’s account within seconds. For this, a m is 2
customer’ is given the wanted information mostly by interactive
processing.

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Now I think you got the basic criteria to distinguish the one
COMPUTER AWARENESS FOR MANAGERS

Types of Data Processing

number system from another. Now based on this lets come to
the types of number system • Batch Processing
• Online or immediate Processing
Types of Number Systems
Basically there are 4 types of number system. They are as • Time Sharing Systems
follows • Remote Job entry
• Binary number system
• Decimal number system
• Octal number system
• Hexadecimal number system
Now lets see the characteristics of these number systems
Number Base or Symbols or digits Example
system radix (b) used (d)
Binary 2 0,1 1011.11
System Types of Number Systems
Octal System 8 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 3567.25 • Binary number system
Decimal 10 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 3947.89 • Decimal number system
System
Hexadecimal 16 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 3FA9.9A • Octal number system
System A, B, C, D, E, F • Hexadecimal number system
Review
Data
• Definition of data
• Data hierarchy
• Bits
• Bytes
• Fields
• Records
• File
• Database

Data Processing
• Preparation of source document
• Input of data
• Manipulation of data
• Output of information
• Data storage

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