ISM

Information System Management

Dr. Ruchi Singhal

 Information and Related Concepts

DATA AND INFORMATION – MEANING

• Data are simply facts or figures that are not currently being used in a
decision-making process and usually take the form of historical records
that are recorded and filed without any intent to retrieve for decision
making.
• Data are the raw facts about a business and business transactions.
• Data is a set of raw facts and figures which is unprocessed. It doesn't have
meaning in itself, i.e., the facts are not put in a relational context to
provide meaning. It can be in any form, i.e., symbols, numerals, pictures
etc
Information and Related Concepts
 Information and Related Concepts

• When data are processed, interpreted, organized, structured or presented

so as to make them meaningful or useful, they are called information.
Information provides context for data.
• Information is processed data which helps in decision making and/or
facilitates communication within an organization. More often, information
provides answers to 'who', 'what', 'where' and ‘when’ questions.
• For example, a list of dates - data -is meaningless without the information
• a computer operator may enter 36.41, which is data, because do not know
why or in what context it is being used. However this number then
appears on a bill to show that you owe, if company £36.41 for goods
received then this data has changed into information, because it has
acquired a context (it's a bill) and meaning.
 Information and Related Concepts

• 'Data’ and ‘information’ are intricately tied together, whether one is

recognizing them as two separate words or using them interchangeably, as
is common today. Whether they are used interchangeably depends
somewhat on the usage of "data" - its context and grammar.
• Knowledge is information gathered over a period of time and enhanced by
experience which helps in judgment and decision making. It normally
provides answers to 'how' questions.
• Knowledge is what we know. Think of this as the map of the World people
build inside their brains. Like a physical map, it helps to know where things
are - but it contains more than that. It also contains beliefs and
expectations. "If I do this, I will probably get that." Crucially, brain links all
these things together into a giant network of ideas, memories,
predictions, beliefs, etc. It is from this "map" that people base their
decisions, not the real world itself. The brains constantly update this map
from the signals coming through our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin
 Information and Related Concepts

• The knowledge can 't currently be stored in anything other than a brain,
because a brain connects it all together. Everything is inter-connected in
the brain. Computers are not artificial brains. They don't understand what
S, they are processing and can't make independent decisions based upon
what you tell them. There are two sources that the brain uses to build this
knowledge information and data.
• Let us take an example "5000" is data but if we add feet in it i.e. "5000
feet" it becomes information. If we keep on adding elements, it will reach
the higher level of intelligence hierarchy as shown in the diagram:
Information and Related Concepts
 Information and Related Concepts

• CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION
• Good information is that which is used and which creates value.
Experience and research shows that good information has numerous
qualities. Good information is relevant for its purpose, sufficiently accurate
for its purpose, complete enough for the problem, reliable and targeted to
the right person. It is also communicated in time for its purpose, contains
the right level of detail and is communicated by an appropriate channel,
i.e. one that is understandable to the user.
• Further details of these characteristics related to organizational
information for decision-making follows.
 Information and Related Concepts

1. Availability/accessibility
• Information should be easy to obtain or access. Information kept in book
of some good kind example is only available and easy to access if you have
the book to hand. A good example of availability is telephone directory, as
every home has one for its local area. It is probably the first place you look
for a local number. But nobody keeps the whole country's telephone
books for numbers further afield you probably phone a directory enquiry
number . For business premises, say for a hotel in London, you would
probably use the Internet.
• Businesses used to keep customer details on a card-index System at the
customer's branch. If the customer visited a different branch a telephone
call would be needed to check details. Now, with centralized computer
systems, businesses like banks and building societies can access any
customer's data from any branch.
 Information and Related Concepts

2. Accuracy
• Information needs to be accurate enough for the use to which it is going
to be put. To obtain information that is 100% accurate is usually unrealistic
as it is likely to be too expensive to produce on time. The degree of
accuracy depends upon the circumstances. At operational levels
information may need to be accurate to the nearest penny - on a
supermarket till receipt, for example. At tactical level department heads
may see weekly summaries correct to the nearest £100, whereas at
strategic level directors may look at comparing stores' performances over
several months to the nearest £100,000 per month.
• Accuracy is important. As an example, if government statistics based on
the last census wrongly show an increase in births within an area, plans
may be made to build schools and construction companies may invest in
new housing developments. In these cases any investment may not be
recouped.
 Information and Related Concepts

3. Reliability or objectivity
• Reliability deals with the truth of information or the objectivity with which
it is presented. You can only really use information confidently if you are
sure of its reliability and objectivity.
• When researching for an essay in any subject, we might make straight for
the library to find a suitable book. We are reasonably confident that the
information found in a book, especially one that the library has purchased,
is reliable and (in the case of factual information) objective. The book has
been written and the author's name is usually printed for all to see. The
publisher should have employed an editor and an expert in the field to
edit the book and question any factual doubts they may have. In short,
much time and energy goes into publishing a book and for that reason we
can be reasonably confident that the information is reliable and objective.
 Information and Related Concepts

Compare that to finding information on the Internet where anybody can

unedited and unverified material and 'publish' it on the web. Unless you
who the author is, or a reputable university or government agency backs
up the research, then you cannot be sure that the information is reliable.
Some Internet websites are like vanity publishing, where anyone can a
book and pay certain (vanity) publishers to publish it.
 Information and Related Concepts

4. Relevance/appropriateness
• Information should be relevant to the purpose for which it is required. It
must be suitable. What is relevant for one manager may not be relevant
for another. The user will become frustrated if information contains data
irrelevant to the task in hand.
For example, a market research company may give information on users'
perceptions of the quality of a product. This is not relevant for the
manager who wants to know opinions on relative prices of the product
and its rivals. The information gained would not be relevant to the
purpose.
 Information and Related Concepts

5. Completeness
• Information should contain all the details required by the user. Otherwise,
it may not be useful as the basis for making a decision. For example, if an
organization is supplied with information regarding the costs of supplying
a fleet of cars for the sales force, and servicing and maintenance costs are
not included, then a costing based on the information supplied will be
considerably underestimated.
• Ideally all the information needed for a particular decision should be
available. However, this rarely happens; good information is often
incomplete. To meet all the needs of the situation, you often have to
collect it from a variety of sources.
 Information and Related Concepts

6. Level of detail/ Conciseness/ Summarization

• Information should be in a form that is short enough to allow for its
examination and use. There should be no extraneous information.
Information should be aggregated in accordance with user's needs. Lower
level managers tend to need information that is highly detailed. As
information flows upward through the organization to top management it
becomes more summarized.
• For example, it is very common practice to summarise financial data and
present this information, both in the form of figures and by using a chart
or graph. We would say that the graph is more concise than the tables of
figures as there is little or no extraneous information in the graph or chart.
Clearly there is a trade-offbetween level of detail and conciseness.
 Information and Related Concepts

7. Presentation
• The presentation of information is important to the user. Information can
be more easily assimilated if it is aesthetically pleasing. For example, a
marketing report that includes graphs of statistics will be more concise as
well as more aesthetically pleasing to the users within the organization.
Many organizations use presentation software and show summary
information via a data projector. These presentations have usually been
well thought out to be visually attractive and to convey the correct
amount of detail.
8. Timing
• Information must be on time for the purpose for which it is required.
Information received too late will be irrelevant. For example, if you receive
a brochure from a theatre and notice there was a concert by your favorite
band yesterday, then the information is too late to be of use.
 Information and Related Concepts

9. Validity
• The validity of the information relates to the purpose of the information.
In other words, it is answer to the question: does the information meet
the purpose of decision making for which it is being collected?
10. Consistency
• The information is termed as inconsistent if it is derived from data which
does not have a consistent pattern of period. The information must relate
to a consistent base or pattern. For example, you have collected the
information on the quality of production for the last twelve months to fix
the production norms. In that twelve months period, the factory had
worked in variable shifts, i.e., for some period in single shift and for the
other period in double shift and for the remaining period in three shifts.
The production statistics of the twelve months for comparison would be
inconsistent due to the variable shift production. The consistency can be
brought in by rationalizing the data to per shift production per month.
 Information and Related Concepts

11. Age
• If the information is old, it may not be of use in the present context. The
currency of the information makes all the difference to the users. If the
information is old, then it doesn't meet any characteristics of the
information, viz. the update of knowledge, the element of surprise and
the reduction of uncertainty and the representation.
 Information and Related Concepts

Context DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

Data DATA AND INFORMATION
Information

Meaning Data is raw, unorganized When data is processed,

facts that need to be
processed. Data can be
something simple and see
mingly random and
useless until it is organized.
organized, structured or
presented in a given
context so as to make it useful, it is
called
information.

Etymology 'Data" comes from a "Information" is an older word

singular Latin word,
datum, which originally
meant "something given."
Its early usage dates back
to the 1600s. Over time
"data" has become the
plural of datum.
that dates back to the 1300s and
has Old French and Middle
English origins. It is derived from
word "informare". It has always
referred to "the act of informing"
usually in regard to education,
instruction, or other knowledge
communication.
 Information and Related Concepts

Context DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

Data DATA AND INFORMATION
Information
Refers To Raw Data Analysed Data

Description Qualitative or Quantitative A group of data which carries

Variables that can be used to meaning.
make ideas or conclusions.

Dependence It does not depend on It relies on Data

Information
In the form Of Numbers, Letters or a set of Ideas and references.
characters.
Collected Via Measurements, Experiments Linking Data and making
etc. inferences.
Input/Output Data is used as input in Information is output of the
computer computer.
 Information and Related Concepts

Context DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

Data DATA AND INFORMATION
Information
Refers To Raw Data Analysed Data

Represented In A structure , such as tabular Language, ideas and thoughts

data, data tree, a data graph based on the data.
etc.

Analysis Not analysed Always analysed

Meaning Carries no specific meaning Carries logical meaning that has

Decision Making Data does not help in
decision making.
Measuring Unit Measured in Bits and Bytes
been assigned by interpreting
data.
Information helps in decision
making.
Measured in meaningful units
like time, quantity etc.