Introduction to Information Systems - Lesson 1 prt 1

1:  Introduction to Information Systems

Overview: 

Information Systems exist in our environment with or without our knowledge. Sometimes, we do not recognize a particular thing as an information system and they appear as a good or service in the neighborhood. For example, a bus timetable or train timetable which you must know if you are planning to use the public transport service to travel regularly or occasionally. These timetables provide information which is very useful to a particular local community and they are some form of output of a particular system maintained in a bus or railway company. It is important to mention that computers are not essential to produce these outputs (i.e. bus/train timetables) or maintain such a system (i.e. a transport system) in an organization. However, if computers are used in a system, they will definitely add value to the system.  

Question: How computers could add a big value to a system maintained by a transport company?   

Answer: One example would be time taken to produce a report which presents the schedule and actual transport offered by the company during a particular period of a day. The management may want to see this report several times a day but may not be possible if the company maintains a manual way of recording their services and producing an output. In fact, it will be hard to get a daily report in the early morning when the company starts the business. A clerk who works in this transport company, may request another half a day to produce the report by analyzing records of previous day.  

In the module of Information Systems and Technologies, we will study details of Information Systems and how information technology is used to make these information systems an effective to tool for all those people who are interested in it.   

NOTE: Those who are interested in an information system are identified as stakeholders of an information system. 

In this section, we will learn the basic components of information systems, types of available information systems, the role of information systems in business, the importance of studying about information systems and IS careers. 

1.1 Information Concepts 

In this sub-section, we will discuss basic concepts behind the process of converting data into information.  It is data which will be converted to information by carrying out several activities to make them useful in the decision making.  However, very often the meaning of these two terms causes confusion. 

1.1.1 Data vs. Information 

1.1.1.1  What is Data? 

It is a set of facts which describes a particular thing in the real world. It may represent a single value or multiple values. For example, marks of a particular subject of a student in a class represent a single value data. At the same time, such a mark may exist with marks of other students who took that subject. In order to add the value for these marks, it may be necessary to access data of other facts such as students’ name, index number and year of examination etc.  

More examples of Data in different contexts:

• In a company: employee’s name, number of hours worked in a week, inventory part numbers, sales orders 
• In environment: Rainfall data, temperature data

1.1.1.2  What is Information ? 

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish data and information. Information is a kind of data which will be very useful for decision making in different contexts. Simply, it has more value than data to understand a particular context.  For example, a teacher may want to know how many students have obtained marks above 50 in a particular subject. He/she may also want to know the student who obtained the highest mark in the classroom. In such a situation, the teacher has to analyze data about student marks together with their identification numbers.   

More examples of Information in different contexts: 

In a company: monthly salary of an individual in the salary slip, total sales in a particular month of the company, etc.  

In environment: Monthly report of rainfall, temperature analysis report of each part of the country during a particular year.  

In personal life: Total expenses in a particular month, 

1.1.1.3  Process of converting from data to information 

Data can be converted into information by carrying out some series of activities on data. These activities involve some mathematical operations and/or tabulation operation. "Process" describes this series of activities.   

Information can be considered as an artifact in a particular context similar to other artifacts. These artifacts are useful to carry out some other activities. For example (E.g. A), furniture is built using wood as raw material. The wood is produced using timber in trees. Interestingly, timber cannot be directly used to produce furniture and it must be converted to intermediate state called wood. This process requires specific knowledge which describes rules, guidelines and procedures

Figure 1.1: Conversion of Data to Information

Knowledge for the Process:

According to the example mentioned above (E.g. A), rules and procedures define        knowledge required for the process.  Knowledge is the body of rules, guidelines and procedures used to select, organize and manipulate data to make it suitable for a specific task. Before selecting some data to be processed, they could be examined to find out their relevance or validity. Such examination is a prefix of the process. In order to improve the value of information, the output of processed data will be organized with respect to some relationship to improve its value

1.1.1.4  Types of Data and Information:  

Data and information can be categorized based on their representation for the human processing. Table 1.1 summarizes the four main types of data together with examples.   

Table 1.1

1.1.2 The characteristics of Valuable Information

The value of information depends on their usefulness in the decision making process. This value can be judged based on a set of features that can be identified in the information. They are as follows:

  

Accurate: Accurate information is error free. Errors could occur due to different reasons. If there is some problem in the knowledge required for the process, output (information) may have errors. At the same time, if input (data) contains some errors, the output will not be accurate. This is known as garbage in garbage out (GIGO).   

Complete: Complete information contains all the important facts to make clear decisions. For example, an investment report may present all possible benefits and profits without details of cost that will be required.   

Economical: Information should also be relatively economical. Decision makers must always balance the value of information with the cost of producing it. For example, if collecting the data takes lots of resources and time, it is not economical.   

Flexible: Flexible information can be used for a variety of purposes. For example, Information on how much inventory is on hand for a particular part can be for  - a sales representative to determine the sales plan - a production manager to identify possible constraints for the production - a financial executive to calculate the current assets figures of inventory   

Reliable: Reliability of information describes the correctness of the information. If there are any problems with respect to correctness of data, it will definitely affect the reliability of information. For example, if the reliability of data collection method is poor, it will directly affect the information that will be produced.   For example, prediction of prices based on rumors (not past variance information), is not reliable.   

Relevant: The relevance of information is determined based on the usefulness of information with respect to the decision making process. For example (E.g.A), a drop in timber prices cannot be used to predict the price fluctuation in computers.   

Simple:  Simplicity in the representation of information is also a very useful feature utilized to improve the usability of information in the decision making process. Too many information could affect the simplicity in the presentation. Therefore, it is better to provide interactive customization to determine simplicity. Providing too many information is known as information overloading.   

Timeliness: Decisions should be made at the right time to achieve effectiveness. Timely information refers to providing information at the right time. For example, if you can get to know today’s weather forecast before you leave home, you can decide whether to bring an umbrella or not.   

Verifiable: If it is possible to confirm the reliability of the information about its correctness (validate), it becomes verifiable Information. If you are not sure about a particular information (say foreign news) heard from a radio channel, you can search about it using the Internet.    Accessible: Accurate information plays a major role in the decision making process of any organization. Therefore it is essential to be able to access the correct/ relevant information by authorized personnel at the right time to meet their needs.   

Secure: the value of information could be lost due to issues such as unauthorized user access or intentionally damaging its existence. Therefore, it is important to make steps to protect valuable data and information. For example, use of passwords to protect data and information.   

It is important to note that the values of these quality attributes may vary from one piece of information to another. It affects their usefulness in the decision making process. For example, at the Stock Exchange, information about market forecast may not be very accurate but if the timeliness is poor, the total value of information will be very poor.   

we will talk about the value of the information in the next blog post
click here for the next blog - Introduction to information System prt 2