SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Information comes from four different sources: These are:
- Internal information: This is information that comes from an organization own records. This could be its financial records, customers records, sales figures, and etc.
- External information: This is information that comes from outside an organization. It could be a newspaper article, government report or information obtained from market research
- Primary information: This is first-hand information which a business has gathered for its own use, by interviewing people or hand out questionnaires.
- Secondary information: This information is gathered from published sources, such as books, magazines, newspaper and the internet.
Information can be presented in a variety of different ways as follows;
- Written: This may be presented in the form of a letter, report,email,memo or a notice.
Benefits of written information are:
- You can refer back to it
- You can keep it as a record.
Oral: This information that is communicated by voice - from telephone calls, meetings, presentations, conversations and discussions.
Benefits of oral information are:
- You can get instant response.
- You can have any two way conversation.
CHARACTERISTICS OF VALUABLE INFORMATION
Relevance
The key component for information quality is whether the information addresses its customers needs. If not, that customer will find the information inadequate regardless of how well the information rates along other dimensions discussed below. This does not mean that irrelevant information to an information customer is of poor quality. It just indicates that the information is a member of a different information class much in the same way that a luxury car and a sports car are both members of different classes of auto mobiles. In some cases poor quality information may actually be quite good; what is needed is to educate the information's customers so they can understand it and use it.
Accuracy
Accurate information reflects the underlying reality. That quality information should be accurate seems obvious. In practice, information used for different purposes requires various levels of accuracy and it is even possible for information to be too accurate in the sense of being too precise.
Information inaccuracy and related problems occurs in many information systems. The problem is well known and is addressed by information systems professionals through the cycle from systems design to implementation to maintenance. Less well understood is that information can be too accurate when its degree of precision exceeds its customer's processing capability.This can increase information systems cost, become a drain on system credibility and even,through the confusion caused, result in misuse or abandonment.
Timeliness
Timely information is still current. Implicit in this definition is a dynamic process where new information arises to replace the old. Information has a cycle time which depends on how quickly new information can be processed and communicated to its customer.
Information timeliness goes hand in hand with information accuracy. The concept of what is timely is itself constantly changing and being redefined,due to changes in customer perceptions caused by technology and the competitive environment. Today,time based competition and the concomitant reduction in operations cycle times has fueled a demand for evergreen information.
Completeness
Incomplete information can lead its customer astray. An example of this is the old story of blind travelers encountering an elephant in the road with each, after examining a small section, coming to a different conclusion regarding the object's identity.However,complete information for one person may be incomplete for another. For example, the marketing vice president and the director of research and development for a pharmaceutical company may be both be interested in the clinical trials tests for a new drug, but each may require different levels of detail.
Just as information whose precision exceeds a customer's processing capability may be too accurate, information may also be too complete. The classic example is the attorney dumping boxes of material on an adversary's desk, knowing that it will be impossible to unearth the few relevant facts buried within. The danger in business, are information systems that generate so much information that customers cannot process it all in a timely fashion
Format
Information format refers to how the information is presented to the customer. Two components of information format are its underlying form and its context for interpretation,which is sometimes referred to as its frame.
The appropriate format for information depends on the information's customer and the information's use. For example, an accountant may prefer twenty pages of numbers to a graphical summary, but may insist of using only multi-color pie charts for his presentation to the senior vice president of sales.
The context with which we view information also is important. For example,when company benchmarks its performance against industry or functional world class leader, it seeks to give that information context. For years financial analysts have viewed information context,witness the focus on stock price performance over time,a portfolio manager performance relative to the S&P 500,or corporate performance versus that of the corporation industry.
Accessibility
Accessible information is information that can be obtained when needed. Accessibility depends on the customer and even the specific circumstances for that customer. For information quality to occur, timeliness and accessibility should complement each other. Timely information that is inaccessible or accessible information that is obsolete, cannot satisfy an information customer's needs.
Applications of information technology to customer services offer excellent examples of how firms can use quality in information accessibility to obtain competitive advantage witness 800 numbers for computer software and hardware firms, credit card providers and mutual funds.
Compatibility
To paraphrase a famous line, "no information is an island." Information quality lies not only in the quality of the information itself, but also in how it can be combined with other information and delivered to a customer. This often involves systems working together.
The proper information architecture enhances information quality by making the information suitable for enhanced uses. A quality architecture implies a dynamic structure that can grow with changing customer requirements. This is necessary when companies must leverage their information base to develop new products and services as well as optimize their production and management processes.
Security
Historically, information security has been a stepchild of the information technology revolution. Security often was either added on after information systems development was completed or ignored altogether. Two aspects of information security are protecting information from people (logical security) and protecting information from natural disasters (discovery planning). Logical security relies on logical barriers such as passwords, data encryption and transaction authentication, along with human vigilance. Disaster recovery planning involves protecting information and ensuring appropriate back-up and alternate processing procedures are in place.
The topic of information security has become increasingly visible in recent years. Indeed breaches of information security are a potential Achilles heel for the entire information technology revolution because information that is not secure cannot be trusted, and will not be used to its fullest potential.
Validity
Information has validity when it can be verified as being true and satisfying appropriate standards related to other dimensions such as accuracy,timeliness,completeness and security.The most common form of verification is auditing information, either as an ongoing practice or part of a special project. Auditing can uncover mistakes and is a accepted measure of formation quality. An obvious example is the corporate financial statement, which to be credible must be audited by an independent party: However, just as quality cannot be inspected into manufactured products, quality cannot be audited into information products.
Validity is a resultant rather than a causal dimension of information quality. Though validity may be high, other crucial dimensions may be low and overall, the information may be of poor quality. Ultimately, optimizing the design and ongoing operation of the human and technological information system is the road to information quality.
COST INCURRED TO OBTAIN INFORMATION
Every organization and business needs information in order to operate. Even if they collect,collate and produce the information themselves, there is always going to be a cost - information is never free.
The four main costs involved in producing any information are:
- hardware
- software
- consumables
- manpower
Hardware
Original cost of hardware
The initial cost of computers, modems, networking cable, printers etc all need to be considered as part of the cost of producing information.
It is likely that this hardware will be in use over a long period of time and thus the more information which is produced; the more the cost can.be offset.
Replacement of hardware
'Hardware needs to be replaced over time as it wears out, becomes damaged or becomes obsolete.he costs of replacing the hardware need to be counted towards the cost of producing information.
Maintenance of hardware
Many organizations have a maintenance contract with an IT firm who will come on a regular basis to check and repair the equipment. Such contracts are relatively expensive but they do provide companies with peace of mind that something will get repaired quickly if it stops working.
Storage of information
Regular backups will need to be made of the data and information held on the system. The most
common backup media is either a magnetic tape or DVD. Each time a new tape or DVD is used,there is a cost involved.
The more information which is stored the larger the size of led disk needed. Over time, a company might have to purchase a larger hard disk for storage purposes.
Software
In order to process and access the information, software will be required.
Initial purchase of software
At the most basic level, an operating system will be needed. This is often included in the purchase price of a new computer but a company will probably have to pay extra for an operating system which will be suitable for a network.
Utility software will be required, some of which will be supplied with the hardware system e.g.file management software,other utility software might need to be purchased separately by the-company.
Applications software will be needed for many tasks involved in producing and using information.It is likely that word processing, database and spreadsheet software will be needed by most companies.
Upgrading software
New versions of software are released every few years which contain a larger range of features.Most companies will need to upgrade their software on a regular basis. This can be expensive.
Licences
When companies buy software what they are really buying is a licence to use it. Many licence shave to be renewed annually, often at a large cost to the company.
If the company grows in size, they might need to upgrade their licences from a multi-user licence to a site licence which tends to be more expensive.
Support costs
If problems are encountered whilst using software then the company might need to contact a technical support help line. These are often charged at premium telephone rates.
Consumables
Most companies will need to print out information for use by members of staff.
The cost of paper, toners and cartridges are known as 'consumables' and all count towards the costs of producing information.
Manpower
The most expensive cost of producing information is probably the cost of lab-our or manpower.
Cost of lab our
People are generally needed to collect data,input the data into the system,process the data andthen output the resulting information.
Throughout this process, the company needs to pay their wages and thus manpower becomespart of the cost of producing information.
Training
When new people are hired, a process is changed or software is upgraded then staff will requiretraining.
Training is expensive in terms of:
- paying for the trainer
- paying wages for people being trained
- paying the wages for someone to do the normal work for the person being trained
- paying for the costs of the training venue
- lost productivity whilst people are being trained
- slower productivity whilst people 'learn on the job'
OTHER IMPORTANT TERMS
Programs: Theses are a set of computer instructions that enable the computer hardware to accomplish a task.
Application: a program in which you do your work; An Application menu is on the right side of the screen header and Lists running applications.
Driver: a file on a computer which tells it how to communicate with an add-on piece of equipment (like a printer).E.g. Sound drivers, network drivers, graphics drivers etc.
Data processing: This is the process where data is transformed into information.
Software is the set of instructions that the computer follows in performing a task. Software is another term for computer program. Software controls the computer and makes it do useful work. Without software a computer is useless, it is like asking for a car without someone to drive it.
Information Communication Technology (ICT): It is a scientific mean of sending and receiving information using scientific means (computers, network, internet, etc) which requires sending understanding and sending feed backs
Research Question
1. What is the difference between Information Technology (IT) and Information Communication Technology(ICT)
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2. Briefly explain any 5 differences between Data and Information by giving examples
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