Information technology

• Information Technology


  The term used to describe the hardware and software that enables a person to access, retrieve, convert, store, organize, manipulate, and present data and information
• Computer Engineering


  Concerns the design and development of digital hardware and devices that contain computers
• Computer Science


  The science of computing hardware and software. Refers to the designing and building of software and development of effective ways to solve computing problems
• Computing


  The process of using computer technology to complete a given goal-oriented task
• Information Systems


  Concerned with the information that computer systems and other devices can provide to help a person or an organization in defining and achieving its goals
• Software Engineering

  Concerned with developing and maintaining software systems
• Information Processing


  • Manipulation of digitized information by computers and other digital electronic equipment to produce useful information
  • Includes acquisition, recording, assembly, retrieval or dissemination of information
• Automated information processing

  Utilises information technology tools (hardware/software) with minimum human intervention to process data
• Advantages of automated information processing


  • Increased efficiency level
  • Save cost in long run
  • Add value to the organisation
• Disadvantages/negative impacts of automated information processing

  • Costly to install and maintain
  • Loss of jobs/displacement of staff
  • Time taken to train employees
  • Perception of over reliance on systems and human privacy is compromised
  • Open organisations to computer fraud/cybercrime
  • System malfunction - time and money involved, incorrect output/poor decision making
• Characteristics of information


  • Clear and not distorted
  • Unambiguous and not disguised
  • Complete
  • Reliable
  • Consistent
  • Comprehensible
  • Able to stand up to interpretation
  • Valuable
• Reliability


  Information should be credible and trustworthy as information is used to make critical decisions
• Reliability - Ask yourself


  • Is the source or method of transmission reliable?
  • Is the source credible or truthful?
• Consistency


  Information should be consistent since the same piece of information can be used at different levels of an organisation to make decisions
• Consistency - Issues


  If the source of information changes or contradicts itself there might be inconsistency
• Comprehensible


  Information has to be clear and not difficult or impossible to understand, otherwise the information will be useless
• Interpretation


  • Information should be able to stand up to interpretation
  • Do you understand the information or know what it means?
  • Is the information subjective or objective?
• Valuable


  • The information should be important to its owner
  • Information is useful to facilitate problem solving and decision making and to enable organizations to gain advantage over its competitors
• Relevant


  Information should be appropriate and meaningful and relevant and formatted to suit the user's needs
• Confidentiality


  • Information should be treated with confidentiality since it is useful and valuable
  • Securing information via physical and software means must be determined to ensure its confidentiality and maintain its value for decision making purposes
  • The security of information determines its availability to users (authorized/unauthorized) for problem solving and decision making
• Timeliness


  • Information needs to be available when it is needed and up-to-date as it may render valuable one day and useless the next
  • This lends itself to the accessibility of information – can needful information be accessed quickly?
• Security


  • The protection of information and security mechanisms regulates who has access to information
  • Information should be available to authorized users
• Share-ability


  • Information should be shared easily with others who are in need of such information and be accessible
  • Information is needed at different levels of an organization
  • Copyright and other legally binding matters are considerations for this aspect of information
  • Is permission necessary to share or print material etc. is the information for public or private use?
• Lifespan


  Refers to the existence of information for a specific period
• Information as a commodity

  • Information can be seen as a saleable commodity when its of value
  • People will pay for information because of its usefulness and value eg. Business secrets, credit history, health records, financial records
• Format and medium


  Information may be presented on different media – flash drive, CD, tape, book, newsletter, e-mail, blogs, radio, television, internet and in a variety of formats – video, text, graph, chart, audio
• Ways of representing data and information

  • Character - a number, symbol, letter
  • String - a group of characters
  • Numeric - numbers
  • Aural - music notes, symbols, morse code
  • Visual - each slide/frame of presentation/movie/digital story, fingerprint
  • Special purpose notation - musical notation, math & scientific operators
• Text


  Human readable docs which comprises string and characters
• Tables


  Information organised in rows and columns
• Graphics


  Images - no sound, no text
• Sound


  Music, audio/voice
• Graphical representation


  Illustrations such as graphs and charts
• Charts


  Represents one qualitative and one quantitative variable (visual)
• Graphs


  Two quantitative variables (numeric)
• "All Graphs are a type of Charts, but not all Charts are Graphs."
• Types of Information Sources

  • Websites
  • Online libraries
  • Journals - published regularly
  • Blogs
  • CDs & DVDs
  • Electronic databases - organised collection of data - search efficiently
  • Wiki
  • Newspapers
  • Books
  • People
  • Catalog - a list of items in a systematic order
  • Magazines
• Websites


  • Vast amount of information available
  • Easily accessible with minimum to no cost and varied devices
  • Access to updated information
  • Requires devices which support internet access
  • Credibility of information can be questioned
  • May cost monthly subscription fee - ongoing cost as opposed to one time payment for books/magazine etc
  • Any information source that requires internet access can be a distraction to the user as users may opt to spend more time on social media than actual research
• Online libraries


  • The ability to search for information from a wide range of text where there is internet access
  • A researcher can access required information from home or at a location of choice, negating travelling expenses and other effort to arrive at a physical library
  • Requires devices which support internet access
  • May cost monthly subscription fee - ongoing cost as opposed to one time payment for books/magazine etc
• Journals - published regularly

  • A researcher can appreciate peer reviewed articles as they are scholarly in nature having undergone investigation and scrutiny to arrive at their findings hence these journals will be credible and meaningful
  • Journals provide up to date information on the given field which will be useful to any researcher
  • Can cost
  • Time factor - can be considerable from creation, submission to publication - then how relevant will that information be
  • Difficult to index and cross reference - for reliability purposes
  • May be biased
• Blogs


  • Easily accessible to a researcher with internet access and presents information on a range of topics with diverse comments which can add to qualitative findings and perspectives for the researcher
  • Information contributed can be from anyone - credibility questionable
  • Requires devices with internet access