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"Education is not a way to escape poverty, it is a way to fight it" - Mwl J. K. Nyerere
Subjects >> Form 1 >> ICS >> Concepts of information
Concepts of Information
What is data?
Meaning:
Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed. Data can be something simple and maybe random and useless until it is processed, interpreted or organized.
For example: Test score of each student is one piece of data, that can be collected and be used to find average score.
So, we also can say that Data is the collection of facts.
What is information?
Meaning:
We say information is when data is made useful after being processed, organized, structured and presented in a given context.
For example: After collecting all of the students' test scores, then process them to determine either the class' average score or the school's average score, then this is the information that we obtained from the given data (students' test scores).
Or you can simply say, information is the processed/interpreted data.
Information source
An information source is anything that might inform or provide knowledge to a person about something. Different types of questions require different sources of information.
For example when you want to know the exchange rate of your country's currency compared with another country's, you will go to the bank and not the police station.
Therefore there are many types of information sources, such as People, Organizations, websites, pictures, documents, speeches, observations, etc.
Categories of information sources
Information sources can be categorized in many senses, but three types are common; Primary sources of information, Secondary sources of information, and tertiary sources of information.
- Primary source of information
Primary sources are original materials that the writer has personal knowledge about the information provided. In the study of history, a primary source (also called original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study.
- Secondary source of information
A secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.
- Tertiary source of information
These are materials, or objects that preserve information in the form of text.
Tertiary sources attempt to summarize and consolidate the source materials into an overview.
Some examples of tertiary sources are such as;
almanacs, guide books, survey articles, timelines, bibliography, dictionary, or encyclopedia, user guides, etc.
Data vs. Information
It is not enough to have data (such as statistics on the economy).
Data in themselves are fairly useless. But when these data are interpreted and processed to determine its true meaning, they become useful and can be called Information.
Dissemination
Meaning:
Dissemination is the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver with a reply, like in telephone line.
Dissemination takes on the theory of the traditional view of communication, which involves a sender and receiver. The traditional communication view point is broken down into a sender sending information, and receiver collecting the information processing it and sending information back, like in a telephone line.
Information Dissemination
In this type of dissemination, the information is sent out and received, but no reply is given.
The message carrier sends out information, not to one individual, but many in a broadcasting system.
There are traditional ways and modern ways of disseminating information, some of them are such as;
- Traditional ways of disseminating information
Stories, Songs, Drawings, Horns, Whistles, etc
- Modern ways of disseminating information
Advertising, Public announcements, Speeches, Platforms (e.g. Online learning platforms), Collaborative websites (e.g. wikis, blogs), Repositories (e.g. documentation and CVs repositories), etc
Communication media/Mass media
communication media refers to the means/tools of delivering and receiving data or information.
In telecommunication, these means are transmission and storage tools or, you can say, channels for data storage and transmission.
There are two forms of communication media; analog and digital.
- Analog
This type of technology includes the conventional radio, telephonic and television broadcasts.
- Digital
This type of technology consists computer mediated communication, computer networking and telegraphy.
Some of examples of communication media are such as;
TV, Radio, Newspapers, Journal, Magazines, telephone, Books, websites, etc
Therefore; come to think of computer now,
Anything stored in a computer system is data or information. This could be numbers, dates, names, addresses, text, pictures, music, movie, etc.
There is no real difference between data and information. Information usually applies to something which users can understand.
Data is the computer's language (This is because computer language/machine language is hard to understand until it is translated by an operating system).
Information is the translation of computer’s language.
