MIS 2000
Class 2:
Basic Concepts
Updated January 2014
Outline
• Data, Knowledge, Information
• Data, Knowledge, Information in Organizations
• Information System (IS)
• IS User
• Information Technologies
• Summary
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Information
• Is this information:
Treuliodd y rhif cwsmer ١٨ bron i dri chant o ddoleri mewn un
pryniant - gwerthiant mwyaf y mis diwethaf!
- Why yes/no?
• Is this information:
The customer number 18 spent nearly three hundred dollars in
one purchase -- the largest sales last month!
- Why yes/no?
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Data
• Symbols created by people for communication purposes
(voices, letters, numbers, pictures).
• Data are organized at different levels:
• letters  words  text  report
• Data can be recorded in electronic form or some other
(paper etc.).
• Information systems help to organize and transform data
(sorted text, tabulated numbers, structured report).
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Information
• We will define information from the process perspective taken in
this course* in this way:
– Information is a result of interpreting data by using knowledge.
Or, information refers to data that are understood by a person.
DATA
KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION
• Understanding data refers to grasping a meaning of data, which
happens in human brains. So, information can also be defined as
the meaning of data.
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Information
• Information to occur takes a whole process, process of
informing. An example:
MANAGER KNOWS:
- Language, to read text, numbers,
graphs, sales report…
- Concepts of customer, purchase,
time, salesperson, how these relate
to each other…
3. KNOWLEDGE interprets DATA
1. DATA organized into
a SALES REPORT
Process of informing
MANAGER UNDERSTANDS:
Customer number 18 spent about
234 dollars in one purchase,
which is the largest sale in the month!
4. INFORMATION is understood
(Manager “gets it”.)
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Information (more)
• The term “information” is overused today.*
• People get lazy and don’t use their brain – instead of naming the
content that is being talked about or communicated, the word
“information” is stamped upon everything. Everybody and almost
every technology is “information provider”.
• If all this is information, what is not? Why do we have the term
“data”? How is “information” different from “data”?
• Better than calling anything “information”, try to name a given
content by what it is about (e.g., customer address or record,
explanation, instruction, response, report, text, figures…)**
• Every MIS 2000 student who can replace the word “information”
with an appropriate term gets a participation credit! 
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Knowledge
• Complex structures in human memory.
• Knowledge implies understanding
• What something is (concepts, relationships, taxonomies)
• Why something is (cause-effect relationships between
concepts)
• How to do something (procedures, experience)
• Knowledge can be represented in talk, books, information
systems, and other forms.*
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Knowledge, Data, & Information
• Knowledge uses data to create information, i.e., enables
interpreting of data to grasp the meaning of it
• New information advances knowledge, adds to it, changes it.
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Data, Information, Knowledge in Organizations
• Most of work in modern organizations is about data, knowledge
and information
• Occupational groups: Managers, Professionals, Clerks
Clerks
Manipulate data
Professionals
Managers
Interpret data in reports
and elsewhere to
get informed for
managing.
Use knowledge to analyze &
resolve professional problems
& advance knowledge.
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Systems and Information Systems (IS)
• Any system is a set of related parts with a common purpose to
produce some output from inputs.* (see Note)
• Systems are differentiated on the purpose – the outputs they
produce.
• Purpose of educational system is to produce graduated
students.*
• Purpose of IS is to organize and/or transform data for system’s
users.
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Information System (IS)
• Definition: An IS is a system that provides transformed and
organized data.
• A computer-based IS is a whole that consists of (1) data, (2)
computer hardware and software (information technologies), and
(3) procedures applied to data, software & hardware.*
Data
keyboard,
mouse
hardware
INPUT part
data storage;
processors for
transforming data
running software
PROCESSING part
screen,
printer
hardware
Transformed
& Organized
Data
OUTPUT part
ENVIRONMENT
• Data are the heart of IS. Inputted data are different than outputted data.
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IS and Information
•
Outputted data are often called “information”, but human informing does
not happen unless data are received and understood.
• Why it is important to differentiate between data and
information:
– If the system designer assumes that any output from
system is “information”, but the user really dos not
understand the output (fully or partially), then the system
fails to support the user and business.
– The test if information is communicated is on the user’s side,
in his/her understanding of the system output.
• IS is not called so because it “outputs information” but because
it transforms and organizes data so that data can become
information for the IS user.
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Information System User
IS User is a person that uses an IS by manipulating it or by
interpreting its output.
Primary User: direct use,
manipulates data & IT
Data
Information
System
Secondary User: indirect use,
interprets outputted data
Transformed &
Organized
Data
• Many higher level managers are (still) secondary users of IS.
IS for Management
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Information Technologies (IT)
• Electronic IT are machines and devices for managing data.*
• In a computer-based IS, each part (input, central unit, output…)
is made from particular kinds of IT:
– hardware parts (monitor, motherboard with main circuitry,
keyboard)
– software
• Application Software (Application) – supports users’ work;
e.g.: MS Access, Excel, a Web browser.
• Systems Software - operates hardware so that application
software can run; e.g.: operating system like MS Windows
• combinations of software and hardware in the computer.
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Summary 1/2
• Data are symbols created by people for communication purposes (voices, letter,
numbers, pictures). Data can be recorded in various ways.
• Knowledge is complex structures in human memory that ••••••make a person
understand what something is, why something is, and how to do something.
Knowledge is in human brain and it can be represented in complex data structures.
• Information is the data that are understood by people, or the meaning of data.
There is no understanding of data without knowledge. Information is created in
human brain, although people often assume that external data is already
"information."
• In organizations, clerks mostly deal with data, managers with information, and
professionals with knowledge.
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Summary 2/2
•
Any system is a whole made of related parts with a common purpose to
produce some output from inputs. Systems are differentiated on outputs,
that is, purpose.
•
The purpose of information system is to store, organize and transform
input data.
•
A computer-based IS is a whole that consists of data, computer hardware
and software (information technologies), and procedures applied to data,
software & hardware.
•
Data are the heart of IS. System procedures are often work procedures
(the way tasks and job are done).
•
The IS user can be primary or secondary user. Most managers are
secondary users.
•
Electronic information technologies are machines (computer, smart phone)
and devices (computer storage, keyboard) for managing data.
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