B203A – Q. Week 13 – Information – Chapter 1 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5
Q1) Discuss in some detail the main methods in which the information
can create value for organizations. Support your answer with a proper
example.
1- Add value. Value is added through providing better quality products and
services to an organization’s customers. Information can be better used to
better understand customer characteristics and needs and their level of
satisfaction with services, and also used to sense and respond to markets.
Information about trends in demands, competitor products and activities
must be monitored so that organizations can develop strategies to compete
in the marketplace.
2- Reduce costs. Cost reduction through information is achieved through
making the business processes more efficient. Efficiency is achieved
through using information to create, market and deliver services using
fewer resources than previously. Technology is applied to reduce
paperwork, reduce the HR needed to operate the processes through
automation and improve internal and external communications.
3- Manage risks. Risk management is a well-established use of information
within organizations. Risk management within organizations has created
different functions and professions such as finance, accounting, auditing
and corporate performance management.
4- Create new reality. It refer to how information and new technologies can
be used to innovate, to create new ways in which products or services can
be developed.
Q2) Using an example known to you, explain the relationship between
data, capta, information, and knowledge.
Data: unstructured facts, concepts, and number representing an
observable object.
Information: Have a meaning, processed data, and pre-requisite for a
decision to be taken. It is the product of the meaningful processing of data.
From Data to Capta
- There has to be a distinction to be made between the great mass of facts
and the sub-set of them.
- The obvious word for the mass of facts is ‘data’, meaning ‘to give’. Data
are a starting point in our mental processing.
- But there is no ready-made word for the small fraction of the available
data which we know about or pay attention to, or create. We refer to such
data as ‘capta’, meaning ‘to take’.
- Capta are the result of selecting some for attention, or creating some new
category – or being so surprised by some items of data which pass across
our gaze that we begin to pay them attention. Capta is a subset of selected
data.
- Turning data into capta is a very familiar mental process, so familiar in
fact that it has become completely transparent to us: we do it all the time
without noticing the process occurring, which is presumably why we have
here found it necessary to make up the word ‘capta’.
- Capta by no means is the end of our mental processing.
From Capta to information and knowledge
- Having selected, paid attention to , or created some data, thereby turning
it into capta, we enrich it.
- We relate it to other things, we put it in context, we see it as part of a
larger whole which causes it to gain in significance. The phrase which best
captures this is probably ‘meaning attribution’.
- The attribution of meaning in context converts capta into something
different, for which another word is appropriate: the word ‘information’.
- This process, which can be both individual and/or collective, by which
data are selected and converted into meaningful information, can itself lead
to larger structures of related information for which another word is needed;
‘knowledge’.
- Such structure of information may be expected to have greater longevity
than many items of information which are only
ephemerally ‫ سريع الزوال‬meaningful and relevant.
- The act of creating information is a human act, not one which a machine
can accomplish.
- The designer of a system which processes focused-on data (i.e. capta)
into a more useful from ill aim to make the capta correspond to some
obvious categories of information which will be meaningful to many
different people.
- But attributing meaning to the data is a human ability and may be unique
to one individual. No designer can guarantee that the intended attributions
of meaning will be universally accepted.
Q3) Discuss in detail the process of information management.
1- Gathering information
- This process includes all the activities you engage in to collect the
information you need.
- Information gathering may be routine or ad hoc.
- They can be small-scale or very large-scale.
- It is the most critical of the information management processes.
2- Analyzing information
- The purpose of analyzing information is to make it more useful for
decision making.
- This can be considered as a process of transforming ‘raw data’ into
meaningful information.
- Analyzing information may involve a variety of manipulations of the raw
data, which may take place at a number of levels, each resulting in
something that is more meaningful.
- In some cases the use of computers can help to reduce the time spent in
data analysis, especially where purely numerical calculations are involved.
3- Communicating information
- Formulation: involves three main steps: deciding what to say, to whom
and how to say it.
- Transmission: involves the choice of means of communication (fax, team
meeting ) and the timing (send an e-mail now or make an announcement at
the beginning of next week’s). These choices will be influenced by
considerations from the formulation stage: whom the message is for, how it
is to be expressed, how urgent it is, how confidential it is. Have to take in
consideration reliability (message may get lost), and noise (how the
message may disappear among all the other traffic a transmission channel
may be carrying).
- Successful reception is affected by choices about formulation and
transmission. You can do your best in focusing and expressing your
message and in choosing the right time, place and means of transmission,
but the recipient may still not attend to your message. The risk is recipient
is overloaded with incoming information. Recipient may resist to hear
messages (groupthink).
- Interpretation involves the issue of whether the recipient understands the
message in the way you intended. Where accuracy of interpretation is
important, it is necessary to implement a procedure through which you can
confirm that your message has been correctly interpreted.
Q4) List the common problems appear while gathering information,
and then list the possible solutions.
Problems:
1- The required information is simply not gathered at all.
2- Gathering is done poorly, so there are gaps and errors in the
information.
3- Information gathered but nothing is then done with it.
4- Too much information is gathered.
5- A lot of time is spent gathering information for the use of others, but
nothing of value for you is achieved by this.
Solutions:
1- Accountability – responsibility for who collects what should be made
clear.
2- Data definition – agreement on what items a particular type of
information should include.
3- Standardization – ensuring everyone is collecting the same information
in the same way.
4- Quality monitoring – ensuring that information of the right quality is being
collected.
Skills – helping staff improve their information-gathering skills.
Q5) List the various key issues while storing information.
Information need to be stored, both for use in later activities and for
submission to higher management and auditing bodies.
The information-gathering need a complementary plan for information
storage. For each type of information you need to store, the key issues are:
1- The form in which you originally obtain this information.
2- The volume of information.
3- Who needs access and are they close to or remote from the site where
the information is stored.
4- How long the information needs to be kept.
5- What kind of protection the information requires.