Find the answers to the questions

1. How do data differ from information?

2. Give the examples of data and information.

3. What is data processing?

4. What is input/output?

5. What is the definition of data/information?

Text B: Characteristics of useful information

What makes certain information highly valuable and other information completely worthless? There are three dimensions of information – time, content, and form. Using these three dimensions, you can define the characteristics of information that has value to you.

The time dimension of information deals with the «when» aspect of information. Time characteristics of information include: timeliness and currency. Timeliness means having information when you need it. If you do not have the right time, it is almost impossible to make the right decision. Currency means having the most recent or up-to-date information.

Content deals with the «what» aspect of information, and its characteristics include accuracy, relevance and completeness. The accuracy characteristics of information specifies that the information you receive is information that has been processed correctly, it is free of errors. The relevance and completeness characteristics of information go hand in hand. That is, you should receive only information that is relevant to your task, useful to what you are trying to do (relevance) and you should receive all the information you need, it completely details what you want to know (completeness).

The last dimension of information is form, which deals with the « how» aspect of information. Form characteristics of information include detail and presentation. The detail characteristic of information deals with receiving information that either summarizes or details information at the appropriate level. Presentation means that information is provided in the most appropriate form – narrative, graphics, color, print, video, sound, and so on.

Mark the following statements as True or False.

1. Time, content and form are the dimensions of data.

2. Information received too late is relevant.

3. The information must be current as a fact of yesterday may not be a fact of today.

4. The information must be accurate as inaccurate information would lead to many different major problems.

5. Information should contain only one detail required by the user.

Put the letters in the following words into the correct order.

Fill in the blanks choosing from the variants given.

1. … means having information when you need it.

a) completeness; b) timeliness; c) relevance

2. If you don’t know who writes any material, you cannot be sure that the information is … .

a) reliable; b) timely; c) concise

3. Information should be in a form that is … enough to allow for its examination and use.

a) long; b) up to date; c) short

4. A marketing report that includes graphs of statistics is … .

a) concise; b) timely; c) relevant

5. Information should be … to the purpose for which it is required.

a) concise; b) long; c) relevant

6. … means that information is provided in the most appropriate form.

a) currency; b) presentation; c) accuracy

Give the English equivalents.

Find the answers to the questions.

1. What are the dimensions of information?

2. What is the «when» aspect of information?

3. What are content characteristics?

4. What does «accurate information» mean?

5. What does «presentation» mean?

Text C: Information technology

Information Technology, or IT, has only been a part of business and industry for about 50 years. But if we look back into the 1960s, the term Information Technology was only used to describe the process of storing information. Now IT is one of the most important resources in today’s business and successful companies invest a lot of money in IT.

Formally, Information Technology could be defined as any computer-based tool that people use to work with information and support the information and information-processing needs for an organization. IT includes keyboard, screen, mouse, modem, printer, word processing software and operating system software.

There is a separate IT department in almost all big organizations. They use IT in three ways:

1. To support information-processing task such as creating presentations, Web sites.

2. To enable innovations: IT gives the possibility to develop a more efficient way to handle the information-processing task related to delivering packages.

3. To reduce time and space: IT allows organizations to store huge amount of information in one small space and to use less time to process and send it.

But it should be mentioned that IT plays a major role not only in business but also in the personal life of millions of people. We can now connect to our friends and relatives in just a few minutes. All this has become possible because of the amazing features of IT.