OBM301 : TOPIC 1

Overview of information

ODL Class Madam Rozita Mengen

 WHAT IS INFORMATION?
Generally knowledge derived from data.

Information can consist of data, images,

text, documents and sound.

According to Concise Oxford Dictionary,

information is informing, telling things, told,
knowledge and news.
 INFORMATION
 Anthony Ralston described information is data,
which used in decision making.

 Prytherch define information is an assemble of

data in a comprehensive form recorded on
paper or some other medium and capable of
communication.

 Something that can lead to knowledge

regardless and medium of its convincement to
one and other person.
 CHARACTERISTICS INFORMATION
Information often described as a commodity,
which can be sold, exchanged, accumulated
and stored, patented and owned and not
depleted when it used.

Considered to be personal, organizational and

national resource of great value.

It will be most valuable when it is quickly and

easily available and effectively organized.
 IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION
AND KNOWLEDGE
By acquiring and maintaining information, a
person be able to:
Be more alert of the surroundings
Be ever more ready to face new challenges
Understand the past better in order to chart
the future
Have deeper understanding of present
situations
 IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION
AND KNOWLEDGE

Be more effective in making decisions

Help generate variations of new and fresh
ideas
Have more intellectual choices to choose
from
Creatively solve difficult problems in a much
shorter time
 CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
 Information derives its meaning from the word
“inform” that is to tell or give news.
 Getting the information across from the
source/communicator to the receiver/user is a
key role in the information process.
 Information is defined as “organized or
structured” data
 Processed in such a way that the information has
relevance for a specific purpose or context, and
is therefore meaningful, valuable, useful and
relevant.
 CONCEPT OF INFORMATION

Information is the answer to questions that

begin with words such as 'who', 'what', 'when'
and 'how many'.

Information is the product of the interaction

between the source and the receiver which
includes data, images, sounds, signals,
emotional responses, videos, or any other forms.
 CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
Data
 Facts and figures recorded onto a medium as a
result of observations, survey or research and
can be used to find answers or interpret
situations
 Data is collected and analyzed to create
information suitable for making decisions, while
knowledge is derived from extensive amounts of
experience dealing with information on a
subject.
 CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
Characteristics of data
Data becomes information by interpretation.
Data is the tangible part of information.
Data is durable and can be used for a long
period of time.
It can be from anything that we see, hear or
read in the form of text, sound or vision
 DEFINITIONS OF DATA

Facts and figures that has been organized as

a result of observations, surveys or research.
(Mary Gosling)
Individual facts, statistics, or a single piece of
information.
Facts or information used usually to
calculate, analyze, or plan something.
A gathered body of facts.
 DEFINITIONS OF DATA
Information in raw or unorganized form (such
as alphabets, numbers, or symbols) that refer
to, or represent, conditions, ideas, or objects.

Representation of information in a formal

manner, suitable for communication,
interpretation and processing.
 CONCEPT OF INFORMATION
Knowledge
Information that is found to be relevant, that
strikes the mind, can be interpreted, stored
on a medium or in the mind, and used for a
purpose.
Knowledge is the result of manipulating and
exploiting the available data, organizing
and restructuring all the information from the
data and transforms it into something useful.
 DEFINITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge is data which a person recognizes
as relevant and is thought about, interpreted,
stored (in one‘s memory or in a variety of
formats) or used for a purpose. (Mary Gosling)

Knowledge is something that is believed, that is

true and that is reliable. (Steve Denning)
 DEFINITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge is information that changes
something or somebody—either by becoming
grounds for actions, or by making an individual
(or an institution) capable of different or more
effective action. (Peter F. Drucker)

Knowledge is the perception of the agreement

or disagreement of two ideas. (John Locke)
 DEFINITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed

experience, contextual information,
values and expert insight that provides a
framework for evaluating and
incorporating new experiences and
information. (Davenport and Prusak,
1998)
CONCEPT OF INFORMATION

Information
Knowledge derived from available data
and used in decision making.
An assemblage of data recorded on
paper or other media and capable of
communication.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
INFORMATION
 Information often described as a commodity,
which can be sold, exchanged, accumulated
and stored, patented and owned and not
depleted when it used.

 Considered to be personal, organizational and

national resource of great value.

 It will be most valuable when it is quickly and

easily available and effectively organized.
 INFORMATION SKILL
The ability to:
DEFINE – to identify what info is needed
LOCATE – to search for info at its correct
location
ORGANIZE – to arrange the right info at the
right place
SELECT – to chose the best info
PRESENT – to best way to inform audience
EVALUATE – to learn from mistakes & make
things better
 A STRATEGY FOR
USING LITERACY SKILLS
 Find any library and explore what are the services
and information provided. Identify types of
information offered and tolls used in locating and
preserving information.
 Explore Internet and try to study what kind of
information that you can access and the tools
used in locating and searching information.
 Use the World Wide Web (WWW) when searching
information through Internet. On the WWW you
be able to get the web pages that offered you
the information needed.
 ISSUES IN INFORMATION
Information Overload
Information overload is a situation where there is too
much information available and there is an increasing
difficulty to get the exact information needed at a
certain period of time.

Information overload refers to the difficulty a person

can have understanding an issue and making
decisions that can be caused by the presence of too
much information.

Information overload occurs when the amount of

input to a system exceeds its processing capacity.
 INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Consequences of information overload
 difficult to determine the relevant information from
the irrelevant.
 does not understand the available information.
 feel amazed by the amount of information
available
 does not know the existence of certain information
 does not know where to find the information and
access the information.
 INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Causes
 The widespread access to the Web
 The ease of sending e-mail messages to large
numbers of people
 As information can be duplicated for free, there
is no variable cost in producing more copies –
people send reports and information to people
who may need to know, rather than definitely
need to know.
 Poorly created information sources (especially
online), which are not simplified, filtered nor
written clearly and contain factual errors or
inconsistencies – requiring further research
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Solutions
 Spending less time on gaining information that is nice to know
and more time on things that we need to know now.
 Focusing on quality of information, rather than quantity. A short
concise e-mail is more valuable than a long e-mail.
 Learning how to create better information (this is what
Infogineering is about). Be direct in what you ask people, so that
they can provide short precise answers.
 Single-tasking, and keeping the mind focused on one issue at a
time.
 Spending parts of the day disconnected from interruptions (e.g.
switch off e-mail, telephones, Web, etc.) so you can fully
concentrate for a significant period of time on one thing.
 GOOD AND POOR INFORMATION
Characteristics of good information

Relevant
 Information must relate to the business at hand and
fulfill the needs of user.
 Information must meet the user’s proposes and
needed.

Timely
 Information must be available when needed, within
the timeframe desired by the user.
 GOOD AND POOR INFORMATION

Accurate and complete

Must be accessible, with emphasis on the right
information however it depends on the context
itself.

Concise
Must be understandable to those who use it,
and must be able to absorbed quickly action.
 GOOD AND POOR INFORMATION

Reduces uncertainty
 Information must meet the user’s requirement
completely in order to reduce the unknown entity.
 Good information is needed when making
decisions and it must be:
 Right information
 Available at the right time
 Available at the right person
 At the right cost
 Presented in the right format
 GOOD AND POOR INFORMATION

Characteristics of bad information

Irrelevant
 Information is considered having a little value when
it is too old or out of date and not meets the user
requirement.
Swamping
 Too voluminous to allow sense to be made of it
where the quality of information is much important
compare to quantity.
 GOOD AND POOR INFORMATION
Unclear
Not well presented in a way it facilitate a
decision.

Not all there

Incomplete information and fail to provide a
clear sense of the entirety of the problem.
IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE
TO ORGANIZATIONS

Tacit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
 Tacit Knowledge
 Unwritten, unspoken, and hidden knowledge held by
human being, based on his or her emotions,
experiences, insights, intuition, observations and
internalized information.
 Tacit knowledge is experience of a person's
consciousness of memory and is acquired largely
through association with other people, and requires
joint or shared activities to be imparted from on to
another.
 In other word, knowledge that is not printed or
publish and normally resides in person’s memory.
 Explicit Knowledge

 Articulated knowledge, expressed and recorded as

words, numbers, codes, mathematical and scientific
formulae, and musical notations.

 Explicit knowledge is easy to communicate, store, and

distribute and is the knowledge found in books, on the
web, and other visual and oral means.

 It is recorded information and well published.

 INFORMATION LITERACY
 Information literacy can be defined as the ability to
identify, locate, evaluate and select information in
all formats in order to use it.

 To be information literate, individual must be able to

use the tools and services provided by the
information agencies such as libraries, information
center and also must be capable to use the latest
information technology such Internet
communication and on-line database.
 INFORMATION LITERACY
Three major skills needed to be information
literate:

Able to find information in variety formats.

Able to find information in variety of sources.

Able to find information within the sources

 INFORMATION LITERACY
A Strategy for Using Literacy Skills
 Information often described as a commodity, which can be sold,
exchanged, accumulated and stored, patented and owned and
not depleted when it used.

 Considered to be personal, organizational and national resource of

great value.

 It will be most valuable when it is quickly and easily available and

effectively organized.
 INFORMATION LITERACY
Characteristics of information literate person:

 Identify and determine the needs of information.

 Locate and retrieve sources of information.

 Understand the structure of information.

 INFORMATION LITERACY
 Use indexes and other search tools
effectively and efficiently to find specific
resources.

 Evaluate information and its sources

 Understand different types of sources

and formats, and how to use them.
 INFORMATION LITERACY
Evaluate the relevance and reliability of the
information retrieved.

Synthesize the information retrieved and

successfully apply it to the original information
need.

Present this newly acquired knowledge so

that others can use it.
 IMPACT OF INFORMATION
LITERACY
Create opportunities for deep, meaningful
learning throughout the students
undergraduate education.

Enable the students to learn the value of

information so they know how they can use
the information effectively in research ,find
solutions, identify practice weaknesses,
develop solutions and improve information
literate skills.
 IMPACT OF INFORMATION
LITERACY

Incorporated selected information into their

knowledge base

Use information effectively to learn, create

new knowledge, solve problems and make
decisions

Understand economic, legal, social, political

and cultural issues in the use of information
 ADVANTAGES OF INFORMATION
LITERACY
Students learn to find, evaluate and synthesize
information thus developing critical thinking
skills which hopefully leads better research.
Better research should lead to more success in
studies thus increasing the retention rates of
students.
The skills they develop are transferable to their
eventual workplace making the students more
marketable
Determine the extent of information needed
 ADVANTAGES OF INFORMATION
LITERACY
Access the needed information and its
sources critically

Incorporate selected information into one's

knowledge base

Understand the economic, legal, and social

issues surrounding the use of information,
and access and use the information
ethically and legally.
 DISADVANTAGES OF
INFORMATION LITERACY
 Many paper information sources lies in the difficulty
of updating them
 The difficulty of indexing the contents of any book or
periodical thoroughly
 Lack of effective information retrieval skills and those
students may avoid using these materials because
they do not have the skills necessary to use them.
 The amount and complexity of information with
which students have to deal is growing by leaps and
bounds.
 END OF TOPIC 1
ANY QUESTIONS???

RECAPTURE
1. WHY ARE INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE
ARE IMPORTANT?
2. INFORMATION, DATA & KNOWLEDGE ,
ARE THEY THE SAME?
3. WHAT IS INFORMATION SKILL?

THANK YOU