Chap 2

MCA-II-SEM-III SUB: - MSS CHAP-2- INFORMATION CONCEPT
SUBJECT TEACHER: PROF. S. H. KARANDE 1

SUBJECT: - BM 31: Management Support Systems and IS security
2. Information Concepts

REFERENCES:
1. Information Systems for Modern Management - Robert Murdick, Joel e. Ross.
2. Decision Support & Expert System - Ephraim Turban
3. MIS - Javadekar
4. Analysis And Design of Information Systems - V. Rajaraman
2.1 Definition
Information Concepts
The word `information is used commonly in our day to day working. In MIS, information has a
precise meaning and it is different from data. The information has a value in decision making
while data does not have. Information brings clarity and creates an intelligent human
response in the mind.
In MIS a clear distinction is made between data and information. Data is like raw materials
while the information is equivalent to the finished goods produced after processing the raw
material. Information has certain characteristics. These are:
Information:
1. Improves representation of an entity
2. Updates the level of knowledge
3. Has a surprise value
4. Reduces uncertainty
5. Aids in decision making
The quality of information could be called good or bad depending on the mix of these
characteristics.
Information is a product of data processing. Even if we take care of the aspects discussed in
the above section, the manager will determine the quality of the information based on the
degree of motivation it provides for action, and the contribution it provides for effective
decision making. The quality of information is high, if it creates managerial impact leading
to attention, decision and action.
2.1 Definition
2.2 Types of Information
2.3 Quality of information
2.4 Value of information,
2.5 Information needs of managers at different
levels
2.6 Cases related to Information system
5


Information Presentation
Presentation of the information is an art. The data may be collected in the best possible
manner and processed analytically, bringing lot of value in the information; however, if it not
presented properly, it may fail to communicate anything of value to the receiver. The degree
of communication is affected by the methods of transmission, the manner of information
handling and the limitation and constraints of a receiver as the information user.
The methods used for improving communication are summarization and message routing.
The concept of summarization is user to provide information which is needed in the form and
content. The information can be summarized in a number of ways as shown in Table below.
Table: Information Summarization
Sr.
No.
Key for
Summarization
Focus of
Information
operations
1. Management Position Responsibility General Manager, Divisional
Head Marketing, Materials
2. Management Functions Performance Goals,
Targets
Production Target
3. Levels in Organisaitons Relevance to the
level
Middle level
4. Selective on condition Exceptions Only those products, where
sale is below the budget.

The principle behind summarization is that too much information causes noises and
distortions, i.e., confusion, misunderstanding and missing and purpose. The summarization
suppresses the noise and the distortions.
Another method of improving the degree of communication is through message routing. The
principle here is distribute information to all those who are accountable for the subsequent
actions or decisions in any manner. That is if the information is generated with a certain
purpose for a primary users, then such information may have secondary purpose to some
other users in the organization. This is achieved by sending the copies of the reports or
documents to all the concerned people or users. The principle of the message routing
achieves the spread of information to the appropriate quarters.
For the maximum utilization of information, it is having certain attributes:
Sr.
No.
Attribute Explanation
1. The accuracy in
representation
The test of accuracy is how closely it represents a
situation or event. The degree of perception will
decide the accuracy in representation.
2. The form of presentation Forms are qualitative or quantitative, numeric or
graphic, printed or displayed, summarized or detailed.
Appropriate form is important.
3. The frequency or reporting How often the information is needed? How often it
needs to be updated?
4. The scope of reporting The coverage of information in terms of entities, area
and range, and the interest shown by the recipient or


the decision maker.
5. The scope of collection Internal from organization or external to organization.
6. The time scale It may relate to the past, the current and the future and
can cover the entire time span.
7. The relevance to decision
making.
The information has relevance to a situation and also
to a decision-making. The irrelevant information is a
data.
8. Complete for the decision
considerations
The information which covers all the aspects of the
decision situation by way of the scope, transactions
and period is complete.
9. The timeliness of reporting The receipt of information on time or when needed is
highly useful. The information arriving late, loses its
utility as it is outdated.

2.2 Types of Information
Types of information sources are often discussed in four general groups (there is some
overlap). Each of the following is a link to details about the information type:
General-specific
Scholarly-popular
Primary-secondary
Free-fee

1. General-Specific Information Types

When searching for information, it is recommended that a student use background
information sources to gain an initial understanding of the topic. First, explore general
information sources to increase familiarity with the topic and to gain an overview, and to
review ideas concerning the topic's terminology. A general encyclopedia, such as the
Encyclopedia Britannica, is often a good place to start looking for information. Most articles
are written by experts in the subject, and can be used as a brief overview of your topic.
Then, use more specific information sources as your understanding of the topic deepens,
such as subject encyclopedias and books. Subject-based or specialized encyclopedias,
handbooks and directories provide more comprehensive topic information than found in
general encyclopedias. Examples include almanacs and yearbooks, atlases and gazetteers
and biographical encyclopedias.
Books provide in-depth information on a topic; most are indexed to facilitate searching, and
include bibliographies useful for identifying additional information sources. Books, also known
as monographs, have been carefully selected by librarians and faculty for inclusion in the
library's collection because of their reliability.



2. Scholarly-Popular Information Types

There are different types of periodicals, such as journals, magazines and trade publications.
The scholarship of an article is important. The highest level of scholarship is a journal article
from a refereed serial. An authority (a scholar) in the discipline has written the article and the
articles content has been reviewed (often called peer reviewed or refereed) by other
discipline scholars.
A journal article from a "scholarly" or "academic" publication may be acceptable for use in
undergraduate research papers. The difference between a "refereed serial" and a "scholarly
publication" is that an article in a scholarly publication might not be refereed. Although all
refereed serials are scholarly publications, not all scholarly publications are refereed serials.
3. Primary-Secondary Information Types

A. Primary Source Material:
Original research, eyewitness accounts, and creative work; usually presented in its original
form. Serves as information to help us interpret an event.
Research article based upon data obtained from original research
Manuscripts, diaries, letters
Speeches, interviews
Autobiographies
Poetry, music or art
Photographs, audio recordings, image recordings
Objects (such as a painting) and artifacts (such as a jar from an ancient site)
Maps

B. Secondary Source Material:
Collects, summarizes, reports and interprets primary data or the research of others.
Anthologies
Reference books
Non-fiction books or articles that talk about a subject but do not contain original research
Criticism and reviews, such as literary criticism
Biographies

4. Free-Fee Information Types

The World Wide Web is a huge network of computers and serves as a convenient source of a
variety of information and information types. Sites provide up to the minute news and
information about current events, trends and controversial topics. Unfortunately, there is no
quality control on the Web; anyone can "publish" anything at anytime. As a result, information


is frequently inaccurate or biased, and outdated. Only verifiable information should be used
for academic research papers.
Scholarly information is usually not "free" on the open Web.
Ex. The Sawyer Library, as with any academic library, carefully reviews and chooses the
information it acquires (such as books and journals) and provides access to (such as the
subscription databases). Librarians make every effort to identify, acquire, and provide only
verifiable, quality information resources through our collections to support the curriculum.
Ex.: The Sawyer Library subscribes (pays for access and use) to dozens of databases of
varying types:
Bibliographic: Basic descriptive information about indexed items such as author, title, etc.
The library's Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) is a bibliographic database.
Indexes: Usually arranged by subject, topic or author, are used to organize and identify
sources. Most indexes focus on a discipline or subject area. Most of these information types
index journal articles, although there are exceptions. Indexes often include abstracts.
Abstracts summarize the contents of the source indexed, so you do not have to read the
entire information source to determine if it is appropriate for your research.
Journal indexes with some full text content: these popular databases are indexes of
journal articles with abstracts and, often, but not always, they include the full text content of
the article.
Journal indexes with all full text content: these databases include the full text for all
articles indexed.
Full text content: databases based upon other document types such as dictionaries and
encyclopedias. Types of full text include:
- HTML full text with, and without, images (tables, charts, etc). HTML is text-based, rather
than image-based. Many articles were converted from print to HTML text in order to
provide full text content. Text-based, full text content is cheaper to convert from print than
is imaged text (pdf). In some databases, the charts will have been converted to plain text.
In other databases, the charts will have been converted into images and loaded into the
full text content like an image (picture).
- PDF full text. The entire source is imaged as it appeared in print. Numeric databases:
databases primarily of numeric tables. Examples include TableBase and StatUSA.
Image databases: art prints, photos, etc.
Audio databases: audio clips, music, speeches, sound effects, etc.
Mixed databases: combination of database types.


2.3 Quality of information
A. What Is Information Quality?
Few professionals in any discipline will dispute that good information is good business. But
what constitutes good, or quality, information? Conventional wisdom typically equates good
information with accurate information. Good information, however, should also be timely,
reliable, and complete. Today, information quality (IQ) is understood to be a
multidimensional concept that encompasses critical relationships among multiple attributes,
such as timeliness, accuracy, relevancy, and others. Together, these attributes contribute to
the validity of the information. Quality information is the cornerstone of sound agency decision
making and inspires trust in the justice system and in the law enforcement entities that use
information. Such information enables agencies to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively.
B. What Problems Arise From Poor Information Quality?
The typical triggers for poor information quality are commonplace business challenges such
as incomplete records, delays, failure to update record information, data-entry mistakes, or
improper releases of information. Additionally, technical issues, information volume, and the
widespread availability of data may lead to IQ concerns.
The routine nature of day-to-day business processes underscores the potential for inadvertent
generation of inferior IQ. As data is increasingly shared and becomes more readily and rapidly
accessible, justice agency control over IQ becomes a bigger challenge.
Poor information quality can be harmful to the individual, the community, and the justice entity.
Failure to actively and continuously evaluate and improve IQ in justice-related information
sharing practices may result in harm or injustice to individuals, lawsuits and liability, population
of other agency databases with inaccurate data, public criticism, inefficient use of resources,
or inconsistent actions within agencies.
C. Information Quality Characteristics

A. Accessibility The extent to which data is available or easily and quickly retrievable.
B. Appropriate
Amount of
Data
The extent to which the volume of data is appropriate for the task at
hand.
C. Believability The extent to which data is regarded as true and credible.
D. Completeness The extent to which data is not missing and is of sufficient breadth and
depth for the task at hand.
E. Concise
Representation
The extent to which data is compactly represented.


F. Consistent
Representation
The extent to which data is presented in the same format.
G. Ease of
Manipulation
The extent to which data is easy to manipulate and apply to different
tasks.
H. Free of Error The extent to which data is correct and reliable.
I. Interpretability The extent to which data is in appropriate languages, symbols, and
units and the definitions are clear.
J. Objectivity The extent to which data is unbiased, unprejudiced, and impartial.
K. Relevancy The extent to which data is applicable and helpful for the task at hand.
L. Reputation The extent to which data is highly regarded in terms of its source or
content.
M. Security The extent to which access to data is restricted appropriately to
maintain its security.
N. Timeliness The extent to which information is available in time to perform the task
at hand.
O. Understandability The extent to which data is easily comprehended.
P. Value-Added The extent to which data is beneficial and provides advantages from its
use.
Q. Impartiality An impartial information contains no bias and has collected without any
distorted view of the situation. The partiality creeps in, if the data is
collected with a preconceived view, a prejudice, and a pre-determined
objective or a certain motive.
R. Validity Does the information meet the purpose of decision-making for which it
is being collected?

The quality of information can be generally measured on the four dimensions
1. Utility, 2. Satisfaction, 3. Error and 4. Bias (Unfairness).

1. The utility dimensions have four facets (aspects) the form, time, access and the
possession (control). If the information is presented in the form the manager
requires, then its utility increases. If it is available when needed, the utility is
optimized. If the information is easily and quickly accessible through the On-line
Access system, its utility gets an added boost. Lastly, if the information is possessed
by the manager who needs it, then its utility is the highest. Many of the organization
suffer from the possessive nature of the managers making an access difficulty for the
other users of the information.


2. The concept of the utility of the information is subjective to the individual manager, at
least in terms of the form, time and access. Since in the organization there are many
users of the same information, the subjectiveness would vary. Therefore, the one
common key for measuring the quality could be the satisfaction of the decision maker.
3. An error is the third dimension of the quality of the information. The error creep in on
account of various reasons, namely;

a. An incorrect data measurement.
b. An incorrect collection method.
c. Failure to follow the prescribed data processing procedure.
d. Loss of data or incomplete data.
e. Poor application of data validation and control systems.
f. A deliberate misrepresentation.
Erroneous information is a serious problem because the decision maker cannot
make the adjustments as he is not aware of it in terms of the location and the quantum
of error. To control errors, it is necessary to follow the methods of systems analysis
and design. The approach should be that the errors should be prevented, failing that
they should be detected, and if not, they should be controlled.
4. The processing of data for the information processing should be allowed only after a
through validation of the transactions and the contents, as a whole, on logical plane.
Care should be taken that the information is processed after ensuring the correctness
of the data in terms of the time and the number of documents, and the transactions in
the period. The data should be check against the master data wherever possible and
the balance should be controlled through logical processing by using rules, formulae,
the principles, etc., which will ascertain the correctness of the contents.

Table: The Methods of Data and Information Collection
Method Example Comment
Observation
The first hand knowledge avoids a
response bias. An accuracy of
observation will decide the
response. It is dependent on the
observer and is influenced by the
bias.
Visit to the customer for assessing
the customer complaints. A visit to
assess the accidental damage.
Experiment
The information on a specific
parameter can be obtained through
a control over variables. The quality
of information depends on the
design of the experiments.
Assembly the yield of a new
fertilizer by a design of the control
experiment.
Assembly the yield of a new
fertilizer by a design of the control
experiment. Assessing the market
response to a new packaging
through test marketing.
Survey
One time. Enables to cover the
interested population on specific
aspects. The quality of
Market survey, opinion polls, and
census.


questionnaire will decide the quality
of information.
Subjective
Estimation
In the absence of all the three
above, the expert options may be
called to collect the information.
Data pertaining to future like the
alternate sources of energy, the
life style in the 21st century.
Transaction
Processing
The data exists but needs a
processing and integration for
reporting.
Ledgers, payroll, stock statements,
sales report.
Purchased
from outside
Easily available at a price. May be
expensive and many have a bias
depending on the source.
Databases on the specific
subject, research studies. Market
and technology studies.
Publications
Low cost but may project or
emphasize one view or the other.
Information may be lopsided.
The government publications, the
industry publications, the
institutional publications such as
NCAER, NCL, BANKS, UNO the
various public forums.
Government
agencies
Available but may not be directly
useful not knowing the details of
collection analysis is usually not the
latest.
The Reverse Bank of India
publications. The Tax publications,
the reports and findings.

2.4 Value of information
The decision theory suggests the methods of solving the problems of decision making
under certainty, risk and uncertainty. A decision making situation is of certainty when the
decision maker has full knowledge about the alternatives and its outcomes. This is possible
when perfect information is available. Therefore, the information has a perceived value in
terms of decision making. The decision maker feels more secured when additional
information is received in case of decision making under an uncertainty or a risk. The
information is called perfect information, if it wipes out uncertainty or risk completely.
However, perfect information is a concept.
A manager is faced with the problem of decision making under uncertainty or risk
conditions, if he does not know the perfect information about the decision situation. Further,
his ability to generate decision alternatives due to the imperfect information of the situation,
and also the expected events in the future is limited. In other words, given a set of possible
decisions, a decision maker will select one on the basis of the available information. If the
new information cause a change in the decision, then the value of the new information is the
difference in the value between the outcome of the old decision and that of new decision, less
the lost of obtaining the new information.
In MIS, the concept of the value of information is used to find out benefit of perfect information
and if the value is significantly high, the system should provide it. If the value is in signification,
it would not be worth collecting the additional information. The decisions at the operational
and the middle management level are such that the value of additional or new information is


low, while at the higher levels of the management, the decision being mainly strategic and
tactical in nature, the value of additional information is very high.
Apart from the monetary value of information, it has a value which is to be measured as
strength in promoting the functions of the management. Some information has the strength of
motivating the manager to think in futuristic terms. Some information has the strength of
confirming the beliefs or understanding the business process. It also reinforces the right and
wrong of a decision-making process that the manager is following.
2.5 Information needs of managers at different levels
When developing an information management strategy within an organisation, it is useful to
consider information needs on three levels:
corporate
team, division, business unit, etc
individual
The needs of each of these three levels must be met if a coordinated and effective solution is
to be maintained in the long-term.
Failure to address any one of the levels will lead to areas of the business or individuals finding
their own solution, which may not fit well within the strategic goals of the organisation.
These are not new ideas, but they will be explored in the context of intranets and other
corporate information systems.
1. Corporate
At the top is the corporate information that is useful for the whole organisation. This global
information is generally fairly well addressed by the corporate intranet (even if the intranet
itself needs improvement).
Examples of corporate information include policies and procedures, HR information, online
forms, phone directory, etc.
Interestingly, there may be a limited amount of truly global information, and it may not deliver
the greatest (measurable) business benefits.
2. Team, division, business unit


The middle level is perhaps the most interesting, as it covers all the information shared within
teams, divisions, business units, etc. This information may be critical to the day-to-day
activities of the group, but of little interest to the rest of the organisation.
Examples include project documentation, business unit specific content, meeting minutes, etc.
This level is generally poorly-served within organisations, although collaboration tools are
increasingly being used to address team information needs. It is also being recognised that it
is this local information that may be the most valuable, in terms of driving the day-to-day
activity of the organisation.

3. Individual
At the lowest level is the personal information need of staff throughout the organisation.
Examples include correspondence (both internal and external), reports and spreadsheets.
In most organisations, staff must struggle with using e-mail to meet their information
management needs. While staffs generally recognise the inadequacy of e-mail, they have few
other approaches or technologies at their disposal.
Note that some organisations (such as consulting firms) are heavily dependent on personal
information management amongst their staff.
Managing the levels
When managing the information within each of the three levels, consider the following:
An information management solution must be provided for staff at each of the three
levels.
If corporate solutions arent provided, then staff will find their own solutions. This is the
source of poor-quality intranet sub-sites, and other undesirable approaches.
A clear policy must be developed, outlining when each of the three levels applies, and
how information should be managed within each level.


Processes must be put in place to bubble up or promote information from lower
levels up to higher levels. For example, some team-generated information will be
critical for the whole organisation.
As much as possible, a faultless information management environment should be
delivered that covers all three levels.
2.6 Cases related to Information system
PAGE NO 497 TO 498, MIS GORDON DAVIS

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MCA-II-SEM-III SUB: - MSS CHAP-2- INFORMATION CONCEPT

SUBJECT TEACHER: PROF. S. H. KARANDE 1

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