Data reliability for informativetechnologs
- 1. Information Technology DATA AND INFORMATION
- 2. Objectives • Distinguish between data and information: – Discuss sources of data and information – Discuss Document Types • Evaluate the reliability of information obtained from online sources: – Authenticity – Currency – Relevance – Bias
- 5. Data and Information • Data is raw, unprocessed facts. This may be facts about persons, places, things or events that have been collected through observation and management. • Information is meaningful knowledge derived from raw data. Data that has been processed, organized, or put into context so that it is meaningful to the user may be regarded as information.
- 7. Data and Information Sources of Data • Sources of data can come from some form of measurement. • For example: – Wind speed (22 knots) – Temperature (28 degrees Celsius) – Humidity (74%) – Rainfall (2.2cm)
- 8. Data and Information • The source of data can also come from a person or organization that provided the data from observation. • Observations are usually recorded by a human onto a paper form for later input into a computer system or directly input into the computer system by the observer. • The source of this data is the person who did the observing
- 9. Data and Information • Nature is a big producer of data. It produces data such as temperature, wind speed, amount of rainfall and humidity. • Human activities also create data. As persons travel – by air, rail, the ocean and the road. – Data is generated in numerous ways.
- 10. Data Types and Document Types
- 11. Data Types • A source document is a document that contains data for input into an information processing system. • Depending on the source of the data, the data values obtained will exist in different types, such as text and images
- 12. Data Types
- 13. Document Types • What is a document? – A document is printed or written, is usually paper-based, and is used to collect, store and share data. – Documents may be generated by hand or by a machine such as a computer printer. Some documents may be read and processed by humans whereas others are read and processed by machines • Types of documents include the following: – Human-readable document – Machine-readable document – Turnaround document
- 14. Document Types • Human Readable Document – Is a document that may be read by a human but may not be in a form that a computer can automatically accept as input. • An example is a handwritten list of vehicle parts.
- 15. Document Types • Machine-Readable Documents – Is a document that can be read directly and understood by computer systems. • Examples are documents that include barcodes and QR (scan) codes. – Some documents can be both human-readable and machine-readable, for example a product label that contains text about the item and a barcode to identify the item.
- 16. Document Types • Turnaround document – Is a printed document that has been outputted from a computer system and that contains machine-readable objects that will allow the same document to subsequently provide input to a computer system. • In other words, it is a document outputted by a computer system, that accepts input from another source such as a human, and then inputted back in the computer system.
- 18. Class Activity • Complete the “Data and Information Activity” that is posed in the google classroom.
- 19. Evaluate the Reliability of Information obtained from online sources
- 20. Reliability of Information What do we mean by online? • Online means Internet-based sources accessed primarily via the World Wide Web (WWW). These online sources may include databases, magazines, newspaper and news hosted by a website. – The quality of data and information available from online source will vary from one source to another. – This is due to the fact that authors will have differing motives for publishing the data and information
- 21. Reliability of Information • Each author may have differing levels of care to ensure that the information being presented is accurate and unbiased. • The most general way of judging the overall quality of information is Reliability. What is reliability? • Reliability is the degree or extent to which the content of the information can be depended on to be accurate • Reliability has four (4) characteristics: – Authenticity – Lack of bias – Currency – Relevance
- 23. Reliability of Information • In order to test the overall quality of the information, you will need to test the quality of each characteristic by conducting a ‘four-way test’: 1. Is the same data or information available from multiple independent sources? (Authenticity) 2. Is the information presented in an impartial manner? (Lack of Bias) 3. Is the information up to date? (Currency) 4. Is the information appropriate for the intended purpose? (Relevance) • If the answer to all four questions is “Yes”, then the information may be deemed to have excellent overall quality and may be used with some form of caution. – If the information scores 3 out of 4, the quality is suspect and the information should be used with extreme caution. – A score of 1 or 2 out of 4 is a definite red flag and the data should not be used.
- 24. Class Activity • Imagine you’re conducting research about the “Water Cycle”. 1. Source TWO (2) articles online. 2. Apply the four-way reliability test. 3. What are the sources you obtained? 4. Write a paragraph to explain which of the articles you would use (if any) and why.