What do you mean by Data and Information ?

When discussing data quality, we need to understand exactly what we mean by the word data. Often, the words information and data are used interchangeably, yet they are not the same thing.

Data is, or are (depending on your knowledge of Latin), fundamental to business intelligence. But how do we recognise data as data – and why is bad data such a pernicious entity?
First Things First: Data vs Information

There’s a really simple way to understand the difference between data and information. When we understand the primary function of the item we are looking at, we quickly see the distinction between the two.

Here’s a simple way to tell one from the other:

    Computers need data. Humans need information.
    Data is a building block. Information gives meaning and context.

In essence, data is raw. It has not been shaped, processed or interpreted. It is a series of 1s and zeros that humans would not be able to read (and nor would they want to). It is disorganised and unfriendly.

Once data has been processed and turned into information, it becomes palatable to human readers. It takes on context and structure. It becomes useful for businesses to make decisions, and it forms the basis of progress.

While the bigger picture is slightly more complex, this gets us part way towards understanding what data means

• answered 8 years ago
• Sunny Solu

What is data?

Data can be defined as a representation of facts, concepts or instructions in a formalized manner which should be suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by human or electronic machine.

Data is represented with the help of characters like alphabets (A-Z,a-z), digits (0-9) or special characters(+,-,/,*,<,>,= etc.).

What is Information?

Information is organised or classified data which has some meaningful values for the receiver.

Information is the processed data on which decisions and actions are based.

For the decision to be meaningful, the processed data must qualify for the following characteristics:

• Timely - Information should be available when required.

• Accuracy - Information should be accurate.

• Completeness - Information should be complete.

Data Processing Cycle

Data processing is the re-structuring or re-ordering of data by people or machine to increase their usefulness and add values for particular purpose. Data processing consists of basic steps input, processing and output. These three steps constitute the data processing cycle.

• Input - In this step the input data is prepared in some convenient form for processing. The form will depend on the processing machine. For example, when electronic computers are used, the input data could be recorded on any one of several types of input medium, such as magnetic disks, tapes and so on.

• Processing - In this step input data is changed to produce data in a more useful form. For example, pay-checks may be calculated from the time cards, or a summary of sales for the month may be calculated from the sales orders.

• Output - Here the result of the proceeding processing step are collected. The particular form of the output data depends on the use of the data. For example, output data may be pay-checks for employees.

• answered 8 years ago
• G John

The words Data and Information may look similar and many people use these words very frequently, But both have lots of differences between them.

what is data: Data are plain facts. The word "data" is plural for "datum." When data are processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make them useful, they are called Information.

It is not enough to have data (such as statistics on the economy). Data themselves are fairly useless, but when these data are interpreted and processed to determine its true meaning, they becomes useful and can be named as Information.

Information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person who receives it. it is any thing that is communicated.

Data is the term, that may be new to beginners, but it is very interesting and simple to understand. It can be anything like name of a person or a place or a number etc. Data is the name given to basic facts and entities such as names and numbers. The main examples of data are weights, prices, costs, numbers of items sold, employee names, product names, addresses, tax codes, registration marks etc.

• answered 8 years ago
• Gul Hafiz