This document discusses objectives and concepts related to information, data, and effective presentation. It covers classifying and characteristics of information, data capture and accuracy, and the needs and uses of information for management and decision making. Key points include how information can be classified by source, nature, level, time, etc. and the importance of relevant, accurate, and timely information for planning and decision making. It also addresses translating data prior to entry, ensuring data quality, and audit mechanisms for data capture.

1. 13.4 Information and Data
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2. Objectives: Information
• Understand management information needs: the concept
of relevance and methods of interpretation.
• Understand that information has many characteristics and
can be classified in many ways.
• Examples include:
– Source - internal, external, primary, secondary
– Nature - quantitative, qualitative, formal, informal
– Level - strategic, tactical, operational
– Time - historical, current, future
– Frequency - real-time, hourly, daily, monthly
– Use - planning, control, decision
– Form - written, visual, aural, sensory
– Type - disaggregated, aggregated, sampled.

3. Objectives: Information
• Discuss the value of information in aiding the
decision making process.
• Understand the difference between internal and
external information requirements.
• Describe the characteristics of good information
and delivery, e.g. relevant; accurate; complete;
user confidence; to right person; at right time; in
right detail; via correct channel of
communication; understandable.
• Describe the advantages and characteristics of
good information within an applications context.

4. Objectives: Data
• Understand that data may require translation or
transcription prior to entry into the system. This
can affect the accuracy of the data.
• Discuss the impact of quantity and quality of
data on the method of data capture together with
the control and audit mechanisms required to
manage data capture.

5. Objectives: Effective Presentation
• Understand the effect that the method and style
of presentation has upon the message/design in
relation to the intended audience.

6. Management Needs
• Managers need information relevant to their
needs, for planning, controlling and decision
making.
• The information needed by managers will come
in a different form for different purposes.
• The type of information needed will depend on
the level of the manager as well as the particular
task to be completed.

7. Classification of Information
• Information is classified according to:
– Source - internal, external, primary, secondary
– Nature - quantitative, qualitative, formal, informal
– Level - strategic, tactical, operational
– Time - historical, current, future
– Frequency - real-time, hourly, daily, monthly
– Use - planning, control, decision
– Form - written, visual, aural, sensory
– Type - disaggregated, aggregated, sampled.

8. Source: Internal / External
• A source document is the original document that
brings information in.
• Internal source information; comes from within
the organisation; e.g.
– Staff duty rotas, holiday dates
– Profit forecasts
• External source information; comes from outside
the organisation; e.g.
– Marketing information results from a questionnaire
– Tax changes to entitlements
• The point of view is important, a telephone bill is
an internal source to the telephone company but
an external source to an organisation that use
the telephone.

9. Source: Primary / Secondary
• A primary source of information is collected
directly from an information source, i.e. the
company’s loyalty card.
• A secondary source of information from the
loyalty card would be e.g.
– The frequency of shopping
– The time of the day it took place
– The different types of food bought.

10. Nature: Quantitative / Qualitative
• Quantitative information is measured in
numerical terms, e.g.
– Sales total
– Profit or loss totals
• Qualitative information cannot usually be
measured numerically and has to be described
differently, e.g.
– Staff concerns over the latest sales figures
– Customer satisfaction and loyalty
• A computer system is able to deal with
quantitative information much better than
qualitative information.

11. Nature: Formal / Informal
• Formal information is generated from the
organisation’s own MIS in the form of reports.
These reports influence the decisions made on
the running of the organisation.
• Formal information may also be in the form of a
memo, an agenda, minutes, or a newsletter.
• Informal information is generated from
conversations, telephone calls, notes, and
memo’s.
• E-mail could be considered either Formal or
Informal depending upon the information it
contains and the circumstances.

12. Level of Information
• Strategic Information: used by senior managers
and the board of directors for strategic decisions,
e.g. a new product, a new factory, number of
staff employed.
• Tactical Information: used by middle managers
and is more detailed than strategic, is used for
short term planning.
• Operational Information: used by junior
managers for the day to day running of the
organisation. Information is detailed and precise,
and in most cases routine.

13. Time Period
• Historical Information: kept as a reference, used
in the process of planning and making
comparisons, e.g. a yearly sales record is used
to make a prediction for the coming year.
Organisations have to keep records of past
dealings for accounting and tax purposes.
• Current Information: is being received all of the
time, written information is better than aural as
there is a record of it.
• Future Information: is a forecast of the results of
events that will occur, it is useful for planning but
is the least accurate form of information.

14. Frequency of Supply
• Different information is reported on at different
intervals, such as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
or annually.
• Company accounts may be generated either
quarterly or annually.
• Salary information may be generated monthly.
• Stock flow information may be generated daily or
weekly.
• Many systems now operate in real time with the
data being added as soon as a transaction has
taken place, such as an airline booking process.
The information from these transactions is
always up to date.

15. Use: Planning, Control, Decision
• Information is used for planning, e.g. a new
product will be aimed at targeted market sectors.
• Information is used to monitor and control work
that is done e.g. the sales manager may use this
information to find sales staff that are under
performing.
• Information is used for decision making, e.g. to
decide where to market the new product, or to
decide whether to change or sack staff.

16. Form
• Visual: Charts, graphs, images.
• Written: forms, reports, tables, letters, provides
physical evidence.
• Aural: by word of mouth, direct and faster.
• Sensory: touch, taste, smell, in wine making,
cookery, etc.

17. Type
• Detailed Information: used at operational level,
e.g. stock inventory.
• Aggregated Information: where detailed
information is summed together e.g. all the sales
from all of the departments.
• Sampled Information: where a sample only is
required to represent the whole.

18. The Characteristics of Good
Information
• Relevant for its purpose.
• Accurate for its purpose.
• Complete enough for its purpose.
• Reliable from a source in which the user has
confidence.
• Presented to the right person.
• Presented in time for its purpose.
• Contains the right level of detail.
• Presented through the correct channel of
communication.
• The meaning is clear and in an understandable
format.

19. • Relevance: Information relevant to the
required purpose, the receiver should not
have to spend time extracting what they
want.
• Accurate: Information has to be accurate
for decision making, it may be possible to
use incomplete information if it is accurate.
• Completeness: Information for decisions
should be complete or complete enough.
At operational level it must be complete, a
business cannot sell stock it has just run
out of.

20. • Confidence: Information has to have the
user’s confidence, if mistakes are spotted
they may not be able to use the
information at all.
• The Right Person: Information should only
be passed to those who can use it, and
not to everyone in the organisation.
• Right Time: Information that is to be
discussed and decisions made needs to
be available before these meetings and
not after. Decisions can then be made
appropriately.

21. • Right Detail: Information sometimes only
needs to be presented in overview, other
time it needs to be in detail, different levels
of management need different levels of
detail.
• Channel of Communication: Information
should travel a well managed channel
between people, includes the type of
format, and internal/external.
• Understandable: Information should be
presented clearly to the user, fully
understandable and unambiguous.

22. Data Capture
• Data capture involves getting data into a
form that can be processed by the
computer.
• The ideal scenario would be:
– Accurate, Fast, Automatic and Cheap.
• Methods include:
– Keyboard, MICR, OCR, OMR, and voice
recognition.

23. Data Capture
• Data can be transferred from one method
to another, eliminating human
involvement, reduces greatly the chances
of error.
• Special documents are designed to collect
data in a form that is easily transferred into
an input document (data capture form).

24. Accuracy
• Audit checking of transactions are
necessary to ensure the results are correct
and not interfered with.
• Audit trails can be processed as a trace of
the processing of data throughout the
whole automated process.
• This can prevent fraud.

25. Accuracy
• Verification of input data;
– Double checking, or comparing the input
with the source document, or two
operators inputting the same data one
checked against the other.
– The source document may have been
completed incorrectly!

26. Validation
• A computerised check that data meets
certain criteria.
• Range check: pre-programmed upper and
lower boundaries of acceptable data which
is checked against for each entry, e.g.
only dates between today and a month
ahead may be allowed.
• Data Type check: pre-programmed data
type to ensure the correct data type, e.g. a
name is not entered into a date field.

27. Validation
• Existence check: pre-programmed to force
acceptance of data, e.g. account number.
• Consistency check: pre-programmed so
that data entered is checked against it
being present, e.g. enter a stock number
that already exists in a database.

28. Effective Presentation of
Information
• Database Reports:
– Use of selective information, not
complete tables.
– Logical groupings, sorted, easy to read.
– Printed as a report using standard
consistent formatting.

29. • Different types of report are:
– Operational: daily work, weekly sales
etc,
– Summary: summarised the high volume
of data,
– Exception: trends, unusual figures, up to
date and not waiting for the regular
reports.

30. • Presentational Graphics:
– Text charts: brief, handouts for
presentations,
– Graph charts: column, pie, for displaying
numerical information,
– Slide show: series of slides, can be
printed for handouts,
– Pictures: alongside slides or text to
illustrate, use of photographs, clip art,
company logos etc are useful.

31. • Doyle pages: 196-201, 203-205.
• Exercise: Activity pages: 197, 198.