MIS204:
Lesson 1: Introduction to Information Systems (IS)
Introduction to Information Systems (IS)
Welcome to MIS 204 - Introduction to Information Systems. This course will tackle many topics that involve technology theory, but also have a far-reaching impact on the daily operations of a business. Today, it is hard to separate the technology from the business. For example, metrics are important in all aspects of organizations today. They are used to measure inventory levels, marketing effectiveness, social media reach, and sales productivity. Technology provides the means to manage those metrics through the extraction and aggregation of data. This course will teach you about the interface of business and technology so that you understand how to extract and utilize business data.
Positions such as business, sales, and marketing analysts walk the fine line between technology and business. They integrate the components of technical knowledge and practical applications of business activity. They speak the languages of technology and business, which enables them to bring together various aspects of the company to communicate in a meaningful way to various stakeholders. These positions require a strong background knowledge of business acumen, but also require some knowledge of using technology tools. Throughout MIS 204, you will be presented with scenarios that will help you develop those technical skills.
As you progress through this course, you will take on the role of a business analyst at the Blue Cat Widget Company. You will be challenged with tasks - in the form of assignments - that will require the utilization of technology skills to solve business problems. But before we throw you into that position, it is necessary to give you some background on the use of technology. There are some technical terms you must understand to be successful.
One of the key technology concepts used in the business world is “information systems”, a term synonymous with the use of technology. Managers use information systems that help to fix problems by providing their company with the ability to store, manage, analyze, and profit from information about a business. Common information systems include the use of spreadsheets, databases, blogs, wikis, and combinations of these tools which are common and critical tools to understand and navigate the ever-increasing technology base. These are some of the primary resources used to interface between the business people and the technical people in an organization.
So, throughout this course, you - as a newly minted business analyst at the Blue Cat Widget Company - will work to enhance your knowledge of technical topics and tools. Each lesson in this course will build on previous topics until you have the proficiency to provide a smooth interface between the business people and the technology people in the company.
To start, this lesson provides some basics that you need to know about systems and information.
Learning Objectives
The goal of this lesson is to introduce you to organizational information systems. Upon completion of this lesson you will be able to:
- Explain the differences and relationships between data, information, and knowledge.
- Identify and describe the different types of information systems common to modern organizations.
- Develop a blog that you will use to collect information about technology topics.
Lesson Readings and Assignments
By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 1 Course Schedule.
What Is Information?
As our world becomes increasingly digitized (i.e, using digital media), we are producing more and more information. This is particularly true of organizations that are increasingly dependent on the power of information technologies to run their businesses. Indeed, there are some businesses such as Amazon, Google, and eBay for whom information technology is their business!
Video 1.1. Did You Know? Version 6.0.
NARRATOR: We're all searching for ways to stay ahead. To gain footing in a culture that's shifting at a mind boggling velocity. It's not easy when the foundation of everything is being seismically rocked.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amount of urban infrastructure built over the past 4,000 YEARS is the same we'll need to build...in the next 40 years]Where and how we live, the way we communicate, [ON-SCREEN TEXT: The number of mobile devices NOW EXCEEDS the number of people on Earth] [ON-SCREEN TEXT: In the next 5 years, the number of connected devices will increase EXPONENTIALLY] even how we carry out business.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: New businesses can be up and running in LESS THAN A MONTH ... including your competition]Making the move to more nimble and adaptive culture is essential.[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Close to 70% of companies that were on the Fortune 1000 list ten years ago have now VANISHED] Unable to adapt, once-pioneering companies are crumbling, or have disappeared altogether. When Kodak's iconic core product was threatened, they took massive hits by failing to jump on emerging market opportunities or react to inevitable market swings. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Once commanding 90% of film sales, KODAK only recently emerged from a 2012 bankruptcy filing] With a once-revolutionary business model, Borders made changes in the wrong direction and failed to adapt.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: BORDERS ... added superstores instead of ebooks, hired people who knew nothing about books, outsourced their website. R.I.P. BORDERS 1971-2011]
Unprepared for change, these giant fell. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: "... when the rate of change inside an institution becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight. - Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of GE"]
What does the future of your story look like? Innovation means being open to change and opportunity, to see your company as a dynamic system. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Innovators - P&G is ranked 23rd in innovation globally - spending more on R&D than most of its competitors] Innovation also means cultivating a healthy work environment where all employees excel in strategy, execution, and organization. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Happy and engaged employees leads to: lower labor costs, lower health costs, and a 240% rise in performance-related business outcomes]
Engaged employees create higher net profits and five times higher ROI for shareholders. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: 5X HIGHER ROI] Embracing the ethos of change and innovation allows companies not only to survive, but prosper. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: When its stock plummeted in 1996, APPLE TOOK RISKS and changed its business strategies. In the first quarter of 2012, there were more iPhones sold on planet Earth than BABIES BORN]
Armed with this knowledge, how can your company rise to the challenge of inevitable change and thrive for tomorrow?
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: CHANGE TO THRIVE - Did you know]
A 2003 report (University of California at Berkley) estimated that the world had produced almost 1,400 terabytes of information in office documents. How much is a terabyte? Let’s put it in terms that we can all relate to:
- The U.S. Library of Congress contains 17,000,000 books totaling approximately 136 terabytes of information.
- 1,400 terabytes / 136 terabytes = 10.3 Library of Congress book collections.
- 10.3 x 17,000,000 books = 175 million books worth of information produced in 2003 alone.
Those numbers have only grown in the time since the report was published, as has the demand for effective information systems to manage that information.
| Byte | 1 byte: A single character |
|---|---|
| Kilobyte (KB) | 1,000 bytes, or 103 bytes | 2 Kilobytes: A typewritten page;
100 Kilobytes: A low-resolution photograph |
| Megabyte (MB) | 1,000,000 bytes, or 106 bytes |
1 Megabyte: A small novel; 2 Megabytes: A high-resolution photograph; 5 Megabytes: The complete works of Shakespeare; 10 Megabytes: A minute of high-fidelity sound; 100 Megabytes: 1 meter of shelved books; 500 Megabytes: A CD-ROM |
| Gigabyte (GB) | 1,000,000,000 bytes, or 109 bytes |
1 Gigabyte: A pickup truck filled with books or 20 Yards of Books on a Shelf; 20 Gigabytes: A good collection of the works of Beethoven; 100 Gigabytes: A library floor of academic journals |
| Terabyte (TB) | 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1012 bytes |
1 Terabyte: 50,000 trees made into paper and printed; 2 Terabytes: An academic research library; 10 Terabytes: The printed collections of the U.S. Library of Congress; 400 Terabytes: National Climactic Data Center (NOAA) Database |
| Petabyte (PB) | 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1015 bytes |
1 Petabyte: 3 years of EOS data (2001) or 20 Million Four-Drawer Filing Cabinets Filled with Text; 2 Petabytes: All U.S. academic research libraries; 20 Petabytes: Production of all hard-disk drives in 1995; 200 Petabytes: All printed materials |
| Exabyte (EB) | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1018 bytes
2 Exabytes: Total volume of information generated in 1999 5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings |
Information is all around us and we are constantly making use of information in all facets of our lives. Having access to the right information at the right time can often mean the difference between success and failure. For organizations, the need for timely, accurate, and accessible information is even more critical in today's highly competitive global economy. The term “big data” is used to describe the large volumes of information that companies capture, and terms such as "data analytics" and "data mining" describe the the refinement of the information. But what is information?
Data, Information, and Knowledge
Many people tend to confuse data with information, and information with knowledge. Data are raw facts. For example, the number of chocolate bars sold by the local convenience store in the last month is a data point. Data, in and of itself, does not convey information. The number of chocolate bars sold at the local convenience store does not tell us anything of real value.
Information is two or more facts related to produce additional value. For example, if in addition to the sales totals for chocolate bars we have sales data for other candy bars, we can see where the sales of chocolate bars rank in comparison to all other types of candy bars.
Knowledge is stored information. If we know that chocolate bars were only the 10th best selling candy bar in our inventory, we have knowledge about the popularity of chocolate bars compared to the other items we sell. Similarly, if we store sales data information in a database, that database can be thought of as housing the knowledge about our store’s candy sales.
With our knowledge about the sales performance of chocolate bars in our store, we can make decisions about product placement, how much inventory we need to maintain, and many other aspects of retailing.
The graph above conveys the relationship among data, information, and knowledge. What the graph shows is that as connectedness among data increases, understanding increases. Connected data becomes information, connected information becomes knowledge, and connected knowledge becomes wisdom.
What Is Valuable Information?
The three most important factors in determining the value of information are as follows:
- How accurate is the information?
- How timely is the information?
- How accessible is the information?
Information that is inaccurate causes organizations to draw the wrong conclusions. Information that is too late to be capitalized upon is of little value. Information that cannot be accessed because the information system has crashed is likewise of little value.
Organizations develop or buy information systems to help ensure that their management personnel have access to accurate and timely information. But what exactly is an information system?
What Is an Information System?
Broadly speaking, an information system is an ensemble of computer hardware and software that collects, stores, processes, and manipulates data. In most information systems, the central component is a database which stores the information.Typically an information system will run on at least one powerful computer called a server that is specifically dedicated to running the information software. Some older information systems run on mainframe computers. Information systems can, however, also be run on a desktop computer, perhaps like the one you are using now to do this lesson.
At the most basic level, an information system consists of hardware, software, databases, and people.
- Hardware are the physical components that make up the system such as the processor, physical storage (hard drive), memory (RAM), and the network card.
- Software are the applications that can be run on the system including the operating system.
- A database is an application that stores data. A database management system is a software program such as Microsoft Access that is used to access the data stored in the database system.
- Perhaps the most important component of an information system is the people who use it and benefit from it.
In practice, information systems are often designed to address specific needs.
Types of Information Systems
There are other types of information systems, but these five are the main types used in organizations today. Navigate through the slides below to learn more about each type of information system.
Lesson Wrap-Up
Information is a critical asset for businesses operating in the modern economy. Managers need information that is accurate, timely, and available. Information systems are a tool used by organizations of all sizes and types worldwide. There are different types of information systems tailored to address specific organizational needs. You now have an understanding of the importance of information to organizations, what an information system is, and the different types of information systems commonly used today.
References
University of California at Berkley. (2003). How much information 2003 executive summary. Retrieved from http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/execsum.htm