ARSI UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
BY GETAHUN HM.
EMIAL:- [email protected]
Mobile: 0911-95-49-50
CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION PROCESSING

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 DIKW Pyramid

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 Data
 Data alone tells no story.
 Raw facts, figures, and observations about physical
phenomena or business transactions.
 It is facts represented by either numeric values (0-9),
alphabetic characters (a-z/A-Z), or special symbols ($,
%, @, etc).
 Data is often meaningless.
 For instance, consider the number 250299.
 We could interpret in a number of ways.
 Your ID number
 The date e.g. 25th February 1999
 The number of students in a given college.
 Data is raw unprocessed facts and figures that have no
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 Data

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 Information
 Information can be defined as the collection of
meaningful facts and figures that can be used as a base
for guidance and decision making.
 Information is data that has been rearranged, processed,
organized into a form perceived as useful by the recipient.
 Therefore the meaning we attach to a data can be
considered as information.
 For instance, the red traffic light is a form of data, the
meaning we attach to this data (i.e. STOP) is the
information.
 Information is a processed data that has meaning and is

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 Information

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Knowledge
 “How” is the information, derived from the collected data,
relevant to our goals?
 “How” are the pieces of this information connected to
other pieces to add more meaning and value? And, maybe
most importantly,
 “how” can we apply the information to achieve our goal?

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 Wisdom
 Wisdom is the top of the DIKW hierarchy and to get
there, we must answer questions such as ‘why do
something’ and ‘what is best’.
 Wisdom is knowledge applied in action.
 If data and information are like a look back to the past,
 Knowledge and wisdom are associated with what we do
now and what we want to achieve in the future.

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Data Processing
 A given data to be information it should have to
be processed and have to get a meaning.
 Data processing is the manipulation and
transformation of data into more meaningful form
(or information).
 It is the process of converting data in to
information.
Data (input)  processing  Output (Information)
 Processing may include:-
Calculating, Sorting, Summarizing, Merging etc.
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Characteristics of “Valuable
Information”
Accuracy:
 Information needs to be accurate enough for the use to
which it is going to be put.
 To obtain information that is 100% accurate is usually
unrealistic as it is likely to be too expensive to produce on
time.
 Accuracy is important.
 As an example, if government statistics based on the last
census wrongly show an increase in births within an area,
plans may be made to build schools and construction
companies may invest in new housing developments.
 In these cases any investment may not be recouped.
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Reliability
 Reliability deals with the truth of information.
 You can only really use information
confidently if you are sure of its reliability.
 When researching for an essay in any subject,
we might make straight for the library to find a
suitable book.
 We are reasonably confident that the
information found in a book, especially one
that the library has purchased, is reliable.
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Relevance
 Information should be relevant to the purpose for which
it is required. It must be suitable.
 What is relevant for one manager may not be relevant for
another.
 For example, a market research company may give
information on users’ perceptions of the quality of a
product.
 This is not relevant for the manager who wants to know
opinions on relative prices of the product and its rivals.
 The information gained would not be relevant to the
purpose.

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Accessibility
 Information should be easy to obtain or access.
 Information kept in a book of some kind is only available
and easy to access if you have the book to hand.
 A good example of availability is a telephone directory, as
every home has one for its local area.

Completeness:
 Information should contain all the details required by the
user.
 It may not be useful as the basis for making a decision.
 To meet all the needs of the situation, you often have to
collect it from a variety of sources.
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Timely
 Information must be on time for the purpose for which it is required.
 Information received too late will be irrelevant.
 For example, if you receive a brochure from a theatre and notice there
was a concert by your favorite band yesterday, then the information is too
late to be of use.
Economical
 Information should be available within set cost levels that may vary
dependent on situation.
 If costs are too high to obtain information an organization may decide to
seek slightly less comprehensive information elsewhere.
 For example, an organization wants to commission a market survey on a
new product.
 The survey could cost more than the forecast initial profit from the
product.
 In that situation, the organization would probably decide that a less costly
14source of information should be used, even if it may give inferior
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Conciseness/ Level of detail
 Information should be in a form that is short enough
to allow for its examination and use.
 There should be no extraneous information.
 For example, it is very common practice to summarize
financial data and present this information, both in the
form of figures and by using a chart or graph.
 We would say that the graph is more concise than
the tables of figures as there is little or no extraneous
information in the graph or chart.

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What is ICT?
 ICT is an acronym which stands for Information and
Communication Technology or Technologies.
 A good way to think about ICT is to consider all the uses of
digital technology that already exist to help individuals,
businesses and organizations use information.
 ICT (information and communications technology or
technologies) is an umbrella term that includes any
communication device or application
 Radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network
hardware and software, satellite systems and so on, as well
as the various services and applications associated with
them, such as videoconferencing and distance learning.
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What is ICT?
 In more general form an ICT can be defined as:
 The use of electronic devices and
telecommunication network for creating,
storing, processing, sending, and receiving
information.
 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the

use of computers and telecommunication

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What is IT?
 Information technology (IT) is the study, design,
development, implementation, support or management of
computer-based information systems, particularly
computer applications and computer hardware.
 IT encompasses all forms of technology used to create,
store, exchange, and use information in its various
forms.
 IT can be considered as the use of modern technologies
for capturing, processing, storing, retrieval and
communication of information whether in the form of
numerical data, text, sound, or image.

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Component of IT

 Thereare three components that we

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I. Computers
 Computer in simple terms, is an electronic machine
that can be instructed to accept, process, store and
present data and information
 Computer is a device which is used for creating,
storing, processing, sending, and receiving
information automatically.
 Computer is an electronic machine which is guided by
an internally stored program so as to perform
different kind of operation as per the instruction
which resides in the system.

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II. Communications Network
 An integral part of IT is the ability to communicate to
send and receive data and information over a
communication network.
 A communications network is an interconnection of
stations (or devices) at different locations through a
medium that enables people to send and receive data and
information and to share resources.
 Telephone wires and cables are common communication
media.
 Data communication is the transmission of data and
information over a communications medium.

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III. Know-how
 The ability to draw on the power of IT to solve
problems and to take advantages of the
opportunities it creates offered by IT.
 Therefore IT require or implies know-how,
knowing how to do something well.
 Know-how includes
 Familiarity with the tools of IT
 The skills needed to use these tools
 Understanding when to use IT to solve a problem or
capitalize on an opportunity..
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Data processing life cycle
 Data processing life cycle shows the steps
involved while processing data in to
information.
 Information processing (manual or
computerized) requires
1. Input data
2. Processing
3. Output and
4. Storage and retrieval
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 The figure below shows the information
processing cycle.

Storage & Retrieval

Process Output
Input

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Input
 Input is the data given to the system in order to
be processed
 Activities include:-
 Collecting & recording data: in hard copy or soft
copy form.
 Classifying & coding input data: - the task of
identify one kind of data & distinguishing it one
from the other kind by means of code number or
letter (alphanumeric system) to speeds up
processing.
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Process
 Processing includes different operations
which are used to convert the input data to
information.
 The operations include:-
 Calculating operations: - arithmetic or logical
operations
 Summarizing:- reducing the volume of data
 Sorting: - putting in a definite order (either in
ascending or descending)
 Merging: - combining a data.

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Output
 Output is the final result of data processing.
 Output is the information that we get after the
data is processed.
 Output can be in different format, this
includes:-
 Hard copy- printed form
 Soft copy-(magnetic form)
 Audio format
 Visual format.

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Storing and retrieving
 Storing: - saving data for future use.
 Retrieving: - searching for & finding data
which resides in the storage device.

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 Manual Vs Automated Information
Processing
 Information processing can be either manual or
computerized (automated).
 Manual information processing is processing of
information using paper, pencil, and brain.
 Automated information processing is processing of
information with the help of computers this means
that when the above cycles are done with the help of
computers.
 This is much more flexible than the manual one and a
lot faster.

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