What is data and information

February 10, 2019

Data and information
A collection of raw fact and figures is called data. The word raw means that the facts have not been processed to get their exact meaning. Data is given to the computer for
processing.

Data

A collection of raw fact and figures is called data. The word raw means that the facts

have not been processed to get their exact meaning. Data is given to the computer for

processing. Data is collected from different sources. It is collected for different purposes. Data

may consist of numbers, characters, symbols or pictures etc.

Examples of Data

Some examples of data are as follows:

• Student fill an admission form when they get admission in college. The form

consists of raw fact about the students. These raw fact are student's name, father

name, address etc. The purpose of collecting this data to maintain the records of

etc student during their study period in the college.

• Government collect the data of all citizen of the country during the census. This

is stored permanently and is used for different purposes at different times.

• Different organization conduct surveys to know opinion of the people about

their product. In these surveys, people express their ideas and opinions about

different issues. These ideas and opinions of the people are stored as data. The

organizations use this data for the improvement of their products etc.

Information

The processed data is called information. Information is an organized and processed

It is more meaningful than data and is used for making decisions. Data is used

As input for the processing and information is the output of this processing. This information

Can be used again in some other processing and will be considered as data in that processing.

for example, the marks of a student In different subject data This data is used to

calculate the total marks which LS the Information The total marks can be processed again to

calculate average marks of the student. In this processing total marks IS used as data

average marks is the Information.

Examples of Information

Some examples of Information are as follows

• In colleges and universities, the raw fact students are stored on admission

forms. If we want to find out a list of all students who live in Karachi we will

apply some processing on this data. This processing Will give us the desired list. This

list a form of processed data and Will called Information.

• The data stored to census used to generate different type of Information For

example, Government can it to find the total of graduates or literacy rate

In the etc The information IS obtained by prxessl.ng the data Government

can use the information In Important decisions to improve literacy rate

• An organization can use the opinion of the as data and process It to generate

information of its Interest- For example, it can know that how many people of the

country are satisfied with the quality of it product and how many are unsatisfied.

The organization can use this inform.