Essay On Information System

Submitted By tugbacolpan
Words: 357
Pages: 2

Information Systems

What is an information system?

Consider these definitions:

"Information and data handling activities in human organisations. Information handling in this sense is a purposeful activity sustained overtime, and includes the activities of collecting information, storing it, directing it to appropriate places and utilising it in various tasks within the organisation". (Avgerou and Cornford, 1993)

"Information systems are social systems which rely to an increasing extent on information technology (IT) for their function. Nevertheless, the technology is never more than a component of the information system. Hence, the emphasis on social systems is of paramount importance". (Land and Hirscheim, 1983)

Key points:

• IS are social systems - gives an explicit acknowledgement to the organisation that accomodates the technology. By social we are referring to the people within the organisation; their roles, concerns and needs and how we can use technology to assist

• Hence, IS is studied in an organisational context

• IS does not mean computers but how we add value (to organisational work) with computers

• information - output of a data transformation process which has meaning to the users

• data - signs or symbols which are collected and organised and which constitute the formal basis for the functioning of organisations

Components of: (Hard/Software; Interfaces)

Origin:
Strong technical background. Consider this description:

"IS can be described as any system which provides information to individuals to aid them in their organisational task”. Here, IS is mostly thought of in terms of