Lecture Computing for management - Chapter 6

Lecture 6 - Business data and information. After studying this chapter you will be able to understand: Data, number systems, decimal, binary number systems, bits and bytes, how computer store data? How computer represent data?

Business Data and

Information

Lecture 6

Summary of Previous

What are the quality metrics in order to buy a monitor from a market.

 Size, resolution etc

Monitor technologies

Strain due to wrongly choosing monitors.

How to avoid strain while using monitors.

Video cards and sound cards

 Binary Number Systems

 Bits and Bytes

 How computer store data?

 How computer represent data?

Today’s Topics

Direct and Indirect Data Sources

What is Data?

description of things, events, activities, and transactions that are recorded, classified, and stored but not organized to convey any specific meaning

figures, sounds, or images

Examples of Data Items

 a student grade in a class, A+, A, B+, B-, etc

 the number of hours an employee worked in

a certain week e.g 50, 40, 60 etc.

Time e.g 12:30

What are the Types of Data Items?

Types of Data are

Number System

Expressing Numbers

A Manner of counting

Several different number systems exists.

Used by humans to count

Contains ten distinct digits

Digits combine to make larger numbers

 As discussed in Lecture 1, a computer can understand only 1 and 0

then decimal.

How Computers Store Data?

Binary number system

 A number system that has just two unique digits, 0 and 1

computer can represent

 The two digits represent the two off and on states

ON

units of data used in measuring data

transfer rates

• Example: 56 Kbps modem

How Computers Represent Data

used by computer systems

Used to converts letters into binary

Standard codes necessary for data transfer

Representing Characters:

Character Codes

Information Interchange (ASCII)

Eight bits equals one character; used by minicomputers and personal computers.

Character Codes

Interchange Code (EBCDIC)

 Eight bits equals one character; used by mainframe computers

Character Codes

over 65,000 combinations; used for language symbols.

ASCII Table- Example

An electronic signal for the letter

T is sent to the system unit

Step 3:

The signal for the letter T is

converted to its ASCII binary

code (01010100) and is stored in

memory for processing

Step 4:

After processing, the binary code

for the letter T is converted to an

image on the output device

 The recipient interprets the meaning and draws conclusions and implications from the information.

How Data is converted into

Information?

need to process data into information.

order to turn it into an information.

 In the next 3 exercises

we will see how the data could be processed to give it meaning

 What information can then be derived from the data?

Exercise 1

Yes, Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes,

No, Yes, No, Yes, Yes

Raw Data

Context

Responses to the market research question – “Would you buy brand x at price y?”

Processing

Exercise 1: Solution

 We could add up the yes and no responses and calculate the percentage of customers who would buy product X at price Y.

 The information could be presented as a chart to make it easier to understand.

Exercise 2: Solution

 Adding Ali scores would give us a mark out of

600 that could then be converted to a letter

grade

 Alternatively we could convert the individual subject results into grades.

Exercise 3: Solution

 By subtracting the second value from the first

we can work out how many units of gas the consumer has used

 This can then be multiplied by the price per unit to determine the customer’s gas bill.

Information, Data, Context,

Meaning

Information = Data + Context + Meaning

Processing

Data – raw facts and figures

Information – data that has been processed (in a context) to give it meaning

What is Knowledge?

needed to interpret information

“…the  capability  of  understanding  the  relationship  between  pieces  of  information  and  what  to  actually  do  with the information”

Debbie Jones – www.teach-ict.com

Knowledge Examples

 Using the 3 previous exercises:

 A Marketing Manager could use this information to decide whether or not to raise or lower price y

 Ali’s teacher could analyse the results to determine whether it would be worth him re-sitting a subject

 Looking at the pattern of the customer’s previous gas bills may identify that the figure is abnormally low and they are fiddling the gas meter!!!

What are Data Sources?

 Previously we have been discussed data input methods

 Another important aspect regarding data is its collection

 Data can be collected either:

by- In the world of business these would be described as

primary and secondary sources of data

Direct (Original) Data Sources

Indirect Data Sources 1

 Data collected for one purpose and used for another

 A credit card company collects data about your

spending in order to bill you each month However, a secondary use of this data is to build up a “profile” of your spending habits This data can then be used to send you direct marketing about goods and services that may appeal to you

Credit Card Transaction

Direct Marketing

Indirect Data Sources 2

 Purchased data/data passed on

 There are a number of ways data

can be acquired from 3 rd parties

and then used for a different

purpose

 A good example is the email

services Its main use is to send

and receive emails However,

marketing companies make

extensive use of the emails

addresses to target customers.

Quality of the Data Source 1

 GIGO (Garbage In

Garbage Out)

 If data input is poor the

resulting information

output will be poor i.e

corrupt, inaccurate etc

 Can you think of any “real

life” examples?

Garbage In

Garbage Out

Quality of the Data Source 2

Examples of GIGO can include:

 Unreliable questionnaires/surveys

 e.g inappropriate samples, badly worded

questions etc.

 Incorrectly adjusted instruments

 e.g an incorrectly calibrated balance will give

incorrect measures of mass

 Human error

 e.g transcription errors when entering data

 Incomplete data sets

 e.g failing to account for “shrinkage” when

measuring supermarket stock

Microsoft Word

 Publisher – brochures, calendars, postcards, etc.

 Office 2007 which was released on January 30 in 2007

Microsoft Word 2007

Microsoft word

documents is also avalible

2007.

Simple formatting

Welcome to this lecture

Changing font

Welcome to this lecture

Bold/Italic/Underline

How to change text color

Changing Text Colors

How to change text size

Changing Text Size

The first impression and view of a document is very important for the reader The options listed underneath are the most important ones These can make the document nice looking, but also very bad A professional document should have a standard font

(like Times New Roman or Arial), appropriate size (normal text size 12), and black color

The layout of the text should make the reader comfortable – it should be easy to read In thesis, or other large documents, the text is often aligned to both the left and right margins This creates a clean look at both sides of the text Additional extra space are put in between words as necessary.

The first impression and view of a document is very important for the reader The options listed underneath are the most important ones These can make the document nice looking, but also very bad A professional document should have a standard font

(like Times New Roman or Arial), appropriate size (normal text size 12), and black color

The layout of the text should make the reader comfortable – it should be easy to read In thesis, or other large documents, the text is often aligned to both the left and right margins This creates a clean look at both sides of the text Additional extra space are put in

between words as necessary.

The first impression and view of a document is very important for the reader The options listed underneath are the most important ones These can make the document nice looking, but also very bad A professional document should have a standard font

(like Times New Roman or Arial), appropriate size (normal text size 12), and black color

The layout of the text should make the reader comfortable – it should be easy to read In thesis, or other large documents, the text is often aligned to both the left and right margins This creates a clean look at both sides of the text Additional extra space are put in between words as necessary.

Alignment of text

Alignment of Text

0 cm

4,0 cm Left

Page Setup / Margins

Line Spacing

Word Count

Heading 1

Heading 3

Heading 2

Texttextexttexttexttexttextexttexttextexttex texttexttexttexttextexttexttext

Texttextexttexttexttexttextexttexttextexttex texttexttexttexttextexttexttext

Heading 3

Texttextexttexttexttexttextexttexttextexttex texttexttexttexttextexttexttexttext

Texttextexttexttexttexttextexttexttextexttex texttexttexttexttextexttexttext

Heading and Table of Contents

Picture and Crops

Adding References / Citation

Data

Data Representation/ Storage

Information and its processing

Knowledge from Information

Data Quality GIGO

MS Word Practical

 Changing Font, Size, Color, Underline, Adding Reference, Picture Crop, Developing Table of Contents