Presenter: R. L.

Whyte

Information Processing
Information Processing
 Information and Data

• Data is raw, unprocessed facts. This may be facts

about persons, places, things or events that have
been collected through observation or measurement.
• Information is meaningful knowledge derived from
raw data. Data that has been processed, organised or
put into context so that it is meaningful to the user
may be regarded as information.
 Sources of data

• ‘Sources of data’ has two different, but related,

meanings in Information Technology and we need to
be clear about the difference. The first meaning of
‘the source of data’ is: the thing that has been
measured.
• The second meaning of ‘the source of data’ is: the
person or organisation that provided the data from
observation.
 Types of document

• A source document is a document that contains data

for input into an information processing system.
 Document types used to collect, store and share data

• A document is printed or written, is usually paper-

based, and is used to collect, store and share data.
• Documents may be generated by hand or by a
machine such as a computer printer. Some
documents may be read and processed by humans
whereas others are read and processed by machines.
• A human-readable document is a document that may
be read by a human but may not be in a form that a
computer can automatically accept as input. An
example is a handwritten list of vehicle parts.
• A machine-readable document is a document that
can be read directly and understood by computer
systems. Examples are documents that include
barcodes and QR (scan) codes.
• QR codes are like barcodes but are made up of small
black and white squares instead of lines.
• Some documents can be both human-readable and
machine-readable, for example a product label that
contains text about the item and a barcode to
identify the item.
• A turnaround document is a printed document that has been
output from a computer system and that contains machine-
readable objects that will allow the same document to
subsequently provide input to a computer system.
• A turnaround document helps an organisation to increase
efficiency by reducing the time it takes for data entry and
helping to minimise and eliminate data entry errors.
• Remember that hard copy is permanent printed output from
the computer.
 Evaluating the reliability of Information obtained from online
sources

• The quality of data and information available from

online sources will vary from one source to another.
This is because the different authors will have
differing motives for publishing the data and
information.
• Additionally, each author may have taken differing
levels of care to ensure that the information being
presented is accurate and unbiased.
• While there are different ways to judge the overall
quality of information, one generally accepted
measure is its reliability.
• Reliability is the degree or extent to which the
content of the information can be depended on to be
accurate. Reliability has four characteristics:
• Persons who retrieve data and information from any source, but
particularly online sources, should carefully evaluate the information
to determine whether it is reliable.
• You should use only highly reliable information. Here are four
questions you need to ask yourself:
1. Is the same data or information available from multiple independent
sources?
2. Is the information presented in an impartial manner?
3. Is the information up to date?
4. Is the information appropriate for the intended purpose?
 Differentiate between verification and validation

• Verification is a process during which data that has

already been input or captured is checked to ensure
that it matches the data on the source document.
• Good verification significantly reduces the number of
typographical and transposition errors that occur
during data entry.
• A typographical error is a typing error that affects the
text, such as missing or additional characters.
Examples are: Guyyana and Britsh Virgins Islanbs.
• A transposition error is one caused by switching the
position of two adjacent characters in a number or
text string. Examples are typing $5,450 instead of
$5,540 or Gyuana instead of Guyana.
 Methods of verification: double entry and proofreading

• Double entry is a data verification method that

requires that the data is entered twice; this should be
done by two different data entry clerks and both
entries are checked against each other to ensure that
they are identical.
• If the two copies are the same we can be sure the
data has been input without any errors.
• Some online forms utilise double entry to verify data items
such as passwords and email addresses, although this is not
as reliable as when two independent persons enter data.
• Proofreading is a manual method of verification during
which a data entry clerk visually checks the source
document against data that has already been input by
another data entry clerk.
• Proofreading is less reliable than double entry verification
but it is significantly quicker.
• Validation is a checking process in a program which is
aimed at finding out if the data is genuine.
• Validation ensures that data entered into a database
form, web form or computer program conforms to a
set of validation rules and may include a presence
check to check whether the data is present, or a
range check, for example to ensure that the data is
between 1 and 100.
Validation checks include:
• range check
• reasonableness check
• data type check
• consistency check
• presence check
• format check
• length check.
 Methods of validation

• We have seen that validation is a process that

ensures that data entered into a computer system
conforms to a set of validation rules.
Validation checks include:
• range check: is the data value within the expected
range? (Example: number of passenger seats in a
vehicle must be in the range 4–68.)
• reasonableness check: is the data reasonable within the
context? (Example: it is unreasonable for an employee
without a driving licence to be allocated the role of driver.)
• data type check: is the data of the intended data type?
(Examples: ‘colour’ must be text; ‘length’ must be a
number.)
• consistency check: does the data relate correctly to other
data? (Example: if type is minibus then number of seats
must be less than 20.)
• presence check: is data present? (Example: all fields
that are marked ‘required’ must have data entered.)
• format check: does the data conform to the format
required? (Example: date must be in the format
dd/mm/yyyy.)
• length check: is the data of the correct length?
(Example: year of birth must be four digits, e.g. 2004.)
Validation methods
• The main difference between verification and
validation is that verification checks the data being
input to the system while validation authenticates the
data once it is in the system.
• Verification is carried out by humans; validation is
carried out by the computer.
 File Organisation

• A file is a container in a computer system for storing

data, information or programs.
• Files usually exist permanently on a secondary
storage media. Disk drives (HDD and SSD), USB pen
drives and DVDs are all types of secondary storage
media.
 File access methods
• The term ‘file access methods’ can have two meanings in
Information Technology:
1. How data is stored in the file.
2. How files are stored on the storage media. We need to be clear
about the similarities and differences.
The important words are:
• serial
• sequential
• random and direct.
• Serial access’ means to start at the beginning and
read to the end in one go. Serial access – reading in
the order in which the words were written.
• Sequential access’ requires the words to be ordered
in some way.
• Random and direct are the final methods of access.
Random and direct access allows us to jump straight
to the required data.
 How data is stored in the file

• Serial file access is where the data is stored in the file

in the order in which the data was written to the file.
• sequential file access, data is stored in an ordered
way or in sequence.
• random access and direct access don’t usually refer
to how data is stored in a file.
 How files are stored on storage media

Serial file access to files stored on a storage medium

• Files are stored on a storage medium in a serial way
when they are stored in the order in which they were
written.
• Backup is the copying of files to a separate,
removable storage device so that they can be
restored to the original location if the original data is
ever lost or destroyed.
• A system backup is a copy of all the files on a
computer system that can be used to restore the
whole computer after a case of hardware failure or
data loss.
• Archiving is storing files that are accessed only
infrequently, and modified even less frequently, on
another storage device.
Sequential file access to files stored on a storage medium
• Files are stored on storage media in a sequential way
when they are stored in some sort of sequence.
• Magnetic tapes can store files sequentially.
Random file access to files stored on a storage medium
• Random access and direct access are often used
interchangeably.
 – Random access: the organisation of data in main
memory (random access memory or RAM).
– Direct access: the organisation of files on a disk
drive.
• In random access, data can be quickly accessed
wherever it occurs in main memory.
Direct file access to files stored on a storage medium
• Direct access storage media is secondary storage
where each file has a specific location or unique
address in the storage, allowing it to be accessed
quickly.
Choosing an appropriate file access method

• A real-time system is a computer system where

response time is critical.
• Example: computer systems controlling self-driving
cars have to be real-time systems.