Information System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Information System (IS) is the system of persons, data records and activities that process the data and information in a given organization, including manual processes or automated processes. Usually the term is used erroneously as a synonymous for computer-based information systems, which is only the Information technologies component of an Information System. The computer-based information systems are the field of study for Information technologies (IT); however these should hardly be treated apart from the bigger Information System that is always envolved in.

The IT Department partly governs the information technology development, use, application and influence on a business or corporation . A computer based information system, following a definition of Langefors^[1], is a technologically implemented medium for recording, storing, and disseminating linguistic expressions, as well as for drawing conclusions from such expressions. Information systems are also social systems whose behaviour is heavily influenced by the goals, values and beliefs of individuals and groups, as well as the performance of the technology.^[2] Ciborra (2002) defines the study of information systems as the study that “deals with the deployment of information technology in organizations, institutions, and society at large.”^[3]

• In information systems, an information system consists of three components: human, technology, organization. In this view, information is defined in terms of the three levels of semiotics. Data which can be automatically processed by the application system corresponds to the syntax-level. In the context of an individual who interprets the data they become information, which correspond to the semantic-level. Information becomes knowledge when an individual knows (understands) and evaluates the information (e.g., for a specific task). This corresponds to the pragmatic-level.

• In general systems theory, an information system is a system, automated or manual, that comprises people, machines, and/or methods organized to collect, process, transmit, and disseminate data that represent user information.

• In rough set theory, an information system is an attribute-value system.

• In telecommunications, an information system is any telecommunications and/or computer related equipment or interconnected system or subsystems of equipment that is used in the acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of voice and/or data, and includes software, firmware, and hardware.

(Federal Standard 1037C, MIL-STD-188, and National Information Systems Security Glossary)

• In computer security, an information system is described by five objects (Aceituno, 2004):
  • Structure:
    • Repositories, which hold data permanent or temporarily, such as buffers, RAM, hard disks, cache, etc.
    • Interfaces, which exchange information with the non-digital world, such as keyboards, speakers, scanners, printers, etc.
    • Channels, which connect repositories, such as buses, cables, wireless links, etc. A Network is a set of logical or physical channels.
  • Behaviour:
    • Services, which provide value to users or to other services via messages interchange.
    • Messages, which carries a meaning to users or services.

• In the mathematical area of domain theory, a Scott information system (after its inventor Dana Scott) is a mathematical structure that provides an alternative representation of Scott domains and, as a special case, algebraic lattices.

Management Information Systems (MIS)

Is a general name for the academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies, and procedures — collectively called information systems — to solve business problems. MIS are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization.^[1] Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. Decision Support Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems.^[1]