Information Literacy and Power in Business

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Session 1 – Information Literacy and Information Work
Session 2 – Learning organization and power of information in business
Conclusion

Introduction

In the unit introduction and overview session the teaching staff and peer students were introduced. Unit study guide was given and assessment criteria and assignment schedule was informed. In week 1 the importance of information literacy is discussed. In week 2 the power and influence of information in business and in a learning organization is discussed.

Session 1 – Information Literacy and Information Work

Information = Data + Context

Knowledge is the information that has been used by people whereas imagination is the new way of using information. Since this ‘new way’ has not been applied to the data and context it can be suggested that imagination leads to invention.

Data is the raw information, e.g. March 17, 2008 is data i.e. a representation of the seventeenth day of March in 2008.

Information is derived by associating context with data, e.g. today is March 17, 2008. The context associated with data is ‘today’ this suggests that the data is the date today.

The information that is used by people becomes knowledge. E.g. Journal is to be submitted on March 17, 2008, therefore I have the knowledge to submit the journal today.

In order for the information to be useful the information must be relevant, i.e. the context applied to data must be derived from the problem statement. The information is complete when all the data and associated context relevant for the problem is available. In order for the information to be useful the information must be without errors and must be available at the time of decision making. Information must be relevant to the time period of the problem context, it may not necessarily be current, e.g. to study market trends in a particular year the data must be pertaining to that year. Information is economical when sufficient details are provided and it can be obtained easily.

Quantitative information has numeric data and qualitative information has non-numeric data. E.g. the airplane has ‘250’ economy class seats and airplane has ‘good’ economy class seats. The former has quantity ‘250’ and the latter has quality ‘good’.

Session 2 – Learning organization and power of information in business

In a learning organization people are learning continuously to create results, they are honest and learn from the mistakes. E.g. A chemical engineer working in a refinery has to scan information to find new crude fields, which fields are drying, what new information is available, etc.

Role of information in an organization

Information is crucial in determining business/organization success, success factors are determined from the data and context.

Information relevance, accuracy, completeness, economy and timeliness are the determining factors in planning and decision making.

Information context changes with new political, federal, social, economic, trade & industry and technological developments. Application of new context on data shall result in new set of data and this generates new information that is more relevant to the new conditions.

The internal information generated in the organization routine processes must be secured because it is a crucial factor considered in organization decision making processes. In order to avoid liabilities due to misinformation up-to-date detailed information records must be maintained and a disclaimer must be added.

Successful planning may need external information that is obtained and processed by the manager with the assistance of MIS.

In forecasting environmental scanning of information is performed to determine the scope of activity for planning, the context of the activity is the key term used to gather relevant information to reduce risks in decision making. Internal and external environment of an organization is continuously monitored for information to find new factors that can influence the business.

Environmental scanning

Information lookup = Database[Data + Context]

To find an information database first know the information sector, then understand the information management methods used in that sector, know the security and liability policies and then get information from the source.

Gather information about the external environment – Find available information sectors, key issues, what competitors are doing and relevant resources. To find relevant information on the internet use different order of words and synonyms of words in the key term to find different sources. Legal information is available through trusted methods such as web site.

Analysis and interpretation of information – The information is available for open access, information seekers must define the context and data required and perform the intelligent search. Apply information management methods such as graphs, charts etc for analysis.

Use of analyzed intelligence strategically – Information is used for planning, forecasting, decision making and other business intelligence activities.

Conclusion

It is a challenge to find relevant and useful information from the heaps of information available for open access. The information research and information seeking skills must be developed and information management methods must be learned for employment in the information industry. The important factors to become information literate are: know the information requirement, determine what information is to be found, where this information can be found, how to obtain information from the source and finally how to analyze the information to derive useful and relevant information.

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