Text B: Characteristics of useful information

What makes certain information highly valuable and other information completely worthless? There are three dimensions of information – time, content, and form. Using these three dimensions, you can define the characteristics of information that has value to you.

The time dimension of information deals with the «when» aspect of information. Time characteristics of information include: timeliness and currency. Timeliness means having information when you need it. If you do not have the right time, it is almost impossible to make the right decision. Currency means having the most recent or up-to-date information.

Content deals with the «what» aspect of information, and its characteristics include accuracy, relevance and completeness. The accuracy characteristics of information specifies that the information you receive is information that has been processed correctly, it is free of errors. The relevance and completeness characteristics of information go hand in hand. That is, you should receive only information that is relevant to your task, useful to what you are trying to do (relevance) and you should receive all the information you need, it completely details what you want to know (completeness).

The last dimension of information is form, which deals with the « how» aspect of information. Form characteristics of information include detail and presentation. The detail characteristic of information deals with receiving information that either summarizes or details information at the appropriate level. Presentation means that information is provided in the most appropriate form – narrative, graphics, color, print, video, sound, and so on.

Mark the following statements as True or False.

1. Time, content and form are the dimensions of data.

2. Information received too late is relevant.

3. The information must be current as a fact of yesterday may not be a fact of today.

4. The information must be accurate as inaccurate information would lead to many different major problems.

5. Information should contain only one detail required by the user.

Put the letters in the following words into the correct order.

1) cacaruyc; 2) elearnvec; 3) ryruncec; 4) tetoncn; 5) ifimatonorn; 6) midisenon

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Read the questions and circle the correct answer.	\|	Link the beginning and the end of the sentence.

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