Page 9 - DCAP309_INFORMATION_SECURITY_AND_PRIVACY

Unit 1: Information Systems

2. A ....................... is a set of components that interact to accomplish some purpose. Notes
3. A ‘.......................’ is a system which is an element of a larger system.

1.2 Importance of Information Systems

Information system is the study of information production, flows and use within organizations.
Information system makes extensive use of information technology means. But it is very
important to appreciate that its scope encompasses systems in their entirety, including manual
activities, the interface between manual and automated components of systems, design aspects
of IT means, and economic, legal, organizational, behavioral and social aspects of systems.
Information systems overlap with both the computer science and business management
disciplines.

Example: Software engineering and database management and some aspects of
application software development overlap with computer science, and systems analysis and
organisational behaviour overlap with the business-related disciplines.
The information system of an organization may be defined as a system that serves to provide
information within the organization when and where it is needed at any managerial level. An
information system is a set of people, procedures and resources that interact to satisfy the
information processing needs of an organization. During the processing, the data is collected,
stored, transformed and distributed in an organization. Such a system must take the information
received and store, retrieve, transform, process, and communicate it using the computer system
or some other means. It is not necessary that an information system cannot function in the
absence of computers. An information system is a logically interrelated set of business processes
that accomplish organizational goals.
Management Information System is mainly dependent upon information, which is a vital
ingredient of any Management Information System. Information is the most critical resource of
Management Information System. We all know that information is a vital factor for our existence.
Just as our body needs air, water and clothes, we are as much dependent upon information.
To make life more interesting and to achieve the feeling of being a part of the social system, we
want to know our surroundings and for that we need information. Information is an important
input for achieving our goals such as learning to help each other and to become integral part of
society.
Actually, information system is not a new concept; it is as old as the hills. From biblical times,
humans have been making the use of information generated through information systems in all
times. There have been systems that generated and communicated information. Kings and
rulers had their own ways of designing information systems to retrieve information. The main
objective of these information systems was to ascertain the well being of their people in the
kingdom and to effectively and efficiently manage the kingdom. The church had its own
information system. In India, Tainali Rama, Akbar and many others had impressive management
information systems in operation. Similarly, the merchants of Venice had their own fully
functional appropriate management information system in place.
Most of us think only of hardware and software when we think of an Information System. There
is another component of the triangle that should be considered, and that’s the people side, or
“liveware.”

We talk about the input, processing, output and feedback processes. Most important is the
feedback process; unfortunately it’s the one most often overlooked. Just as we discussed above,
the hardware (input and output) and the software (processing) receive the most attention. With

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