chapter 3.4: notes and activities

Information: Data that is processed to give it some meaning
Data: Can be given meaning if put into context
Knowledge: Processing information and interpreting it produces knowledge

You might need to gather knowledge to help with a decision, make reccomendations or give yourself better knowledge.

You need to consider what relevant knowledge you already have. You need to try and work out the rules governing the model, and this turns information into knowledge.

It is important to strike a balance between too much knowledge and too little.


Activity. (missing information, how vital is it? how easy can find out?)
Price of materials needed, vital, very easy
Hours worked at night, important, easy
Charge to the customer, vital, easy
Profits made, important, easy

You need to deal with missing information using a strategy. Write down the information thats missing. Then decide how important that item is to your model. Ask the questions;
Can the model work without it?
Does it make a significant difference to the decision you have to make?
How big of a difference would it make?
Then try to find out how easy it is to find out the information; you don't want to waste time.

Make a list where information is to be found. You can make diagrams, tables or bullet point lists.

Before searching for additional information you should establish clear objectives and the extent of existing information.

Sources of information need to be assessed for reliability. Ask yourself if the information is:

accurate?
relevant?
complete?
detailed enough?

Remember GarbageIn,GarbageOut (GIGO). If the data is wrong then your end results will be wrong.