Strategic Information Systems: Appunti di Sistemi

Chapter 3. Evaluating information

Nowadays it is very important to understand the value of information. Today we have a lot of available information and we can easily access it, but unfortunately on the internet there is no quality control. So we have the responsibility to evaluate information.

Information evaluation

The concept of information evaluation is the systematic determination of the merit and worth of information. We often seek a lot of information to improve decision-making, justify decisions, verify previously acquired information, not miss any relevant information, and use it later. The quality has to be good; otherwise, bad information leads to bad outcomes.

Information overload

Today we also have the following problem: information overload, which is the problem related to being faced with more information than we can effectively process. There are two major strategies against overload: withdrawal (disconnect from sources of information) and filtering (decide what information can be useful; it implies knowing what information we need and what merits attention and use).

Information quality

About information quality, which is the information that is fit for its intended use, there are different evaluating methods, but the Wang and Strong one divides information into four categories:

• Intrinsic quality: Information important regardless of the context or how the information is represented.
• Contextual quality: Information that can be viewed differently depending on the task at hand.
• Representational quality: How info is provided.
• Accessibility quality: If it can be easily accessed.

Another important aspect is the cost. Good information is always preferable, but it also depends on the cost. Organizations are willing to invest the resources necessary to ensure the highest possible information quality, sufficient to carry out the task effectively. So they require a “good enough” quality. The higher the impact, the higher the quality required, and so the costs.

Evaluating information usefulness and believability

When evaluating information, we have to answer two questions: 1) Is the information useful? And 2) Is it believable? Information relevance is the degree to which the information is pertinent to the task at hand. Some information is highly relevant while others can be only tangentially relevant. The level of detail required depends on the user. Finally, there is the information currency, which is how old the information is. Depending on the topics, you will require very up-to-date information, or you can also go with an old datum. Be careful against undated information.

Finally, we need to decide if the information is reliable or not by understanding if data are credible and from an objective source.