The Ease of Information

     Twenty or thirty years ago, if a person wanted to know a thing, there were quite a few options available for them to do that, but all took some time and usually, at least with the difficult stuff, a little work. Today we have access to basically the entire store of human knowledge, instantaneously, through our pockets.  Those of us who remember that long ago rarely think about this marvel, but I wondered if the kids today ever did, so I asked them.  They have to do writing assignments occasionally for common core anyway, so this seemed like a good one.

      One of my students, a female third year honors English student who somehow ended up in Auto, did a good job.  She feels that everyone has become accustomed to having everything at their fingertips, without having to work for it.  Homework answers are a mere google away.  Staying in touch with friends and family is possible though social media instead of actual interaction.  Even ordering takeout has moved to the internet from having to make an actual phone call.  The world, at least the first world, has turned lazy. So much can be had so easily that no one works hard anymore.  Sharing answers and cheating by text message is rampant.  She says that this generation has lowered their expectations of themselves and it will only get worse.
 
  Another student who did fairly well on the assignment agrees with the first nearly point for point in the beginning, but adds that any mistakes that these kids make is forever.  Their lives are so intertwined with internet access, picture sharing, moment by moment commentary through twitter and the like, that it is all recorded for better or worse.  It's hard, if not impossible, to leave a negative past behind for a brighter future.

 I do have to agree with them.  Kids don't seem to try very hard most of the time, but then did they ever?  I was surprised by the negativity of their answers.  I think that overall, our access to information is a wonder!  I constantly feel that there is almost nothing that I can't learn on a whim.  Has this affected my retention of facts?  Probably, but then hey, I can just look it up again later.

Information Technology vs Information Systems

     Information technology and information systems are terms that seem interchangeable, but this is a fallacy!  That was mock excitement, but something has to liven this up. By your own powerpoint, information technology has to do with the devices that do the data capturing, and information systems are the parts that do something with it.
     These days mainly the computer and all it's many versions are the information technology devices.  They allow us to collect, store, modify, shuffle, and send many forms of data.  Other mediums, like television mainly, can take part in the end, sending part of the process.  It is really just an upgrade of the original pen and ledger or even chisel and tablet.  Keeping track of information.
     Information systems, truthfully still seem like the same thing a this point to me, so I shall lean hard upon my valiant aide Wikipedia for clarity.  You know I actually sent them some money last time they begged for it. 

This chart helped me more than the text.  After staring at it for a few minutes, I began to glean that after our technology has done the collecting, our systems are a program or collection of programs that sort the data, help us to analyze the data if not do it themselves, and provide management with understandable information upon which to make decisions.  A huge spreadsheet of data doesn't yield any discernible trends without a key or map of understanding. That's my understanding of information systems.  I hope it's close!

HIPAA?

  The next time you're in the doctor's office filling out form after form, you can thank HIPAA for some of them.  It stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the first part of it does just what the title says, protect health insurance coverage when someone loses or changes jobs.  The second part has to do with the setting up of national standards for the sharing of medical information between medical professionals as well as with insurance companies.



   

 HIPAA has four health information standards.  The first has to do with computerized information exchange.  The second standardized something called identifiers for the health care providers.  The third required implementation of security standards for electronic information and the fourth made the majority of an individual's health information private.
   

HIPAA is meant to protect the identity and privacy of healthcare clients and the way medical information is shared and discussed. This has required quite a bit of training and some additional cost for medical professionals.  The areas most impacted are healthcare providers and their privacy policies for their patients personal data.
    

Database?

     What in the world is a database?  I will use this blog entry to attempt to answer this question, mostly for myself.  The usually fairly wise Wikipedia defines a database as "an organized collection of data." Well, that much was pretty self explanatory and doesn't help my problem much.  It goes on to tell me that "the data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring this information."  What? After a little more reading, I just decided to understand it as just a collection of information. What particular information depends on who is doing the collecting and what they record and save.  What comes to mind for me is a collection of demographic information of customers.  The names, addresses, phone numbers, whatever else comes to mind for all the past customers of Floyd's Auto Service for example.  He could use that information when it comes time to send out advertisements and such.  That is just a very simple example though, how about Amazon's customer database.  That information will need some way to sort it to be useful.
   Cue the database management system.  As I understand it, the DBMS is computer software designed to collect data, analyze it, and allow human users to interact with it. I find lots of lists of supposedly well known versions of these, so there are many options likely depending on the type of data and the methods of retrieval required by the individual situation. Databases even seem to need to access each other on occasion.  From what I understand, something called an open database connectivity driver allows all these different DBMS systems to converse.
     It gets more complicated from there. If we add an R to the DBMS we have a relational database management system. After reading several articles attempting to explain what this is, I feel I have the vaguest threads of understanding.  In my mind, a relational database management system allows someone to access a big pile of data in different ways depending on what they are looking for from one instance to another.  I may be completely wrong, but I think of someone with Amazon pulling out a list of everyone that bought baby supplies in the month of December to send one type of advertising and then a list of people who purchased expensive electronics to send another.  All from the same collection of sales data for the month. This is a pretty useful marketing tool and explains why at the bottom of the page, Amazon is offering me suggestions of things to buy based on past purchases.  Some of them look pretty good!

TPS reports

TPS reports- 

 

 

     Ah, the pop-culturally famous TPS report.  Who among us that has seen Office Space can escape immediately going there mentally at the mention of these? Though it has been years since I have seen that movie, the link is strong.  Up until this point I had no idea what the letters TPS stood for, only that they should be seen with dread.  Printed versions do make good fish cleaning mats though apparently.




     Seriously though, TPS stands for Transaction Processing System and is a tool for a business to keep track of all transactions made within or by the business.  This is the lowest level of three, the others being MIS or managerial information systems, and ESS or Executive Support Systems.  All data aquired by these systems must be stored and organized to make it useful to those who make decisions about the company.

     Still confused about what that means?
I was up until this point.  The best I understand it, a transaction processing system could be as simple as a pad next to the cash box at a vegetable cart.  Every time an item is sold, it gets recorded.  Every time new inventory is purchased, it gets recorded.  It is the method of recording the path of the money and inventory so that a business knows what and how much it has, and a clue if Cousin Floyd pocketed the cash for selling those cucumbers last week.