Information Systems

Introduction

In the last chapter, representation of information in to syntactic and semantic components is provided. This representation is has a say over various transactions with the information and subsequently with a large system. Here, the architecture of information system that makes use of this representation is introduced.

As the system complexities evolved from a child crying for milk to the updating of invoice records in a billion dollar company, from the sharp and blunt tools of a caveman to the PDAs, the processing devices also evolved metamorphically.

All information systems have three inseparable components - the creator of information, the flow of information and the user of the information. The creator and the consumer of the information should have a common understanding and must be in the same plane to make the information more useful. The creator, also called massage source, formats the information accordingly.

The transmitter puts this message over the channel or the physical medium. It can be in the analog or the digital format, real time data or the archived information. It calls for various methods for the transfer or storage of information as appropriate. The transmitter takes the responsibility of conveying the information to the receiver in a secure way. The medium over which the information gets transferred would be shared by a large number of transmitters and the corresponding receivers. Adequate wrappers providing the address and other information are required to be put around the message so that it reaches only the intended recipient. The receiver in its turn takes out these wrappers and presents only the required message to the end users for further processing.

Information systems (IS) exist exclusively within the organizations (Anita Cassidy, Keith Guggenberger, 1998), to support their work, and to cater for their information and communication requirements. It would be unique to the organization.

These concepts are brought out in a separate chapter. Information systems are responsible for the usage of information by the different resources in the organization making use of the computer based systems. They are closely tied to the usage of the information in the organization. To understand the information system, it is therefore required to understand the organization. The accurate representation and modeling of the information requires the right interpretation of the needs of the organization.

Information systems are required for the processing of data generate as well as consumed in the technical, financial, strategic, HR and other groups of the companies. A well designed information system in the organization facilitates decision-making, making it useful for long-term planning and investments. It is very useful as the redesigning of computer systems every now and then turns out to be costly.

The objective of this chapter is to allow the readers to gain the skills and methods required for the overall design and management of information systems. The architecture is introduced through the example of web based transactions. It is expected to be useful in exploring alternative designs for the data organization and web based management. The focus of the solution is to use syntax for the representation and structuring of the information. This unified approach of the Semantic Web is provided in (Wand, Y. and Weber, R, 1995). The usage of semantic annotation for decision making is explained here. To day, there is a drift in the solution based on semantics, from data and information to services and processes.

The Semantic Web is the generalization and extension of the existing World Wide Web. The Web is treated as a large-scale information system, although most of the transactions on the web take place in the areas other than the database and the information systems. This chapter has been organized to explore the web based enterprise information system and the relation they enjoy with the organization of the database and information systems.

Publishing data over the web is often the easy approach to make the information available to a large number of users. It can be done easily and economically done with the help of the tools available today. The usage of web creates enormous impact. In this chapter, the architecture and the issues arising out of information system are provided.