What is Data in Computers?

What is Data?

• Data is a representation of facts, concepts, or instructions suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by a human or an electronic machine such as a computer.
• Data in computers comes from characters like alphabets, digits, or special characters.

Types of Data

• Text data: contains alphabets and letters (both lower case and upper case) and can include symbols, also referred to as alphabetic data.
• Numeric data: contains number digits, local decimal points, signs, and spaces.
• Alphanumeric data: any combination of letters, symbols, and numbers.
• Date/Time data: numeric data formatted to be a date or time stamp (e.g. DD/MM/YYYY or HH:MM:SS).

Data and Records

• A record is a collection of data items in a computer that creates an entity.
• Data on its own is seemingly meaningless words and numbers, and needs to be cleaned, organized, and analyzed to become information.
• Records combine data types together and organize them (e.g. grade book, personnel records, or birth records).

What is Information?

• Information is organized or classified data that has meaning for someone.
• To qualify as good information, processed data must be:
  • Timely: available when needed.
  • Accurate: accurate.
  • Complete: not missing.

Data vs Information

• Data is a collection of raw, unorganized facts.
• Information puts those facts into an organized context and gives data meaning.
• Information is dependent on data, but data does not depend on information.
• A data scientist can take data and create a meaningful story with it.