How organisations use information – examples from my college by David Skilton

Data are ‘raw facts and figures, this can be a number or a symbol etc., an example of this is 12437. Information is data that has been processed to be meaningful and will come in use to humans. An example of this is, ‘this Sixth Form Building is 400 years old and a historical site’. It is important to know that the information will not be always correct as my example is saying this Sixth Form building is a lot older than it really is and the sixth form is not a historical site, it is a place for education for 16-18 (19 on rare occasions) year olds. Organisations today work well on data and will use the data to generate information. This data needs to be used properly otherwise in result the organisation will not survive. SFCS (Solihull Sixth Form College) is an organisation and will be used as a sample organisation.

By David Skilton

Types of information:

• Qualitative – This information is descriptive data and the data can be facts or opinions. The data can be observed but not easily measured. A qualitative example for SFCS is that ‘the food in the cafeteria is very good’.

• Quantitative – This type of data is only displayed in the form of numbers which will then allow the data to be measured. This is a lot easier to measure than qualitative information as numeracy is always used in quantitative data. An example from the SFCS is that ‘this I.T BTEC level 3 course has 16 units’. It cannot always be correct as I.T BTEC actually has 18 units.

• Primary – Primary data belongs to the organisation, this data is generated from an activity or a project that the organisation is working on. This data is collected by the organisation itself. An example from the SFCS is by seeing the percentage of attendance the student has made throughout the year.

• Secondary – Secondary data is used by an organisation however it is collected from someone else meaning the business has not produced the data. An example from SFCS is that ‘they purchase 120 packages of paper to supply to students in their lessons’.

The most important feature in the organisation (SFCS) is that it needs decision making, this can happen a three levels:

• Operational level – This information is used for day to day decision making within an organisation for short term choices. This is information that is used only by teaches at SFCS, the teachers will use information at an operational level to decide what they should do in class every day such as “when will it be a suitable time to release the next assignment?”

• Tactical level – The information is used for mid-term/ long term choice by an organisation as they think about choices to do for their business within the next term or year for them to work on a new project. This information is used by the heads of the department within the sixth form college. Tactical information only requires for termly or yearly decision making, an example is if whether a few students want to change their time table as they want to change one of the A-levels that they are doing.

• Strategic level – This is used for long term decision making within an organisation which the owner of the business may decide of how they want their business to appear within the upcoming years. This information is used by the principle of SFCS and other senior managers within the sixth form. This is used to decide whether they want to add any more buildings within the sixth form that students can access for learning resources such as another I.T building if the popularity of I.T BTEC and A-levels is getting more popular. More buildings will be required to handle the number of students.

Purposes of information:

• Operational Support is used to monitor a certain activity within an organisation such as at SFCS, this is used to monitor the daily attendance of students. TYBER keeps the percentage of the attendance so that it can be used in statistics to see how good the student’s attendance is. It also keeps track of the class sizes of the computer system will know how many students should be attending each classroom within SFCS.

• Analysis of business is used to identify any information that should get attention. This can be things like trends or any patterns within the information of the business. For example, in SFCS if a student has been late multiple times, then the computer must pick this up and notify the teacher. In result the teacher may need to give the student a commitment interview to help decrease the late attendance within the future.

• Gaining commercial advantage will promote SFCS as they will be looking at what students want to learn about within lesson time and they will find out which other subjects that the students may want to learn for A-levels or BTEC. In result there will be more options for the students to study so this will give new students more opportunities for whether they want to come to SFCS.

Sources of information:

There are internal sources of information which come from departments (functions) with an organisation:

• Finance (function), this department will predict the money that is being used within SFCS such as how much will it cost to pay all of the teachers at the SFCS and how much will it cost pay for all of the electricity being used to power up SFCS. This will help the SFC be aware of how they are going to spend their money to avoid future debt.

• Security (function), this department will need to be aware of who is coming into the SFCS grounds for the student’s safety, such as “is that car one of the staff that is coming into the college?” They will also need to know whether the students have remembered whether the students have remembered to bring their ID card, if they haven’t they will need to send the student home so that they can bring it into SFCS.

• Administration (function), this department will keep track of all of the staff’s roles within the college and will see how high up their job. For example, who is the head of Business in SFCS? The head of the business will be able to have more power over standard business teachers as he/she is in a higher place.

• Purchasing (function), this department will purchase all of the supplies and items needed for SFCS, this department will also try to find the cheapest way possible to get the supplies. For example, which organisation will supply the cheapest text books to be used within the resources centre for students? The cheapest text books will save money for SFCS and there will be more money still available to spend on other resources.

External Sources of Information come from other organisations meaning, these functions are not within the college.

• Government, this external body will discuss information with educational places such as sixth forms by communicating with the curriculum department within the SFCS to find out which subjects are approved for teaching this year and whether any subjects may be removed or replaced with a better education system for SFCS.

• Databases, Edexcel is an external organisation that provides us with information such as databases that SFCS want to look at from time to time. Edexcel has provided SFCS with the software which contains a list of registered BTEC and A-Level students that are working within the college and a database of all of the students grades. The college may show what course that they are working on and the student’s details of how they have progress so far throughout the year for it to be reviewed by the teachers. SFCS may also have some old databases of old students that may have been at the college, this is useful as old students can ring up the college if they want to retrieve any old information that SFCS may still have.

• Research – SFCS may do research with other organisations outside the college such as by looking at other results from other colleges and by comparing them with theirs. This will help SFCS tell how good they are at teaching the students to help them come out with the best grade possible by comparing themselves to other colleges. If the results are lower than the colleges then they may need to find ways to improve their teaching for better results.

• Reliability of data sources – It is important to consider the reliability of data sources especially for when going online as teachers should get data from reliable websites that contains information that is definitely correct such as documents from Moodle as they have been verified by the college and will become useful for education. There are characteristics that help identify whether the information is reliable or not.

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