[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[AF Cossham]

So, is information architecture all about providing the context for the
data, in order that it may become and remain information?

Amanda Cossham

> From: Andrew Boyd <andrew_db at bigpond.com>
> Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:23:11 +1100
> To: Conal Tuohy <Conal.Tuohy at vuw.ac.nz>
> Cc: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?
> 
> Hi Conal,
> 
> I think that it gets back to the old definition "Information is data in
> context". Regardless of where/how/how long stored, if someone knows that
> the recording is of a Passenger Pigeon, it doesn't matter how extinct
> the bird is in the wild, it is still a recording of a Passenger Pigeon -
> and will remain so, as long as it has context. It doesn't matter really
> if it is a correctly labled audio tape, or if there is a domain expert
> that recognises the recording for what it is.
> 
> If the lable falls off/is lost, and the expert dies, then we have loss
> of context, and the information goes back to being data.Or just so much
> piffle, if you prefer :)
> 
> Cheers, Andrew
> 
> Conal Tuohy wrote:
> 
>> This is how the term "information" is defined in Information Theory, BTW:
>> information depends on the person receiving it.
>> 
>> For instance, if you don't speak Spanish, then "esto no significa nada" is
>> not information to you. It's just noise. It's data, but not information. Or
>> if you know how to recognise the songs of different birds, then you can
>> acquire information from listening to birds which other people cannot (they
>> would only acquire the information "there is a bird in the tree", rather than
>> "there is a bellbird in the tree"). That's why I think it's not very useful
>> to consider information a substance in its own right, independently of the
>> person (or computer system) being informed.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Con
>> 
>> 
> Andrew Boyd 
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