Discuss about the Hard Data And Soft Technology?
In this report, the various methods that are being used in Cards Galore to collect various data, format them and store them and to disseminate the collected information have been discussed in details: the methods using which the classification of the data collected in this process has also been mentioned in the report. Last but not the least, the legal aspects of the United Kingdom to which each such information system must conform to has also been mentioned in the report.
Data collection or Information collection methods can be considered as the systematic methods used to collect the information about a specific object that we are interested in: along with the background or precondition under which these objects become functional. In general, the following methodologies are utilized for the process of information:
Accessing the available data: The data or information that is being readily available should be utilized for the process of information collection. However, such sets of data may not essentially be studied or analyzed.
Information collection through observation: Observation can be considered as the systematic method of observing the objects and making records of their behavioural characteristics for the purpose of information collection.
Conducting Interview: A wide range of information can be collected from the subjects being studied, through the processing of conducting interviews.
Focus group discussions: Discussions among a focus group of 8 to 12 people can be utilized to reveal a wide range of data or information regarding a specific subject or a situation: data which can be collected if deemed appropriate.
Since Cards Galore maintains an official website using which the customers can buy gift items and other stationary products designed and manufactured by the company, the details of these purchases can be collected from the e-billing records maintained by the web portal. The products manufactured by the organization are also available at various other physical stores: the data recorded in those stores regarding the sale of the products of Gift Galore should also be collected. The data collected in these procedures would be helpful in gaining an insight to the popularity of the products designed and manufactured by the company among the customers. This particular information would help the management of the organization to decide whether some of the products need to discontinue from manufacturing or whether some of them should be manufactured more in number to as to meet with the demands in the market.
The information that is being collected by the Cards galore can be classified as following:
The details of the products that that are being manufactured by the company: the revenue generated by each them would provide insight to the popularity of the products among the customers.
The number of finished products in the stock: this amount will also be helpful in the process of determining which of the products of the company are actually being ordered by customers.
The buying behaviour of the customers: The e-billing records collected from the website and the physical record generated by those stores in which the products of Gifts Galore are being sold need to be collected in order to understand the buying behaviour of the potential customers.
The data that are being collected by the organization need to be stored using particular formats so that they be analyzed using some specific strategic analysis tools[1].
The audit reviews and other financial, sales and revenue reports that are generated during the last few day of a financial year utilize these sets of information so as to provide a graphical interpretation of the collected information: as such tables, figures, charts and graphs are more comprehensive that simple numerical values. Thus, the information being collected should be kept in formats that can be used to develop graphical representations: storing data in excel sheets is one example of such formatting[2].
These data sets thus generated would then be stored in an authenticated database, using proper structure and formats, so that they can be retrieved and used at any point in time in the future[3].
Information dissemination can be defined as the process using which the information collected and stored by a company is disclosed to the public or to the stockholders of the company. Cards Galore, the organization being considered, can put into use the following methodologies for the process of information dissemination[4].
The financial, sales, revenue and other reports that are being generated in each financial year should be made available to the stakeholders of the company through official electronic mails[5].
The decisions that have been strategized by the management of the organization should also be made available to the stakeholders through official mails. Corporate meetings should also be conducted so as to provide answers to all the queries that would be generated by these stakeholders.
The information about the inventory level of each of the departments involved in the process of manufacturing of products would be readily available to all other departments as and when the VPN system is installed: this process will be helpful in the procurement procedure.
The various other information that are being collected by the organization will be stored in the database of the organization using appropriate formats: these data sets would be available to all the employees of the organization, provided they have the authority to access such data.
Hard Data, Soft Data and their dissemination:
Hard data can be defined as those sets of information that have the following characteristics:
Statistical data that can be used to describe some aspects of the community that is being described about
[6].The copies of the evaluations of the company being made by groups internal or external to the company[7].
The statistical data that can be generated by analysis of the reviews made by the customers.
Follow up data on the current and previous clients of the organization.
The various information and review reports that discuss about the sales, finance and revenue generation of the organization should be considered as the hard data of Cards Galore. These data are often accessed by the stakeholders of the organization and by the higher management of the organization itself, as such figures help in the process of decision making: thus these data should be stored in the database of the company and should be made readily accessible to those who have the authority to do so.
The verbal feedbacks from the various retailers, vendors, suppliers and customers of the organization and the various articles that are published in the media regarding the various products of the company are considered as the soft data of the company: since these data are not directly put to use in any process other than that of marketing, dissemination of such data is not necessary.
The electronic information systems that are used to disseminate the hard data should be reliable and consistent: as the presence of ambiguous data might lead to the loss of integrity of the data. Incorporation of inconsistent and unreliable data in review or audit report might lead to the development of erroneous strategies that might lead to disastrous results when implemented.
Legal aspects:
In the United Kingdom, any information system that is used to store data must conform to the Data Protection Act 1998 (Information Commissioner) administered by the English legal system. The Data Protection Act 1998 had implemented the directive of personal data protection and had replaced the Data Protection Act of 1984[8],[9] .
Conclusion and Recommendation:
It is recommended to the authorities of Cards Galore to implement the various systems that have been mentioned in this report so as to facilitate the process of information collection, formatting, storage, and dissemination. The classification of the collected data has also been provided in this report, which would be helpful in the process of dissemination. Last but not the least, the management of Cards Galore should see to the fact that the information management system that is being used by the organization conforms to the legislative laws of the United Kingdom[10].
As the organization that has been mentioned in LO3 does not have an online presence, the website https://delhicourts.nic.in/ has been reviewed.
The website being reviewed has dedicated WebPages for each of the district courts that exists in Delhi: and the home page has links to each one of them. The various other paged that can be reached through this website or which have been linked to this website have also been mentioned under the heading ‘ Main Links’ and various other information that are often been searched by users have been put up under the heading ‘Information’ which include links to the pages that are dedicated to recruitment, to the Bar Association, to RTI, various Bar Acts and so on and so forth[11].
The webpage has been designed in accordance to the gravity of the department to which it is dedicated to and thus has a minimal usage of images and graphics: however the information provided in this website are authentic and the size and colour of the fonts that have been used make it easier to notice and read the contents effortlessly[12].
However, the WebPages that are dedicated to the district courts do not provide update data on court proceedings. The download links provide access to such documents that are minimalistic in nature and do not provide any detailed information about any of the cases[13].
It is recommended that the authorities that maintain this website should update the information being published in the website in a regular manner[14]. The in detailed reports of the proceedings of the cases should also be provided, in case there exists no legislative act to hinder such publication.
After reviewing the website and existing system for the access of the information system of Delhi courts, some under mentioned recommendations are here for Cards Galore-
The website of Delhi court, i.e. https://delhicourts.nic.in/ contains the feature to update their viewer with the changes, took place and all the recent notification regarding their process. In this way the Cards Galore can implement their different sections to show their recent arrivals.
Cards galore can include a section like history, to make the new customers and suppliers aware about the background of the Cards Galore. ON the other hand, Cards Galore can include another section to communicate with their supplier of raw materials online, which is much like same way the Delhi court website maintain their Tender & Bids section[15].
References:
Ainsworth D, ‘Hard Data And Soft Technology’ (1984) 23 Performance & Instruction Journal
Aronson J, ‘Hard Data, Soft Data’ (2012) 344 BMJ
Bainbridge D and Pearce G, ‘The New UK Data Protection Law And The Transitional Provisions’ (1999) 15 Computer Law & Security Review
Bainbridge D and Pearce G, ‘The UK Data Protection Act 1998 — Data Subjects’ Rights’ (1998) 14 Computer Law & Security Review
Banu P and Andrews S, ‘Performance Analysis Of Hard And Soft Clustering Approaches For Gene Expression Data’ (2015) 2 International Journal of Rough Sets and Data Analysis
‘Data Protection Laws: UK Lags Behind’ (1981) 289 Nature
Delhicourts, ‘Delhi District Courts’ (nic.in, 2015) <https://delhicourts.nic.in/> accessed 6 August 2015
DHAWAN S, ‘BASICS OF INFORMATION DISSEMINATION’ (2015) <https://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course02/unit_05.pdf> accessed 6 August 2015
Du Y and Zhang T, ‘A Novel Interpolation Method Using Soft Data And Hard Data’ [2010] IJCTE
Hu B, ‘Applications Of Interaction Design On The Website Interface Design’ (2012) 468-471 AMR
Karlsson M, ‘Expressions, Emotions, And Website Design’ (2007) 3 CoDesign
Kim J, ‘Web Accessibility-Based Website Design And Realization – With Focus On T-Cast-Integrated Website’ (2014) 15 KOREA SCIENCE & ART FORUM
org, ‘The Legal System And Ethics In Information Security’ (Sans.org, 2008) <https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/legal/legal-system-ethics-information-security-54> accessed 6 August 2015
microsoft.com, ‘Business Of IT: Understanding Regulatory Compliance’ (Technet.microsoft.com, 2015) <https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/magazine/2006.09.businessofit.aspx> accessed 6 August 2015
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, ‘AN OVERVIEW OF INFORMATION SECURITY STANDARDS’ (2008) <https://www.infosec.gov.hk/english/technical/files/overview.pdf> accessed 6 August 2015
[1] David Ainsworth, ‘Hard Data And Soft Technology’ (1984) 23 Performance & Instruction Journal.
[2] J. Aronson, ‘Hard Data, Soft Data’ (2012) 344 BMJ.
[3] David Bainbridge and Graham Pearce, ‘The New UK Data Protection Law And The Transitional Provisions’ (1999) 15 Computer Law & Security Review.
[4] S M DHAWAN, ‘BASICS OF INFORMATION DISSEMINATION’ (2015) <https://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course02/unit_05.pdf> accessed 6 August 2015.
[5] David Bainbridge and Graham Pearce, ‘The UK Data Protection Act 1998 — Data Subjects’ Rights’ (1998) 14 Computer Law & Security Review.
[6] P. K. Nizar Banu and S. Andrews, ‘Performance Analysis Of Hard And Soft Clustering Approaches For Gene Expression Data’ (2015) 2 International Journal of Rough Sets and Data Analysis.
[7] Yi Du and Ting Zhang, ‘A Novel Interpolation Method Using Soft Data And Hard Data’ [2010] IJCTE.
[8] ‘Data Protection Laws: UK Lags Behind’ (1981) 289 Nature.
[9] The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, ‘AN OVERVIEW OF INFORMATION SECURITY STANDARDS’ (2008) <https://www.infosec.gov.hk/english/technical/files/overview.pdf> accessed 6 August 2015.
[10] Sans.org, ‘The Legal System And Ethics In Information Security’ (Sans.org, 2008) <https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/legal/legal-system-ethics-information-security-54> accessed 6 August 2015.
[11] Delhicourts, ‘Delhi District Courts’ (Delhicourts.nic.in, 2015) <https://delhicourts.nic.in/> accessed 6 August 2015.
[12] Bei Hu, ‘Applications Of Interaction Design On The Website Interface Design’ (2012) 468-471 AMR.
[13] M. Karlsson, ‘Expressions, Emotions, And Website Design’ (2007) 3 CoDesign.
[14] Jung Jin Kim, ‘Web Accessibility-Based Website Design And Realization – With Focus On T-Cast-Integrated Website’ (2014) 15 KOREA SCIENCE & ART FORUM.
[15] Technet.microsoft.com, ‘Business Of IT: Understanding Regulatory Compliance’ (Technet.microsoft.com, 2015) <https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/magazine/2006.09.businessofit.aspx> accessed 6 August 2015.
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