Data vs Information

People often miss the subtle difference between data and information and use the words interchangeably.

Comparison chart

Improve this chart	Data	Information
Meaning:	Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed. Data can be something simple and seemingly random and useless until it is organized.	When data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called Information.
Example:	Each student's test score is one piece of data	The class' average score or the school's average score is the information that can be concluded from the given data.
Definition:	Latin 'datum' meaning "that which is given". Data was the plural form of datum singular (M150 adopts the general use of data as singular. Not everyone agrees.)	Information is interpreted data.

1 Data vs Information - Differences in meaning
2 Grammatical note on the word "Data"
3 Video explaining the differences
4 See Also
5 References

edit Data vs Information - Differences in meaning

Data are plain facts. When data are processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make them useful, they are called Information.

It is not enough to have data (such as statistics on the economy). Data in themselves are fairly useless. But when these data are interpreted and processed to determine its true meaning, they become useful and can be called Information. Data is the computer's language. Information is our translation of this language.

edit Grammatical note on the word "Data"

It should be noted that data is plural (for datum), so the correct grammatical usage is "Data are misleading.". However, in practice people tend to use data as a singular form. e.g. "This data is misleading."

edit Video explaining the differences

edit See Also

edit References

Data, information and knowledge: have we got it right? - M. Boisot and A. Canals

Comments: Data vs Information

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Anonymous comments

This is complete nonsense. The examples of average scores (as information) are of statistics - by definition. But then the left hand column claims that statistics are "only" data! There seems to be no generally accepted distinction between these two terms at all.
193.✗.✗.250 on 2012-11-14 16:03:07

010101001110100101010 is data which can be interpreted as a greeting which then exists as information in the interpreter. The interpreter could be human, computer or any other entity having procedural capacities which render the data 'informative'. At this point we cannot consider the data rendered as information but only 'informative' because only procedural, algorithmic agency will be involved. Our present day computers can do this. In the example above they could be designed to recognise the above data string, instructed to recognise that it is a product of relative primes, and then to rearrange it into a quadrilateral. To the computer it would not be information,only data rendered 'informative', but to a human being it would be a greeting (interpreted from visual data on a computer screen).
151.✗.✗.218 on 2011-07-22 22:13:11

data and information diference
213.✗.✗.126 on 2009-06-01 21:42:13

answer the equation that what is the similarity of data and information? and send by my e_mail address tesfayemerha@yahoo.com.
213.✗.✗.126 on 2009-06-01 21:40:38

sab bakwas h
220.✗.✗.204 on 2008-11-08 00:42:08

for eg . Suppose we have marksheet with us , now in this case we have marks as the data and the complete marksheet is information.
59.✗.✗.112 on 2008-06-23 07:59:26

this is becuase the raw data that is marks do not give any information to us , while from the processed data that is the different sorts of information in marksheet like total marks, percentage , division etc we get some information as to where the student stands in class. (at what position etc.)
59.✗.✗.36 on 2008-06-23 07:50:16

for eg . Suppose we have marksheet with us , now in this case we have marks as the data and the complete marksheet is information.
59.✗.✗.36 on 2008-06-23 07:42:13

Check this nice explanation of information: http://www.vimeo.com/3248432
130.✗.✗.18 on 2009-11-19 09:42:44