Information technology and information systems

This may be a stupid question but I ajm going to ask it any way is there a diffrence between information technology ,information system and information science degree if there is please explain I am very curious . Thanks

 

Not a stupid question at all. Think of Information Technology as just that, the technology one would use to deliver the information. When you think of an ATM machine, think of Information Technology as the machine and it's modem technology, it's new VGA screen and new dynamic movies they now show as far as how to work it and the physical money counter dispenser

Information Systems in this ATM example is the entire process of what happens, someone puts their card in, the ATM machine through technology calls the bank and verifies your card and your balance, if you have enough money the process then tells the ATM machine to give you your money. Without the process would an ATM machine even exist? No it would not.

Generally speaking (and there's some debate here), Information Technology is contained within Information Systems, as it's the system and process itself that must exist first otherwise the Technology itself would have no purpose.

Think of Information science as the systematic study of information which involves IS and IT combined.

 

I like Bob's description of Info Tech and Info Sys. In the industry most of the people I know who have earned information science degrees are librarians. You can view the American Society for Information Science web site at: http://www.asis.org/ If you look at the job listing they are mostly librarians.

John

 

Thanks for the explianations !

I understand information technoloy is the process of for example the types of machines that goes into forming the technology used behind infromation exchange and information systems is the process that information goes through in order send recieve and retrive information . is this right ?

as for information science I am still a little unclear on this any why do libraians use this degree so much? It seem as though this would also be a engineering degree but as far I know the only thing close to any engineering work librarians do is maybe database work. so is information technology and information systems unrelated to information science? I always figured information science to be the other side of computer science was I wrong ? does anyone have any more information science?

 

I would say:

Information Technology focuses on the technology (software mostly, but some attention to hardware) for the use of information in an organization. Information Technology is essentially applied computer science.

Information Systems focuses less on the technology and more on the needs of the organization -- and how to deploy solutions to meet those needs.

Information Science focuses on the content -- i.e. the information itself.