Information Structure, Organization, Storage and Retrieval: The First Gathering

It is now my last term in the pursuit of my masteral studies in APC, and as early as of now I kinda see the light at the end of the tunnel.. Alas, after having been mentally tortured on information policy issues, sleepless nights on beating reports' deadlines, I'm now ready to reap what I have sow.. Nothing can be as fulfilling as having to graduate on this course, be proud and officially become an APC MIMber.. But not quite.

For this semester our courses task voluminous outputs (as always). The first one actually starts to kick in my nervous system as we are already inching halfway and still I have not done much to begin what I have to do.

Then there is MSTORAG, short for Information Structure, Organization, Storage and Retrieval. Looking through the course outline, this one also needs a lot of paperworks. But first things first. Impression on the subject: interesting. I do have this stand that storage media won’t be too much of a concern in the future (even now) as technology advances unravel the limitless boundaries of webspace. With the rise of the Internet and wireless interconnections, world history will soon be written in bits of 1s and 0s. Or to mention it radically, the day will come when a person’s life will only be worth that of a thumbdrive.

So what’s interesting if storage won’t be much of a problem? I think what will really count is how to be able to organize all these information in such a way they won’t tangle up in the websophere so that making use of them will make living an informed life much easier. That’s what I think this course is all about. If there’s more to it, I would think it’s the paperworks :)

Another interesting thing, there’s Ms. Jem. Alas, a lady professor! Just when I thought MIM is an all-male teacher show. Personally, I think the management should consider adding more lady professor in its MIM roster. Why? Well, just to keep the balance. And, to keep the class to be more focused on the subject? Especially the boys. I mean the guys.. the gentlemen at the back.. It might just help...

In our first gathering, it turned out in our group activity on data collection that there are differences in which organizations treat data, but it is perceived that it is equally important in building up the overall information efficacy and reliability. Processes may vary depending on organizational needs but the practices are generally the same. Data use in systems as those involving technology are more specific so its collection has to compliment its informational structure.

A question was raised on how to “inject” a DBA with the different data types and /or procedures to be used in a certain project (I didn’t actually get the question, but more or less it sounded that way)? Well, personally I think a DBA should be involved in all walks of the project development stages. He/she should know what data are to be needed in the system, from its creation to its termination. It will save time on project schedules if the DBA already knows his data concerns in every aspect of the project stages.