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Informatics: a Dynamic Discipline with Impact on All Spheres of Human Activity

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Informatics: a Dynamic Discipline with Impact on All Spheres of Human Activity Informatics Studies. ISSN 2320 – 530X. Vol. 3, Issue 2 First Quarterly Issue. April – June, 2016. P 38-47 Informatics: A Dynamic Discipline with Impact on all Spheres of Human Activity Ramina Mukundan Abstract The article on ‘informatics’ in Wikipedia gives only a list of subjects that form part of informatics and has no details as of now. The present article attempts to define informatics, survey the subject areas that informatics as a subject encompasses, the role and position of the subjects that integrates into the discipline of informatics, and the emerging fields of specialization under informatics. It is intended to provide an outline of the areas that the journal - Informatics Studies - can cover as well as to give an idea to those who deal with knowledge and information management about the rapidly expanding borderlines of this emerging discipline which remains so close to their profession. Introduction or some processes or techniques related to it. Information being the important Man has always been attempting to unravel constituent of progress, techniques and the mysteries of nature. His desire to technologies for its management was also experiment and explore, communicate and present in our society from the dawn of conquer has motivated him to discover and civilization. The techniques and approaches invent. As a consequence, his attitude to life of information management are well tried and his standards of living have been and have evolved over centuries. Both the constantly changing, indirectly causing socio- primitive man who made pictures on his cave economic changes. Science and Technology wall and our colleague who burn pits using slowly started giving a new dimension to laser in the spiral path of silver disks have his living style and life process. The last the same objective of recording and storing century and in particular, the last few decades knowledge for the benefit of the society; the ushered in new discoveries. The pace of future generations. Along with the advancement was very fast which necessitated advancement of technology spectacular conservation and management of changes have occurred in the medium for knowledge already generated, its continuous storing and distributing knowledge. It updating, facilitating its dissemination, access changed from the static cave wall and through and processing. movable Sumerian Stone tablets and Indus So knowledge and information remained the valley seals, metal sheets, leather, dried leaves, most important constituent that enabled papyrus, cloth, audio and video tapes, micro progress since the origin of man. The word fiche and the like to the present UFO disk ‘informatics’ is mnemonic to information with a shape very similar to the Sumerian 38 Informatics Studies 3(2), April - June 2016 stone tablet but having unlimited space to Usage has since modified the definition in record knowledge. With computers in the three ways. First, the restriction to scientific market, his thought process, decision- information is removed, as in Sanskrit making and skills got updated. The field of informatics or legal informatics. Second, since ‘Information Technology’ saw newer most information is now digitally stored, horizons and his pursuits and achievements computation is now central to informatics. in this direction were amazing. Third, the representation, processing and communication of information are added Definition and Nature of Informatics as objects of investigation, since they have In 1957 the German computer scientist Karl been recognized as fundamental to any Steinbuch coined the word Informatik from scientific account of information. Taking information + -ics; possibly influenced by information as the central focus of study, automation and automatic to mean then distinguishes informatics, which ‘Informatics: Automatic Information includes study of biological, social and Processing’. The term was coined as a linguistic mechanisms of information combination of ‘information’ and processing, from computer science, where ‘automatic’ to describe the science of digital computation plays a distinguished automating information interactions. The central role. Similarly, in the study of morphology-informat-ion + -ics - uses ‘the representation and communication, accepted form for names of sciences, as informatics is indifferent to the substrate conics, linguistics, optics, or matters of that carries information. For example, it practice, as economics, politics, tactics’, and encompasses the study of communication so, linguistically, the meaning extends easily using gesture, speech and language, as well to encompass both the science of as digital communications and networking. information and the practice of information The University of Edinburgh in 1994 processing. introduced a broad interpretation of This new term was adopted across Western informatics, as ‘the study of the structure, Europe, and, except in English, developed a algorithms, behaviour, and interactions of meaning roughly translated by the English natural and artificial computational systems,’ ‘computer science’, or ‘computing science’. in 1994. Wikitionary defines informatics as ‘ Scientists from the field advocated the a branch of information science, and of Russian term ‘informatika’ (1966), and the computer science, that focuses on the study English ‘informatics’ (1967), as names for of information processing, particularly in the theory of scientific information, and respect to systems integration and human argued for a broader meaning, including interactions with machine and data’. study of the use of Information Technology Based on the above, definition of informatics in various communities (for example, can be refined as ‘a discipline of science: that scientific) and of the interaction of focuses on the study of access, collection, technology and human organizational organization, processing, conservation, structures. retrieval and dissemination of information, Informatics came to be accepted as a that investigates the structure and properties discipline of science, which investigates the of information, its computer based structure, and properties (not specific content) processing, human interaction with machine of scientific information, as well as the data, regularities of information activity as regularities of scientific information activity, well as the theory, history and methodologies its theory, history, methodology and concerned. organization. Informatics Studies 3(2), April - June 2016 39 Contributing Disciplines of current epoch of human history called the Informatics ‘Information Age’ and a driver of the Information Revolution, seen as the third The main aspect of informatics is to study major leap in human technological progress the nature of information in all its forms, after the Industrial Revolution and the which leads to the classification, organization, Agricultural Revolution. Its contributions representation, storage, retrieval, that are highly relevant to Informatics are understanding and use of information. ‘digital revolution’ which includes the current Therefore, developing information Information Age and the Internet. Major processing models of biological, physical, areas of computer science listed in Wikipedia economic and social aspects of the world are the following: would provide us with a better understanding of some situations or Theoretical computer science: Theory of phenomena, giving us the power to solve computation, information and coding problems that could not be solved before. theory, algorithms and data structures, programming language theory, and formal Different modes of formation of subject methods. can be identified in the evolution of informatics. Informatics and its various sub Applied computer science: Artificial disciplines have developed through the intelligence, computer architecture and mode of fusion in which two or more engineering, computer graphics and subjects are fused in such a way that each of visualization, computer security and them loses its individuality to form a cryptography, computational science, compound subject, which is the fused main computer networks, concurrent, parallel and subject. Examples are Biochemistry, Bio distributed systems, databases and informatics, and Health Informatics. And information retrieval, software engineering through distillation mode Informatics has Information Science or Information evolved as a main subject, out of the Studies experiences in the appearance and action in diverse compound subjects going with most Information Science is an interdisciplinary basic subjects or occasionally even with host field primarily concerned with the analysis, compound subjects. collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, and dissemination Informatics is a subject, which consists of of information. Practitioners within the field various aspects of computer science, study the application and usage of information science, information technology, knowledge in organizations, along with the knowledge management, statistics, interaction between people, organizations philosophy, linguistics, ontology and other and any existing information systems, with disciplines concerned with knowledge/ the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or information management. understanding information systems. Computer Science Information science cannot be considered as a branch of computer science. It is actually a Computer science is the study of complex broad, interdisciplinary field, incorporating systems, information
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