1.8. Information Technology

Information is one of the most valuable resources of society, so the process of its processing, as well as material resources (for example, oil, gas, minerals, etc.), can be perceived as a kind of technology. In this case, the following definitions will be true.

Information resources - a collection of data of value to the enterprise (organization) and acting as material resources. These include texts, knowledge, data files, etc.

Information technology is a combination of methods, production processes and software and hardware tools that are combined in a technological chain. This chain provides for the collection, storage, processing, output and dissemination of information in order to reduce the complexity of the use of information resources, as well as increase their reliability and efficiency.

By definition, adopted by UNESCO, information technology is a set of interrelated, scientific, technological and engineering disciplines, studying the methods of effective organization of labor of people who are engaged in processing and storing information, as well as computing equipment and methods of organizing and interacting with people and industrial equipment.

The system of methods and production processes determines the techniques, principles and measures governing the design and use of software and hardware for data processing. Depending on the specific application problems that need to be solved, various data processing methods and technical tools are used. There are three classes of information technologies that allow working with various kinds of subject areas:

1) global, including models, methods and tools that formalize and allow the use of information resources of society as a whole;

2) basic, designed for a specific application;

3) specific, implementing the processing of certain data when solving functional tasks of the user (in particular, planning, accounting, analysis, etc.).

The main purpose of information technology is the production and processing of information for its analysis and the adoption on its basis of the relevant decision, which provides for the implementation of an action.