Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis This subject will focus on the database and information provision/interpretation industries. It will focus on areas of critical importance to the communications industry: libraries, media databases, the census and opinion poll/market research. Students will develop skills in accessing, interpreting and presenting such data. The subject will cover creating the databases - library information systems: titles and text retrieval, census data: the total population and housing survey, opinion polls and market research: the use of samples, the `wire services' and on-line text retrieval; managing the data - access and control, the role and potential of information filtering techniques, creating niche databases from pre-existing data sets, size of populations and use of statistics: when to use the decimal point, meaningful and meaningless correlations; modes of access of presentation - E-mail, file transfer, bulletin board, graphics packages, how much tabular material in how much detail: text tables versus appendices.