Information Methods Essay, Research Paper

The aim of this assignment was to show and explain the value and importance of information and the tools readily accessible to us as students. We were to investigate the individual components of Access, Excel, Word and Powerpoint, then to transform, manipulate and present the information we gathered. During the period of week 1 to week 3, we gathered information from our fellow students, conducting a short survey of what their name was, their student number, their age and what their postcode was. We gathered all this information and stored it in Access. From there, we transferred it into Excel and then later on into Word. Storing all this data into Access was to inform us on how to use self-documenting field names or appropriate data type and size. This is also where we were informed on Tables, Records, Fields, Primary keys, Indexes, Forms and Form Buttons. We then manipulated the data by extracting it onto a spreadsheet, using Microsoft Query. From there, we then had to transfer the information and data into excel to use the chart wizard to help represent and identify the data into a graph, which is shown in table 2 below. The information we chose to identify was the student s age and name. This is because along the horizontal axis, we could have the individual students, while on the vertical axis, we needed information that was within a range (for example, between 18 and 20 for the student s age). It would have made any sense to graph the student s name and their post code as well, since a postcode would be a form of text , rather than numbers within a range.DISCUSSION:The results showed that all the people surveyed were between the ages of 18 and 20. With 50% of them being 18 years old and 37.5% of then were 19. There was only one person who was 20. As only a small sample was surveyed, this one person meant 12.5% of the total numbers.

The chart we made was quite simple and straightforward. Not all the information we collected was inserted, showing only the relevant information, the student s first name and their age. In the chart we did not include their student number, their postcode and or the student s surname. This is because if we included all the information, the chart would have gotten too confusing with irrelevant information, as everyone s student number was different and all their postcodes were different as well. Another factor for not including all the other information was because on the vertical axis, there needed to be information which was treated as numbers rather than text. This is because a range needed to be formulated for the chart to actually make sense. There was also no need for the student s surname to be placed in the chart as none of the students placed in my survey had the same first name. Also, with the placement of their student numbers instead of their names, it would have been difficult to distinguish one student from the other. CONCLUSION:From this activity, we learnt about the different aspects of Access, Excel and Word. It s now understood that to construct a chart, a table must first be made. It s also understood how to transfer information using Microsoft Query. We can see from our results that there were 8 students surveyed, with the largest percentage of them being 18 years old. The information is all set out clearly in the chart we created in Excel, using the information we collected in Access. The chart is quite simple to understand, as everything is organised and arranged in a way where the information carried out cannot be misinterpreted or misunderstood.