Information system

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The term information system has the following meanings:

In rough set theory, an information system is an attribute-value system.

In information systems, an information system consists of three components: human, task, application system. In this view, information is defined in terms of the three levels of semiotics. Data which can be automatically processed by the application system corresponds to the syntax-level. In the context of an individual who interprets the data they become information, which correspond to the semantic-level. Information becomes knowledge when an individual knows (understands) and evaluates the information (e.g., for a specific task). This corresponds to the pragmatic-level.

In general systems theory, an information system is a system, automated or manual, that comprises people, machines, and/or methods organized to collect, process, transmit, and disseminate data that represent user information.

In telecommunications, an information system is any telecommunications and/or computer related equipment or interconnected system or subsystems of equipment that is used in the acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of voice and/or data, and includes software, firmware, and hardware. (Federal Standard 1037C, MIL-STD-188, and National Information Systems Security Glossary)

In computer security, an information system is described by five objects (Canal 2004):
- Structure:
  - Repositories, which hold data permanent or temporarily, such as buffers, RAM, hard disks, cache, etc.
  - Interfaces, which exchange information with the non-digital world, such as keyboards, speakers, scanners, printers, etc.
  - Channels, which connect repositories, such as buses, cables, wireless links, etc. A Network is a set of logical or physical channels.
- Behaviour:
  - Services, which provide value to users or to other services via messages interchange.
  - Messages, which carries a meaning to users or services.

In the mathematical area of domain theory, a Scott information system (after its inventor Dana Scott) is a mathematical structure that provides an alternative representation of Scott domains and, as a special case, algebraic lattices.

Information systems - for scholarly information on this subject one should refer to the works of Peter Checkland developer of SSM (Soft system metodology) and one of the leading information systems theorists and consultant's.