Information, Communication and Information Policy Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Both (A) and (B) are true.

Statement A: information is a basic resource of modern societies. Access to information supports economic growth, innovation and informed political participation, which is why we speak of an information society and an information economy.

Statement B: in the Shannon-Weaver model of communication a message passes from source through a channel to a receiver, and noise, any external disturbance in the channel, can distort or interrupt it.

Since both statements are standard propositions of information science, the options calling either one false are wrong.

Answer: C

Both (A) and (B) are true.

Statement A: the German word Informatik was coined by Karl Steinbuch in 1957, in a paper on automatic information processing; it became the usual German name for computer science.

Statement B: Charles Sanders Peirce, the American philosopher and founder of semiotics, developed a logical theory of information, relating the information in a term to its breadth and depth, in the nineteenth century.

These are the same two facts as the matching in Q3 of this paper, so neither statement is false.

Answer: A

Raw, unorganised, unprocessed facts are Data.

In the data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy, data are the raw symbols, figures and observations with no context, such as a list of readings or numbers. When data are organised and processed so that they have meaning in a context, they become information.

Knowledge is information that has been understood and integrated with experience so that it can be applied. Wisdom is the ability to judge and use knowledge well. Each of these is processed and evaluated, which is exactly what the question says data are not.

Answer: C

The recommendation came from the National Knowledge Commission.

The National Knowledge Commission's recommendations on libraries (2007) included preparing a national census of all libraries in India, together with setting up a National Commission on Libraries, modernising library management and promoting networks and digital libraries.

The UGC funds and regulates higher education, IFLA is the international federation of library associations, and INFLIBNET is the UGC's inter-university library network centre. None of them made this recommendation.

Answer: D

The chairman was Sam Pitroda.

The National Knowledge Commission was set up by the Government of India in 2005 as a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister on building a knowledge society, and Sam Pitroda, the telecom pioneer, was its chairman.

Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister who constituted the Commission, not its chairman. Nandan Nilekani was one of its members. R. Satyanarayana did not chair it.

Answer: B

The correct matching is (a)-(ii), (b)-(i), (c)-(iv), (d)-(iii).

• The Copyright Act: 1957.
• The Trade Marks Act: 1999.
• The Patents Act: 1970.
• The Right to Information Act: 2005.

Codes that give the Copyright Act 1999 or the RTI Act 1970 confuse the dates; the trade marks law of 1999 replaced the older Trade and Merchandise Marks Act of 1958, and the RTI Act came into force in October 2005.

Answer: B

The characteristics of useful information are (i) Accuracy and (iii) Adequacy.

Information is useful when it is accurate (free of errors), adequate or complete enough for the decision at hand, and also timely and relevant. These are the standard qualities listed in information science texts.

Awareness is a state of the user, not a quality of the information itself, and 'dubious' information is the opposite of useful, because its reliability is in doubt. So codes including (ii) or (iv) are wrong.

Answer: A

The keyed answer is (i) and (ii) are correct: the epidemic model and the economic theory model.

Information diffusion models describe how an idea or innovation spreads through a population. The epidemic model treats information like an infection that passes from those who have it to those who do not, an idea carried into information science by Goffman and Newill in 1964. The economic theory model explains adoption by costs and returns: a user takes up an innovation when it pays, as in Griliches' 1957 study of hybrid corn.

An 'engineering model' and an 'ethnography model' are not standard names for diffusion models (ethnography is a research method of field observation). Every other option includes one of them, so options B, C and D are wrong.

Answer: C

Information intermediaries need (i) searching capabilities and (iii) capabilities to analyse data.

An information intermediary, such as a reference librarian or information analyst, stands between users and information sources. The job calls for skill in searching databases and other sources and the ability to evaluate, analyse and package the information for the user's need.

Physical height and a good building are not qualities of the intermediary; they are irrelevant distractors, so every code including (ii) or (iv) is wrong.

Answer: D

The keyed answer is (i) (ii) (iii) (iv): conceptual, functional, mathematical, systematic. I could not confirm this sequence, so the explanation says what is and is not settled.

The four names are classes of communication models, not single models, and no standard reference dates each class. A search of the literature found dated lists of individual models (for example Lasswell 1948, Shannon and Weaver 1948-49, Osgood and Schramm 1954), but nothing that puts conceptual, functional, mathematical and systematic models in an order. The University's key follows the order in which the classes are listed, and nothing found shows it to be wrong, so it is kept as printed.

The other options reorder the same four items, for example by starting with the systematic model, and no source supports any of them over the key.