Week 1

1.2 Information Management Concepts

Information Management (IM) is the systematic process of collecting, organising, storing, maintaining, retrieving, and distributing information to support organisational decision-making. Key IM activities include:

1. Information Capture — Collecting data from various sources (forms, sensors, transactions)

2. Information Representation — Encoding data in structured formats (tables, XML, JSON)

3. Information Storage — Persisting data reliably on storage media

4. Information Retrieval — Finding and extracting relevant data quickly

5. Information Indexing — Creating structures that speed up retrieval

6. Information Privacy and Security — Protecting data from unauthorised access

Nigerian Context: Nigeria's National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) manages over 100 million identity records. This is an enormous information management challenge involving: capturing biometric data at enrolment centres, representing it in a structured database, storing it securely across multiple data centres, and retrieving it instantly when a citizen needs identity verification at a bank, airport, or government office.