INPUT, PROCESSING, OUTPUT SYSTEMS

An interesting topic was discussed in the fourth session of Information Systems' class about what we called SYSTEMS! And how systems can be designed and created?
It seems pretty easy for some of us defining what a system is? And how we can create it or understand it, but the fact is NOT! In today’s topic I will be talking about what we called Control Systems or INPUT, PROCESSING, OUTPUT Systems. The first picture shows a basic example of this kind of systems. When we look at the diagram we may see it very easy to be explained and understood! I may also agree when I first see the diagram, since it only has a simple imaginable picture with few drawn lines in it. In fact we need to go a bit further beyond that. We need to understand what each part of the system means? Let us have another look at the second picture which has the same system’s design but in a bit more complex view. The picture has more than one input that each needs to be completely understood why it has been used as an input in the system. For instance, in the second picture we may ask ourselves, why did we choose eyes to be used or treated as an input? Why didn’t we use them as a process or output?
In order to understand and clarify this step of defining systems’ stages, we need to look at each step carefully and define it clearly in the way that makes it easier for us to be understood and imagined. Input is the first step we need to define in any system. It is the stage where the data flows into that system. We call it input stage because it is the point that data enters into the system. Process is the action of manipulating or transforming the input into a more useful form; it is the stage where data is converted and manipulated. Output involves producing useful information. It is basically the result of the input after processing it.
Back to the second picture and based on how we defined the system, we conclude that we used eyes as an input because it is the first point where the image as a data flowed into. After that the image went through the processing stage which is done by the brain. Finally, the output is the useful information we got from the processed data (image). It is not that difficult to understand such examples. It Actually becomes more difficult when we use some different complicated examples such as the University of New York teaching system! It would be very difficult to understand or even analyze systems’ stages (Input, Process, and output) of the University. It would also be hard to classify what the input, the process or the output is. Sometimes you may say I have a basic idea that the output will be the knowledge that students may learn, but in fact it can be the other way around! The core point of this topic is that we really need to understand carefully how we define systems’ stages and how we look at them from different prospectives.