Informatics

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Informatics is a sub-genre[1] of information science, which is the study of information. It is often, though not exclusively, studied as a branch of computer science and information technology and is related to ontology and software engineering. Someone who practices the profession of informatics is called an informaticist, an informatician, or simply an informatics scientist.

Informatics is primarily concerned with the structure, creation, management, storage, retrieval, dissemination and transfer of information. Informatics also includes studying the application of information in organizations, on its usage and the interaction between people, organizations and information systems. Within informatics, attention has been given in recent years to human computer interaction (HCI), value sensitive design, iterative design processes and to the ways people generate, use and find information.

Informatics focuses on understanding problems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved and then applying information (and other) technology as needed. In other words, it tackles the problem first rather than technology first.

1 Definitions of informatics
- 1.1 Regional differences
- 1.2 International terminology
2 Subdisciplines of Informatics
3 See also
4 External links

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Definitions of informatics

Because of the rapidly evolving, interdisciplinary nature of informatics, a precise meaning of the term "informatics" is presently difficult to pin down. Regional differences and international terminology complicate the problem. Some people note that much of what is called "Informatics" today was once called "Information Science" at least in fields such as Medical Informatics. However when Library scientists began to also use the phrase "Information Science" to refer to their work, the term informatics emerged as a response by Computer Scientists to distiguish their work from that of Library Science.

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Regional differences

At the Indiana University School of Informatics, informatics is defined as "the art, science and human dimensions of information technology" and "the study, application, and social consequences of technology." These definitions are widely accepted in the United States. Another intepretation of informatics, "the study of the structure, behaviour, and interactions of natural and engineered computational systems," is taught at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics and more commonly used in the United Kingdom. It encompasses the representation, processing, and communication of information in a system, including all computational, cognitive and social aspects.

The central notion is the transformation of information — whether by computation or communication, whether by organisms or artifacts. In this sense, informatics can be considered a conflation of computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and related fields.

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International terminology

The words informatique (French), Informatik (German), informatika (Slovak, Slovene, Czech, Hungarian), informatica (Italian, Dutch), informatyka (Polish) and informática (Spanish, Portuguese), among others, do not mean the same as the English definitions of informatics. Rather, these words refer to computer science in its broadest acceptation, and to any discipline which is focused on computers, including computer engineering, software engineering, and information technology.