Talk:Informatics

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Interwiki
Interwiki links were removed by User:R._Koot on the grounds that they all link back to computer science or information science.

The french article, for example, is clear that "informatique" designates something broader than the English "computer science".

I think these interwiki links were useful, and informative. Can we have them back? Michael Fourman 17:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Interwiki links are not meant to point to articles in other languages which are related, but which are equivalent. Building many-to-many relationships with interwiki links creates a maintenance hell (and breaks all automated tools to assist with it.) While the French article indeed discusses more than the academic discipline of computer science, the German and Dutch articles do not. I do not see how the French article refers to informatics in particular (only to information technology in general, which can be explained by the fact that in many languages, including English, computer science not only refers to the academic discipline but also, colloquially, to anything related to computers and information technology.) —Ruud 17:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The German article does have the section de:Informatik, but I do not believe this warrant creating an interwiki link between en:Informatics and de:Informatik in any direction. —Ruud 17:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I see the point. The problem is that "Computer Science" in English is narrower than "informatique" (fr) etc. In general, concepts don't match up nicely between languages, so equivalence (which is fine for concrete objects like Mt Everest) is problematic as a criterion for interwiki links for more conceptual subjects. I take it that you kept the japanese link as it refers back to informatics. I suspect that some of the other entries would be better making that link, rather than one to computer science. Unfortunately, my language skills don't let me check that! I still think that some links to these uses of (homonyms of) "informatics" would be helpful within the en:Informatics article. —Michael Fourman 18:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The German article also says, "Die Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) ist ein großes Teilgebiet der Informatik " ( de:Informatik. English usage typically separates these.  — a reason for questioning the interwiki link from de:Informatik to en:Computer Science    — Michael Fourman 18:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I regard computational intelligence and machine learning as branches of computer science and I believe the German article refers to those fields and not, for example, the psychological and cognitive aspects. As a more concrete example, the book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (which only treats the computational aspects of AI) is used at many computer science departments in Britain and the US and one of the authors, Stuart Russell, is a professor Berkeley's CS department. The same distinction is made at my university in the Netherlands, computational aspects are part of the CS program, but there is also a separate degree in AI in which cognitive and linguistic aspects are treated as well. 19:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that trying to draw a line between computational aspects of AI and psychological and cognitive aspects is a mistake, since the line has to move as science progresses. In the UK, I think that machine learning is indeed now regarded as part of computer science (it was not always so), but cognitive and psychological aspects are not - so we use the word "informatics" for the wider, inclusive view. My expectation is that the european (fr, de, it, etc) use of informatics is extending its meaning to be closer to en:Informatics, while the meaning of "en:Computer Science" cannot move too far away from the "computer". So I expect that in some instances the interwiki links should be to/from en:Informatics, and that the number of languages for which this is true will grow. The links you removed had been added organically, perhaps there should be a note explaining that such a link should not be added except in cases where it makes sense for he reciprocal link to point to en:Informatics. Michael Fourman 21:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

We got blogged
We got [blogged http://uncoveringinformationlabor.blogspot.com/2006/04/informatics-information-science-and.html]. —Ruud 01:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Lacking information
The entire article is about the word "Informatics" itself, and not the concept to which it refers. Almost all of the article is an etymology section. If there's nothing that can be said about informatics except for etymology, then maybe it belongs in a dictionary rather than an encyclopedia. Jibjibjib 09:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

First need to knowlege clarity what is information, that is key of "Informatics" science.


 * Wiener information definition counter: The information is the information, the information is the material, the energy, the information and the attribute indication (logo).


 * Counter Shannon information definition: The information is definite increase


 * Deng's information definition

The information is the thing phenomenon and the attribute marking (indication) set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DalaoDy (talk • contribs) 02:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

New article request
Hi there, I'd like to suggest a new article on the full history of information handling/management/techonology (details). I'm not knowledgeable enough to do it myself, but contributors here probably are. Thanks, JackyR | Talk 18:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Multiple sets of information?
Has anyone ever accomplished the task of using the complexity of changing information in a physical resource to arrange into something like a neural network, thereby creating a new virtual resource for a unique second set of data? MobyDikc (talk) 02:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

etymology
There are examples of French and German coinings, but is this an English word? I never hear it used, never see it written in newspapers. Maybe it's one of those words which foreigners think ought to exist in English but which doesn't. It's certainly not mainstream language. Maybe it's jargon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 18:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a coined word, as I can testify from having been in on the coinage. When Walt Bauer, Werner Frank and I founded our software company early in 1962 we needed a name that suggested our area of activity but was sufficiently unique that it would stand out. We threw around a lot of variations on the theme of computers, information, technology, etc., and then Werner (I believe) had the inspiration to combine information and automation (or automatic), wanting to create what Lewis Carrol called a portmanteau word, rolling automation, information and computation together. "Informatic" did not sound quite right, but then adding the plural ending did, so "Informatics" it was, and thus the name of our company was born. We believed at the time that the word was totally original, and I question that the French "informatique" has any relation to our intent. The French have long been attempting to establish "purity" in the French language, and "informatique" was an effort to coin a French term to substitute for "computing" or "computation," much as they coined the term "logiciel" to mean "software."

Our original logo showed two lower case letters "i" juxtaposed vertically, with bars on either side. One of our business goals was to establish ourselves as authorities in the application of computing to communications and vice versa, so the logo was meant to imply information passing through a channel. It was accepted as a trademark with that explanation.

I should add that we were flattered by the subsequent adoption of the term in several languages to signify what today we would call information technology. -- Richard Hill (3-23-09)71.112.95.121 (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

First academic degree
"The first example of a degree level qualification in Informatics occurred in 1982 when Plymouth Polytechnic (now the University of Plymouth) offered a four year BSc(Honours) degree in Computing and Informatics - with an initial intake of only 35 students. The course still runs today [5] making it the longest available qualification in the subject."

The content is maybe correct for the english-speaking world, but the University of Karlsruhe offers a qualification in Informatics since 1969. (diploma, similar to the american MSc) :-) --91.89.13.71 (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

still problematic
After more than 2 years, this article is still in a very problematic state:


 * The real meat of the article is in the lead in. Unfortunately it is not very helpful to reader as it gives a very vague definition of the field (this is not clarified later in the article), it is unreferenced, and in facts hints at the existence of alternative and conflicting definitions.
 * The etymology section, adds little to the context and properly belongs on wiktionary.
 * The history section actually contains more etymology and several quoted definitions from various academic websites. This is problematic as those aren't very reliable sources (usually just made up by the communications and promotion department) and it is would also have to be the encyclopedia's job to summarize this information not the reader's.
 * The trademark section is even more etymology and very unrelated.
 * The contribution disciplines is a mere list repeating the lead with some additional cruft gathered over time.
 * The external links section contains more pointers to definitions of usually questionable reliability.

As I see little hope of this ever turning in to a wonderful piece of encyclopedic prose on the subject of informatics, instead of a mere collection of random factoids about the word informatics I propose pruning/moving to wiktionary the etymology related sections and then turning what remains (a number of alternative definitions of the word informatics) into a list/disambiguation page. —Ruud 01:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Distinction of Term
The term is too similar to computing science. I suggest they be merged with the "computer science" article being renamed to Informatics or to Computing Science. --OMouse (talk) 01:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
 * There are many problems around some terms. For example: ru:Обсуждение:Информатика. --OZH (talk) 20:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I also think that too much of the content of this article is about computer science in general rather than informatics in particular. (According to my computer's builtin dictionary - I'm using a Mac - informatics means "the science of processing data for storage and retrieval".) I suggest that most of this article be merged with the article on computer science, with the leftover parts referring only to systems for storing information. I'll edit the remainder to make this distinction more apparent. Duckmather (talk) 01:24, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I had a long and heated discussion on this many years ago with a Dutch academic who insisted that the terms was not synonomous. In English, at least, I treat it as a synonym. However in deference to our European friends, we may want to leave the free standing page to aid in disambiguation. Dfletter (talk) 20:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking of Dutch academics, the University of Amsterdam calls its computer science group the Informatics Institute. In practice, computer science/computing science/informatics are often synonymous. Qwertyus (talk) 13:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

RE: "The term is too similar..." I am currently a student pursuing an Informatics major and it is very different from studying computer science. It deserves its own article, I believe, since the field focuses more on usability, user interface, and human-computer interaction concepts. tlainy 17:54, 16 January 2011


 * I agree that Informatics deserves its own page. Even at schools like Indiana University where the School of Informatics and the Computer Science department have been merged the is still a clear distinction between the two, and within the school Informatics and CS both have their own distinct curriculum.Dopeytaylor (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that Informatics may have nothing to do with computers at all - The best teaching examples of good informatics projects center around patterns of behavior and workflow. --Dirkstanley (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Informatics is about problem-solving. It just so happens computers are a great tool to use in solving problems right now. If that ever changed, the distinction between computer science and informatics would be a large gaping void.john p. (talk) 20:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree. Informatics is the science of information. It is the broadest version of information science, and it encompasses information theory, computer science and information technology, data management, information classification, etc.Kdevans (talk) 19:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Sub Disciplines
I take issue with the fact that it is stated that "One of the most significant areas of applied informatics is that of organisational informatics". There are many areas that can be considered significant, and I wonder why this one sub-field was mentioned and not others. While I'm sure that each field would have its supporters and detractors, as a practicing Informatician I hardly feel that organizational informatics warrants being singled out as the "one of the most significant fields". I suggest that a new section be made where sub-disciplines are mentioned, apart from the history section Dopeytaylor (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed! --Dirkstanley (talk) 12:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Where's the contradiction?

 * The English term Informatics is sometimes understood as meaning the same as computer science. However, the German word Informatik is the correct translation of English computer science.

I don't see what the word "however" is doing here. Perhaps there's a negation missing? Qwertyus (talk) 12:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Information vs. Computing
The comparison between Informatics and Computer Science says that Computation is not related to information. I strongly disagree. Computation is essentially information processing. I don't see any situation in which computation is performed without information been acquired from an input and used to generate information in an output or response.

I agree that Informatics is not the same as Computer Science, because the study of information and the techniques related to its processing, storage, etc. are much wider than just computation. To me it seems that Computer Science is a subfield of Informatics. Do you agree?

Hldsc (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe that this distinction is being directly attacked on the information page and the information processing page. The information page had its leading definition changed last month to exclude what you are calling information. The information processing page was captured long ago by psychology causing all the links to become misdirected. 173.79.197.184 (talk) 02:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Informatics in Europe is what in US is called computer science/computer engineering/computing/software engineering/information science/information engineering and other information- and computer-related fileds. Et4y (talk) 22:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Merge the article with computer science
Informatics does not exist for ACM-IEEE. Merge the article with computer science — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.201.152.15 (talk) 20:35, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

In my experience of 30+ years in 'systems' biology, and 20 years developing a bioinformatics resource used thousands of times per day by researchers around the world, I think of informatics as the process of gathering, categorizing and (perhaps) publishing information. While this process is independent of computers, computers has revolutionized its practice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phornbeck (talk • contribs) 16:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Move
We just completed a move of this article from it's previous title Informatics (academic field) to simply Informatics as the primary topic, with Informatics (disambiguation) as the disambiguation page, per WP:DAB. TheProfessor (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Definition too narrow

The current definition of Informatics (Jan 24/2015) is overly restrictive. This can be seen most prominently in the first sentence:

"Informatics is the science of computer information systems"

Informatics includes the storage, structure, retrieval, analysis and processing of information. Computers are essential tools for the practice of Informatics, and also define a sub-discipline within informatics, but do not define the discipline itself.

Also, the description of Informatics as the "science of automating information interactions" is confusing and does not accurately reflect the scope of this discipline Phornbeck (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Phornbeck - Informatics does not necessarily include any computing systems. IMHO, constructing and analyzing information flows is separate from their physical storage systems. Would recommend changing that first sentence, or consider citing another authority source on the subject. Dirkstanley (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

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