Data

Data treated as singular, plural, or as a mass noun) is any sequence of one or more symbols given meaning by specific act(s) of interpretation.

It requires interpretation to become information. To translate data to information, there must be several known factors considered. The factors involved are determined by the creator of the data and the desired information. The term metadata is used to reference the data about the data. Metadata may be implied, specified or given. Data relating to physical events or processes will also have a temporal component. In almost all cases this temporal component is implied. This is the case when a device such as a temperature logger receives data from a temperature sensor. When the temperature is received it is assumed that the data has a temporal references of “now”. So the device records the date, time and temperature together. When the data logger communicates temperatures, it must also report the date and time (metadata) for each temperature.