[Year 12 Its] Re: Prim vs Secondary

Wed May 25 13:10:06 EST 2005

Hi All

Totally agree with you Kevork.  
<<I can't help but feel each re-interpretation of what constitutes primary
and what constitutes secondary data sources is causing us to slip further
into the quicksand.>>
However it has shown that there are numerous opinions out there. Hopefully
the discussion will give this years teachers & kids a better idea for a
similar question in the future. 

<<  I take it there are no volunteers to contact the VCAA as yet >>

You don't really believe the VCAA are not watching this discussion from
above???    <grin>

Barry Larkin
IS Teacher
Chandler SC

-----Original Message-----
From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
Sent: Wednesday, 25 May 2005 10:13 AM
To: is at edulists.com.au
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] Re: Prim vs Secondary

Hi once more,

     I can't help but feel each re-interpretation of what constitutes
primary and what constitutes secondary data sources is causing us to slip
further into the quicksand.

Eg.  We are having the "endorsement" of a primary witness in the writing of
a secondary version as elevating the secondary source to "primary" status as
in the programmers endorsing what the technical writer prepares in the
documentation .  
  If so, why doesn't a biography "endorsed" by the person whose life it is
about elevate that work to a primary source ??? 

 Also, we seem to by restricting a Secondary source to one where there has
to be some processing . Whilst this may happen and is commonly the case, a
restatement of the primary data from someone who was not a witness can still
make that a secondary source. Therefore, it is neither sufficient, nor
necessary for some "processing" or reinterpretation of data to take place to
tag a source as primary. Says who  ?  Please see one of the links supplied
by the industry contributor at
http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/primary.html

   All the links supplied by the industry contacts refer to primary as a
witness who was at the scene when the event took place and a secondary as
someone removed from the scene who is using primary data to restate or
interpret what has happened. See
http://www.bergen.cc.nj.us/Library/userguide/IV_A_prim_sec.html ,
http://www.lib.ecu.edu/Reference/workshop/primary.html  and
http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/primary.html

   Back to the exam:
    1. Technical documentation ?    Can't tell until you tell me if the
writer was a primary witness to the events about which he is writing. Being
in the organisation would qualify him as a primary witness.
    2. Error logs of an information system ?   Can be auto generated by
software, reported by an employee, appear in a testing table or be reported
by a customer to the Herald Sun as in the case of CityLink overcharging
people $000s of dollars obviously due to an "error in the information
system". All sources of error logs by people who are primary witnesses to
the events are primary sources.

  I take it there are no volunteers to contact the VCAA as yet  ?

Best Wishes
Kevork
Forest Hill College

>>> tigeroz at alphalink.com.au 05/24/05 11:10pm >>>
This is my last contribution as I have more immediate problems to attend 
to, like teaching...
The analogies to biographies are invalid. Biographies by definition are 
secondary sources; only an autobiography can be a primary data source of 
a person's life.

Secondary data sources are a sources that have processed, interpreted, 
or manipulated (in the sense of organising to suit a particular bias) 
primary data.
The crime witness statements are primary data because they are direct 
evidence of an event, despite the fact that there may be several 
different observations of the event. A news report of a crime event is 
secondary data because the reporter has collected witness statements and 
processed and interpreted them to provide a summary for readers. If the 
reporter works for a particular newspaper he/she may even manipulate the 
data eg the headline "Another burglary in town" has a quite different 
connotation from the headline "Crime wave! - Second burglary in a week!'

Now, as to technical documentation - the instructions about how to 
maintain a program/application or computer that are supplied with the 
software or hardware. I reckon it is primary data as it is provided by 
the creator of the program/application (regardless of whom they employed 
to write it because it has to be approved by the creators). If similar 
documentation is written for that equipment by another source eg 'DOS 
for Dummies' then that is secondary data because the author is working 
from the primary data source and does not have the privileged 
information available to insiders.  Quite often, of course, the 
secondary data is better written but that is not the point.
I would be interested to hear the views of other examiners but I fear we 
have spent too much time already on this. I hope the people on the VCE 
IT Reaccreditation Committee have taken note of how much time has been 
devoted to this tiny topic!!

Ciao,
Charmaine Taylor
Sunbury Downs College

>

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