CAPE Information Technology Unit 1 key terms

Raw, unprocessed facts, figures, symbols or observations that have no meaning on their own until they are organised, interpreted or placed in context.

Data that has been processed, organised and given context so that it becomes meaningful and useful to the person receiving it.

Understanding and insight derived from information combined with experience, so that it can be applied to make decisions or solve problems.

The sequence of stages a system uses to handle data: input, processing, output and storage, often with feedback linking output back to input.

The physical, tangible components of a computer system, such as the processor, memory chips, circuit boards, keyboard, monitor and printer.

The set of programs, instructions and associated data that tell hardware what to do; it is intangible and includes system and application software.

Any hardware component that accepts data or instructions from a user or another system and converts it into a form the computer can process.

Hardware that presents processed data to the user in a readable form, such as a monitor, printer, plotter or speaker.

Any device attached to and controlled by the computer's processing unit that provides input, output or additional storage, but is not core to computation.

The main component that fetches, decodes and executes instructions; it contains the control unit, arithmetic logic unit and registers.

The part of the CPU that performs arithmetic operations such as addition and subtraction, and logical comparisons such as AND, OR and greater-than.

The CPU component that directs the operation of the processor by fetching instructions, decoding them and coordinating the flow of data between components.

Fast, directly accessible memory such as RAM and ROM that holds data and instructions currently in use by the processor.

Random Access Memory: volatile primary storage that holds programs and data currently being used; its contents are lost when power is removed.

Read Only Memory: non-volatile memory containing permanent instructions such as the bootstrap program, which cannot normally be altered by the user.

Non-volatile storage such as hard disks, solid-state drives and optical media that retains data permanently and is used for backup and archiving.

Memory that loses its stored contents when electrical power is switched off; RAM is the main example in a computer system.

Memory that retains its contents even when power is removed, including ROM, flash memory and the magnetic or optical media used for permanent storage.

System software that manages hardware resources, provides a user interface and allows application programs to run; examples include Windows, Linux and macOS.

System software that performs maintenance tasks such as virus scanning, disk defragmentation, file compression or backup, keeping the system running efficiently.

Programs designed to help users perform specific tasks, such as word processors, spreadsheets, database managers and web browsers.

The smallest unit of data in computing, represented as a single binary digit, either 0 or 1.

A group of eight bits treated as a single unit; it is the standard unit used to measure storage capacity and character representation.

A base-2 number system using only the digits 0 and 1, which maps directly onto the on and off states of digital circuits.

A scheme that maps characters to numeric codes so computers can store and exchange text; examples include ASCII and Unicode.

Two or more computing devices connected together so they can share data, hardware and software resources and communicate with one another.

A network covering a small geographic area such as a room, building or campus, usually owned and managed by a single organisation.

A network that spans a large geographic area such as a country or the world, often linking several LANs using leased lines or public infrastructure.

The physical or logical arrangement of devices and connections in a network, such as star, bus, ring or mesh layouts.

A set of agreed rules and conventions governing how devices exchange data over a network, covering format, timing, sequencing and error control.

A unique numeric identifier assigned to a device on a network so data can be routed to it; IPv4 uses four octets and IPv6 uses longer addresses.

The maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a communication channel, usually measured in bits per second.

The physical pathway that carries signals between networked devices, such as twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, fibre optics or wireless radio.

An organised collection of related data stored so that it can be easily accessed, managed and updated by multiple users.

Software that creates, stores, queries and controls access to a database, providing security, backup and concurrent-user facilities.

A person, place, object or event about which data is collected and stored in a database, usually represented as a table.

A property or characteristic of an entity that is stored as a field or column in a database table, such as a student's surname.

A field or combination of fields that uniquely identifies each record in a table and cannot contain duplicate or null values.

A field in one table that refers to the primary key of another table, creating a link between the tables and enforcing referential integrity.

A database in which data is organised into tables of rows and columns that are linked through shared key fields rather than by physical pointers.

A standard language used to define, manipulate and retrieve data in relational databases, including commands such as SELECT, INSERT and UPDATE.

A complete set of related fields describing one entity instance, stored as a single row in a database table or file.