[Year 12 Its] Primary vs Secondary Data Sources

[Bricks J. Winzer]

I agree with what Adrian's said.  I'm reminded of my old Economics
classes... categorising producers as Primary, Secondary, Tertiary,
Quaternary and Quinary (the last two if you follow Barry Jones'
theory).

> Answer: Primary sources of data would include the collection of the
> forms presently used to write quotes, any output produced by the
> system for example the 'order' printout produced by the 'jobs'
> database and screen dumps of input screens.

> Interviews of the customer service staff who process the quotes and
> the salesmen, would provide additional sources of primary data.

> Secondary sources of information would include the customer
> satisfaction surveys and customer complaints log.

> Observation and performance of the processes would provide another
> source of primary data and help to get a more defined view of the
> present system and its problems.

Computer output - wouldn't that be secondary data?  It's been
processed, either automatically or manually.  I'm thinking that
primary = "raw" data, so if it undergoes any process then it's not raw
any more.

Customer satisfaction surveys would be primary data, but if reports
are generated based on those surveys then it would be secondary.  Only
reason I can think of why customer info is considered secondary, is
that customers are external to the system, rather than internal.

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B.J. Winzer
St Columba's College
Essendon