Drowning in Data
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000319 |
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
166
PEN
TI
UM
Drowning
in
Data
The
July
issue
of
Probation
Journal
saw
the
launch
of
this
regular
feature
and
made
a
tentative
suggestion
that
Information
Technology
(IT)
could
be
used
as
a
tool
for
day
to
day
practice.
A
tool
which,
when
used
in
conjunction
with
the
existing
knowledge
and
skills
already
possessed
by
those
practising
the
art,
science
or
profession
of
social
work,
could
enhance
the
quality
and
scope
of
the
interventions
offered
to
clients.
This
field
of
’IT
for
the
Workers’
or,
more
aptly
expressed,
the
Professional
Use
of
Computers,
has
been
on
the
periphery
of
IT
development
in
the
Probation
Service
for
well
over
a
decade.
There
has
been
programs
designed
to
be
used
by,
or
with,
clients
for
many
years.
Many
of
the
original
programs
were
developed
on
BBC
machines
and,
whilst
being
imaginative,
creative
and
to
some
extent
relevant,
they
were
severely
constricted
by
the
limitations
of
the
BBC
machines
themselves.
The
development
of
their
use
was
also
constrained
by
the
lack
of
any
coherent
strategy
or
policy
to
direct
the
purchase
of
machines,
the
availability
of
programs
or
the
methods
of
implementation.
The
programs
were
developed,
and
usually
used,
by
a
tiny,
disparate
(and
often
desperate)
group
of
strange
and
isolated
technophiles
who
were
almost
universally
regarded
by
their
colleagues
as
not
only
being
on
the
outer
fringes
of
social
work
but
also
on
the
outer
fringes
of
the
human
race.
In
short,
the
professional
use
of
computers
was, and
more
importantly
was
perceived
as,
of
little
practical
use
to
’main
stream’
social
work.
OMEN=
l
The
development
of
the
Personal
Computer
(PC)
heralded
a
major
advance
in
what
could
be
achieved
by
small
machines
and
the
PC
of
today
is
capable
of
performing
most
of
the
tasks
that
were
restricted
to
the
vastly
expensive
Main
Frame
computers
of
just
a
decade
ago.
The
PC
has
(comparatively)
vast
amounts
of
memory,
great
speed,
versatility
and
ease
of
use.
The
programs
that
can
now
be
written
for
these
machines
have
correspondingly
grown
in
size,
scope
and
flexibility.
There
are
now
PC
programs
for
virtually
all
aspects
of
administration,
management
and
most
prolific
of
all
=
data
collection.
There
now
exists
vast
stores
of
data
on
almost
all
conceivable
areas
of
life,
social
work
and
the
Probation
Service
being
no
exception.
However,
turning
back
from
these
global
developments
to
the
application
of
IT
to
the
work
of
individual
probation
officers
an
apposite
sentiment
can
be
found
in
the
phrase:
’Drowning
in
a
sea
of
data
whilst
dying
of
thirst
for
knowledge.’
This
process
of
escalating
data
collection
is,
no
doubt,
of
considerable
fascination
to
researchers,
academics,
planners
and
trend
predictors
but
of
little
direct
use
to
probation
officers
sitting
in
their
offices
with
their
clients.
What
such
officers
require
is
not
data
but
knowledge;
relevant,
accessible,
easy
to
use
and
pertinent
to
their
day
to
day
work.
Despite
the
way
most
IT
development
is
going,
all
is
not
lost
-
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