An InformationOrientedTable is a table that contains information that is above the standard 'table is an entity' nature of a relational database. Examples include
* ControlTable
* DataDictionary
* CodeTable
Information oriented tables are a step toward InformationOrientedSoftwareDevelopment. They can be considered an AntiPattern when used in a heavily DataOriented system. This is because the data oriented paradigm seems to want to force every entity to be a table.
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Data are simply facts or figures — bits of information, but not information itself. When data are processed, interpreted, organized, structured or presented so as to make them meaningful or useful, they are called information. Information provides context for data.
** From 
*** http://www.diffen.com/difference/Data_vs_Information
The Academic field of Informatics is the study of information, and has some very precise definitions.

* {Can this be converted/translated into more "practitioner-friendly" language and/or examples? We are not all academics.}

* ''I am an academic, focusing primarily on databases but with interests in data science, BigData and data analysis, and I don't see any useful distinction between "information" and "data".  Informatics and information science are indeed legitimate academic fields, but I don't see anything from either of them being mentioned here or on the related pages.''

* {There was a question asking for clarification of "information", but it somehow got messed up in an unknown editing event. I find the term "information" too vague to distinguish between or recognize a non-info-oriented table. If there is no such thing, then "information-oriented table" is a tautology. Possibly related: DataAndCodeAreTheSameThing.}

* ''I agree.  "Information" is not sufficiently distinguished from "data" to be meaningful.''

Perhaps the problem is that we have become so data oriented that we are losing our definition of information.

''I doubt it. To the extent that a distinction between "data" and "information" is meaningful, "information" almost invariably means "the data I was looking for."''

I agree; to paraphrase what was said earlier, I think information is data provided with a context: one needs to know what questions were asked for the answers to have any value. That could go through any number of degrees of abstraction: an RDBMS's INFORMATION SCHEMA formalises a set of questions that may be asked about the system, so in that sense it's "information-oriented", but the result of querying it becomes data to another round of questioning. At the other extreme: "show the raw data" - curious that the noun seems to need qualifying.

Information can be:
* the result of a set of calculations that combine data into something useful
* a set of generated text that gets produced by the interpretation of a large quantity of data
* a set of weightings of various concepts that identify what is most prominent or important in a situation
* a generated image that shows something meaningful to the user
* the data I was looking for, the context given by the search.
* the context for the data I have
* etc. ''please add to this list''
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CategoryInformation