第一单元
An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, and Manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart whereby is created through the economic exploitation of understanding.
Specific to this kind of society is the central position information technology has for production, economy, and society at large. Information society is seen as the successor to industrial society. Closely related concepts are the post-industrial society, post-fordism, post-modern society, knowledge society, telematic society, information revolution, and network society.
信息社会是在经济、政治和文化等社会活动中创造、分发、传播、使用和管理信息的重要组成部分。知识经济是凭借在认知领域经济成分的拓展中所获得的财富的相对经济。 信息社会的特点是在生产、经济和社会中普遍地以信息技术为中心位置。信息社会被视为工业社会的后继。与其接近的相关概念是后工业社会、后现代社会、知识社会、信息革命和网络社会。
第二单元
As you are reading the materials that we’re gathered together for this course, you are assimilating information. With you’ve just read is information that you will keep in short term memory until you decide if it is worth keeping for a long time. Regardless of how long you keep it, we will keep it available for you to return to later or for future students to read and assimilate at a later date. We’ve made arrangements an a computer system to organize and store our information so that it is available for later use. This isn’t always the case with information, though. Not everything is stored online, and, even if it is stored online, there is no guarantee that the material will be organized in a logical manner that will facilitate your finding it again.
当你在读在本课堂中为你准备的材料的时候实际上你就在吸收信息。刚才你所读的这些信息在你决定它是否值得被贮藏一段时间之前，它将在你的记忆里有短暂的停留。不管这些信息在你脑海里停留有多长时间，我们搜集来的资料都可以用于你后续查询或供未来的学生阅读与学习。我们已经计算机系统中做好了这些信息的存储与组织的工作以便供后续使用。然而，并不是所有的信息做了以上工作后都可以即查即用。并不是所有的信息都是联机存储的，即便联机存储，依然不能保证你今天看到的信息下个星期还能看到，而且也不能确保信息将会按便于你下次查找的逻辑方式来组织。
The problem for most researchers is not that the information doesn’t exist in a library or in a journal or in a magazine or in a motion picture, but that they have yet to discover the organizing principles that are designed to help them find the information they need.
对大多数研究者而言他们所关心的问题不是这些图书馆、期刊杂志、电影或图片中有没有
他们所需要的信息，而是有待于找出设计好的组织原则来帮助他们查询所需要的信息。
People, experts in their fields, have taken the time and trouble to organize access to all the stored information that they can get their hands on in order to make it searchable and accessible to other people.
各个领域的专家不辞劳苦地将信息组织成便于存取的方式，以便于人们可以更好地查询和存取这些信息。
第三单元
With recording technologies, transmission, and with early computers, it didn't take very long for scientific advances to merge together inti the new field of information technology. Information technology is the use of technology to enhance the speed and the efficiency of the transfer of information.
The information age continues to the day, and technological advances such as mobile phones, high-speed connections, Voice Over IP have changed lifestyles around the world and spawned new industries around controlling and providing information.
自从有了记录、传输和计算机等各方面的技术，没过多久，因为科技的发展它们就很快被融合成为了信息技术的一个新领域即信息技术。信息技术是为了提高信息传输的速度和效率而用到的技术。
信息时代延续到今天，诸如移动电话、高速链接、IP电话等技术的进步已经改变了人类的生活方式并且产生了以信息控制和信息提供为中心的新兴产业。
All of these technologies deal with information storage and transmission. However, the one characteristic of computer technology that sets it apart from earlier analogy technologies is that it is digital. Analogue signals work by having a signal (usually electric) where the voltage is proportional to some variable. Digital technology however converts everything inti binary values that are either 0 or 1. This is the "universal language" or nearly every modern device. To use an analogy, a digital world is a world united by one language, a world where people from across continents shares ideas with one another and work together to build projects and ideas. More voluminous and accurate information is accumulated and generated, and distributed in a twinking to an audience that understands exactly what is said. This in turn allows the recipients of the information to use it for their own purposes,to create ideas and to redistribute more ideas. The result is progress. Take this scenario to a technological lever---all kinds of computers, equipment and appliances are interconnected and functioning as one unit. Even today, we see telephones exchanging information with computers, and computers playing compressed audio data files or live audio data sttreams that play music over the Internet like radios. Computers can play movies and tune in to television. Some modern homes allow a person to control central lighting and air-conditioning through computers. These are just some of the features of a digital world.
这些全部的技术都是用于信息的存储和传输。然而，计算机技术的可以区别于早期模拟技术的一个特点是它是数字化的。模拟信号机制是是用电压值的高低来表达变量的。然而数
字技术将所有的信息转化为二进制的数0或1来表示。这就是现代所有设备的通用语言。用一个比喻的说法，数字世界是使用同一种语言连接的世界，这种统一语言使得来自五湖四海的人们进行交流与创作。更多准确的信息的聚集、编码与发布是在转瞬间被传送到那些合法的接收者那里。信息接收者用它来达到自己的目的，创造并生成与传播新观点。这样做的结果就是进步。所有类型的计算机，设备以及电器彼此相连作为整体发挥功效。特别是在今天，我们可以看到电话能与计算机进行交流，计算机上播放视频的音频数据文件，实时音频数据流在互联网上，像收音机一样可以播放音乐。电脑可以播放电影和电视。现代家庭中，一个人可以通过计算机控制各个房间的照明和空调的设置。这就是数字世界的面貌。
第六单元
An information economy is where the productivity and competitiveness of units or agents in economy(be they firms, regions or nations)depend mainly on their capacity to generate, process, and apply efficiently knowledge-based information. It is also described as an economy where information is both the currency and the product.
信息经济是在经济运行当中的主体，在这个领域当中生产力以及竞争力主要依靠于有效地产生、处理和应用基于知识的信息的能力。在经济运行中信息经济也可以定义为既是货币又是产品。
第九单元
Before one can explain management information systems, the terms systems, information, and management must be briefly defined. A system is a combination or arrangement of parts to form an integrated whole. A system includes an orderly arrangement according to some common principles or rules. A system is a plan or method of doing something.
在弄清楚管理信息系统之前，首先对系统、信息和管理等一些相关的术语进行简要的了解是必要的。系统是整体与各部分有机组成的排列与组合；是按照某种通用原理与规则进行有序排列的体系；是完成任务的方式与方法。
In the 1960s and 70s, it became necessary to formalize an educational approach to systems for business so that individuals, work groups and businesses who crossed boundaries in the various operations of business could have appropriate information.
二十世纪六七十年代，在事务处理过程当中，为了使个人、团体与跨国公司能够适时地把握信息，具备一种良好的系统的方法是必须的。
第十单元
By definition, e-government is simply the use of information and communications technology, such as the Internet, to improve the processes of government. Thus, e-government is in principle nothing new. Governments were among the first users of computers. But the global proliferation of the Internet, which effectively integrates information and communications technology on the basis of open standards, combined with the movement to reform public administration known as New Public Management, has for good reason generated a new wave of interest in the topic.
E-government promises to make government more efficient, responsive, transparent and legitimate and is also creating a rapidly growing market of goods and services, with a variety of new business opportunities.
顾名思义，电子政务是简单的利用因特网等信息技术和通信技术来改善公共管理的工作方法。因此从根本上讲，电子政务并算不上是什么新事物。政府是最早的电脑使用者之一。除此以外，因特网的迅速扩张使得信息技术和通信技术在开放式标准的基础上有效地整合在一起。此外，旨在改革公共管理的著名的新公共管理运动，这些因素足以产生新一股追捧电子政务的热潮。电子政务有望使政府管理活动更加高效、快捷、透明与合法，并且创造迅速增长的产品和服务市场，同时也可以创造大量的商业机遇。
New Pubic Management is a king of management theory about how to reform government by replacing rigid hierarchical organizational structures with more dynamic networks of small organizational unites; replacing authoritarian, top-down decision and policy making practices with a more consensual, bottom-up approach which facilitates the participation of as many stakeholders as possible, especially ordinary citizens; adopting a more "customer-oriented" attitude to public services; and applying market principles to enhance efficiency and productivity.
新公共管理运动是一种关于如何通过一些方式来改革政府管理活动的管理理论：一方面可以利用小组织单位构成的动态网络来代替严格的分级组织结构；其次还可以用更加互动的、自下而上实现的促使尽可能多的股东尤其是普通公民参与的方式来代替独裁主义的、自上而下制定决策和政策的方式；或者可以采取更加面向用户的态度来提供公共服务；并且要适应市场规则来提高效率和生产力。