Computer science and information science both study information and computers, but computer science is focused on designing algorithms while information science studies information flow and context. The difference between computer science and informatics is similar to the difference between linguistics and linguistic anthropology, with computer science focused on rules and procedures and information science focused on larger systems and contexts. The Journal of Computer Science is focused on techniques while the Journal of Information Science has a wider range of approaches, including criticism of proprietary control over data.
Computer science and information sciences focus on similar areas. Computer scientists study information and computer scientists study computers. The difference between the disciplines lies in their approach to these areas. Computer scientists are primarily interested in designing and studying algorithms to process information in particular ways. Information scientists study these same algorithms, but they also study information flow more broadly, sometimes in ways that cannot be reduced to technical design. Computer science, then, is about making things work; information science is about understanding what happens once they do.
The difference between computer science and informatics is comparable to the difference between linguistics and linguistic anthropology. Both disciplines study how language is used around the world. Both deal with particularities and abstractions. Linguists, however, seek to distill a set of rules for language, just as computer scientists seek to design algorithms and rules to improve processes; anthropologists, on the other hand, try to keep their study of language rooted in the everyday lives of its speakers, just as information scientists aim to relate real-world situations in computer science. Information scientists may be more interested in the context of a project than in the technicalities of the rules used by computer scientists to compose it.
Information technology and information technology can be compared anthropologically as well. Computer science focuses on code, rules, and procedures. It has close affinities with math and science, especially when the science involves large data sets or models. Computer science is completely enmeshed with, though not identical to, computer programming. Information scientists, by contrast, are more likely to study how computer products, such as algorithms and programs, interact with larger systems. Information science therefore relates to disciplines such as law, economics, ethics and cybernetics. Contemporary information science focuses a lot on the Internet because it generates many different situations in which all humans, societies, machines and data interact.
An examination of the published work can offer a clear indication of the gap between computer science and information science. The Journal of Computer Science is full of ways to do things with information. Almost every article contains an attempt to design or optimize an algorithm to process information in a certain way. These algorithms can manipulate any type of data, from engineering models to genetic code, but the focus is typically on technique.
The Journal of Information Science contains a much wider range of approaches. Some articles focus on optimizing technical methods for processing information and these could be classified as computer science. Others, however, look at the flow of information between humans and computers or across a corporation. Still others criticize the way capitalism produces asymmetric proprietary control over data. Articles of this type might discuss computer-based algorithms and databases without necessarily suggesting improvements or making these entities the focus of their argument.
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