Topic 3    Supply chain

The ‘information supply chain’ is a model that can be used to describe the ‘journey’ that information takes from where it is generated to where it is consumed. There are many people involved in this journey and it may help to think of each group of people involved as a ‘link’ in the ‘supply chain’.

There are:

• producers – people who produce or create the information;
• disseminators – people who publish, broadcast or disseminate the information;
• facilitators – people who sell or make it available, or help people to use the information;
• users – people who use the information.

It is important to understand the different groups of people or ‘links’ in the information supply chain because as information moves along the chain between the different groups of people it often changes. The information may change format; be validated, repackaged, reformatted and processed.