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Structured VS Unstructured data?

Data Space Admin
11 Sep 23
0

Today, we will introduce you to structured and unstructured data. First of all, why do we need to understand structured and unstructured data? Because data format is one of the fundamental aspects of data management. For example, if we have sales data for each month in an Excel file, we can analyze it easily using Excel or other similar tools. However, if we have customer reviews on social media and we want to analyze them, we cannot do it directly. We need to preprocess the data to put it in a format that can be analyzed. This difference arises from the format of the data itself.

Example of Structured vs. Unstructured Data

Structured Data is data that is organized in a tabular format. It can be easily used for analysis using tools like Excel, Google Sheets, SQL, or transaction history records. Now, what is Unstructured Data? Unstructured Data is data that cannot be organized in a tabular format and cannot be easily analyzed directly. Most of the time, it needs to be structured before analysis. Examples of unstructured data include videos, audio files, text documents, social media content, satellite imagery data, presentations, PDF files, and open-ended survey responses.

Summarizing the difference between Structured vs. Unstructured data:

Some of you may have heard the term “Semi-structured data” and wondered what it is. This type of data falls in between Structured and Unstructured data, meaning it contains both formatted and unformatted parts. For example, social media comments are typically unstructured, but if we include hashtags (#), it adds some structure to them. Due to this complexity, analyzing semi-structured data can be more challenging than structured data but easier than unstructured data.
In summary:
  • Structured data is well-organized and can be arranged in tables.
  • Unstructured data lacks a specific format or table structure.
  • The data format affects the ease of analysis; structured data can be analyzed using standard software and visualized as graphs, while unstructured data requires data preparation before analysis. Semi-structured data falls in between these categories.

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIW8baJqBes
https://www.coolfiresolutions.com/blog/unstructured-structured-data/
https://katalyst.kasikornbank.com/th/blog/Pages/what-is-big-data.html
https://www.jibdigitalconsult.com/3dimensionsbigdata/

Hashtag: All
Level: Basic, Beginner
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