Information Element

1. In terms of information logistics (IL), an Information Element (IE) is an information component that is located in the organizational value chain. The combination of certain IEs leads to an information product (IP), which is any final product in the form of information that a person needs to have. When a higher number of different IEs are required, it often results in more planning problems in capacity and inherently leads to a non-delivery of the IP.

To illustrate the concept of an IP, an example is shown of a bottleneck analysis in HR (by J. Willems 2008). Here, the illustration shows how the information elements (e.g. qualifications) build up the information product (e.g. HR file).

2. In terms of ICT, an Information Element (IE) is a part of management frames in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN protocol. IEs are a device's way to transfer descriptive information about itself inside management frames. There are usually several IEs inside each such frame, and each is built of TLVs mostly defined outside the basic 802.11 specification.

The common structure of an IE is as follows:

Whereas the OUI (organizationally unique identifier) is only used when necessary to the protocol being used, and the data field holds the TLVs relevant to that IE.