Final answer:
A record is a collection of fields organized into a manageable unit, comparable to how academic departments are organized on a campus. Fields contain single data items while records group related fields, like in a student's enrolment information. This concept is crucial for organizing information systems for better data management. Option C is correct.
Step-by-step explanation:
A record is a collection of related fields that can be treated as a unit by some application program. When we consider a university campus or a neighborhood, with their various departments, offices, recreational areas, and businesses, each of these can be thought of as fields with specific, individual pieces of information. Similarly, in databases, we organize these fields into records, which then become a manageable unit within the application.
Fields are essentially single pieces of data, such as a name or a phone number, while a record holds all the related fields for a particular entity, like a student's enrolment information or an employee's personnel file. To effectively manage and search through massive amounts of data, applications leverage databases, which contain a large collection of records. The distinction between a file, a field, a record, and a database is significant when understanding how information systems are organized for efficiency and accessibility.