Compare Page

Completeness of records

Characteristic Name: Completeness of records
Dimension: Completeness
Description: Every real world entity instance, that is relevant for the organization can be found in the data
Granularity: Record
Implementation Type: Process-based approach
Characteristic Type: Usage

Verification Metric:

The number of tasks failed or under performed due to missing records
The number of complaints received due to missing records

GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons

The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation

Guidelines: Scenario:
Implement a process level validation mechanism to avoid occurrence of missing records (1) A buyer must record/verify an expense or asset in accordance with accepting/receiving any purchased items. (2)New application are stored in a temporary cabinet after entering into the system and they will be transferred to the file cabinet at the end of every week after the property manager cross check them with the system
Execute database commits upon transaction sequences in application programs and make sure all the transactions in the sequence successfully commit and generate the required records at the end of the sequence. (1) In generating the MRP, the database operations will not be committed unless all materials in BOM is successfully executed for MRP
When distributed databases are used or online data collection devices are used, ensure the synchronisation/replication of records happen successfully without distortions and omissions. (1) EFTPOS transactions are replicated with bank database and create the new balance B/F in the account
Implement periodic audit process for critical tangible objects that are recorded as data in database (1) Annual audit for tangible assets in the organisation
Implement a validation mechanism in data transfers considering the business rules to monitor and ensure all records relevant to a event/transaction is transferred successfully. (1) Rules to verify the number of records in the source file and destination file (2) All records relevant to a customer trip is transferred to the central database from online data stores
Maintain error logs for system transactions and regularly monitor them and perform relevant forensic activities to find missing records. (1) A failed sales order creation

Validation Metric:

How mature is the process to prevent missing records

These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.

Example: Source:
if Dept is a relation representing the employees of a given department, and one specific employee of the department is not represented as a tuple of Dept, then the tuple corresponding to the missing employee is in ref(Dept),and ref(Dept) differs from Dept in exactly that tuple. C. Batini and M, Scannapieco, “Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies, and Techniques”, Springer, 2006.
if a column should contain at least one occurrence of all 50 states, but the column contains only 43 states, then the population is incomplete. Y. Lee, et al., “Journey to Data Quality”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006.
the database should contain all customers in North and South America, but it is known that the database reflects only a portion of the company’s customers. Coverage in this example is the percent- age of customers actually captured in the database compared to the population of all customers that should be in it. D. McGilvray, “Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.

The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.

Definition: Source:
A record exists for every Real-World Object or Event the Enterprise needs to know about. ENGLISH, L. P. 2009. Information quality applied: Best practices for improving business information, processes and systems, Wiley Publishing.
Completeness of data refers to the extent to which the data collected matches the data set that was developed to describe a specific entity. Monitoring for incomplete lists of eligible records or missing data items will identify data quality problems. HIQA 2011. International Review of Data Quality Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), Ireland. http://www.hiqa.ie/press-release/2011-04-28-international-review-data-quality.
Quality of having all data that existed in the possession of the sender at time the data message was created. ISO 2012. ISO 8000-2 Data Quality-Part 2-Vocabulary. ISO.
Data is complete if no piece of information is missing – anti-example: "The Beatles were John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr" KIMBALL, R. & CASERTA, J. 2004. The data warehouse ETL toolkit: practical techniques for extracting. Cleaning, Conforming, and Delivering, Digitized Format, originally published.
Every real-world phenomenon is represented. PRICE, R. J. & SHANKS, G. Empirical refinement of a semiotic information quality framework. System Sciences, 2005. HICSS'05. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on, 2005. IEEE, 216a-216a.

 

Accuracy to reality

Characteristic Name: Accuracy to reality
Dimension: Accuracy
Description: Data should truly reflect the real world
Granularity: Record
Implementation Type: Process-based approach
Characteristic Type: Usage

Verification Metric:

The number of tasks failed or under performed due to lack of accuracy to reality
The number of complaints received due to lack of accuracy to reality

GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons

The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation

Guidelines: Scenario:
Continuously evaluate if the existing data model is sufficient to represent the real world as required by the organisational need and do the necessary amendments to the data model if needed. (1) A student who received a concession travel card is not eligible for a concession fare if he terminates his candidature before completion of the course. Hence the data model should have an extra attribute as "current status of candidature"
Perform regular audits on mission critical data to verify that every record has a meaningful existence in the reality which is useful for the organisation (1) All customers existing in the customer master file actually a customer in the customer space open for the organisation. (non customers are not in the customer file) (2) "Greg Glass" is recorded as a glass work company but in fact they are opticians
(3) A person's personal details taken from his educational profile may not be a correct reality for his insurance profile even though the information is
Perform regular audits on mission critical data to verify that every record has a unique existence in the reality (1) It is difficult to find out that the professor "Andrew" is from Colombia university or from the university of Queensland
Ensure that Information available in the system is accurate in the context of a particular activity or event (1) The driver details taken from vehicle registration may not be accurate in the case of finding the real person who drive the vehicle when an accident is caused

Validation Metric:

How mature is the process to ensure the accuracy to reality

These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.

Example: Source:
if the name of a person is John, the value v = John is correct, while the value v = Jhn is incorrect C. Batini and M, Scannapieco, “Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies, and Techniques”, Springer, 2006.
Percent of values that are correct when compared to the actual value. For example, M=Male when the subject is Male. P. Cykana, A. Paul, and M. Stern, “DoD Guidelines on Data Quality Management” in MIT Conference on Information Quality - IQ, 1996, pp. 154-171.
an EMPLOYEE entity (identified by the Employee-Number

314159) and the attribute Year-of-Birth. If the value of Year-of-Birth for employee 314159 is the year the employee was born, the datum is correct.

C. Fox, A. Levitin, and T. Redman, “The Notion of Data and Its Quality Dimensions” in Journal Information Processing and Management: an International Journal archive, Volume 30 Issue 1, Jan-Feb 1994, 1992, pp. 9-19.
Consider a database that contains names, addresses, phone numbers, and e- mail addresses of physicians in the state of Texas. This database is known to have a number of errors: some records are wrong, some are missing, and some are obsolete. If you compare the database to the true population of physicians, it is expected to be 85% accurate. If this database is to be used for the state of Texas to notify physicians of a new law regarding assisted suicide, it would certainly be considered poor quality. In fact, it would be dangerous to use it for that intended purpose.

24

2.1 Data Quality Definitions 25

If this database were to be used by a new surgical device manufacturer to find potential customers, it would be considered high quality. Any such firm would be delighted to have a potential customer database that is 85% accurate. From it, they could conduct a telemarketing campaign to identify real sales leads with a completely acceptable success rate. The same database: for one use it has poor data quality, and for another it has high data quality.

J. E. Olson, “Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 9 January 2003.
The patient’s identification details are correct and uniquely identify the patient. P. J. Watson, “Improving Data Quality: A Guide for Developing Countries”, World Health Organization, 2003.

The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.

Definition: Source:
Determines the extent to which data objects correctly represent the real-world values for which they were designed. For example, the sales orders for the Northeast region must be assigned a Northeast sales representative. D. McGilvray, “Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.
The data value correctly reflects the real-world condition. B. BYRNE, J. K., D. MCCARTY, G. SAUTER, H. SMITH, P WORCESTER 2008. The information perspective of SOA design Part 6:The value of applying the data quality analysis pattern in SOA. IBM corporation.
The data correctly reflects the Characteristics of a Real-World Object or Event being described. Accuracy and Precision represent the highest degree of inherent Information Quality possible. ENGLISH, L. P. 2009. Information quality applied: Best practices for improving business information, processes and systems, Wiley Publishing.
Is the information precise enough and close enough to reality? EPPLER, M. J. 2006. Managing information quality: increasing the value of information in knowledge-intensive products and processes, Springer.
1) Each identifiable data unit maps to the correct real-world phenomenon.

2) Non-identifying (i.e. non-key) attribute values in an identifiable data unit match the property values for the represented real-world phenomenon.

3) Each identifiable data unit represents at least one specific real-world phenomenon.

4) Each identifiable data unit represents at most one specific real-world phenomenon.

PRICE, R. J. & SHANKS, G. Empirical refinement of a semiotic information quality framework. System Sciences, 2005. HICSS'05. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on, 2005. IEEE, 216a-216a.
1) The degree to which an information object correctly represents another information object, process, or phenomenon in the context of a particular activity or culture.

2) Closeness of agreement between a property value and the true value (value that characterizes a characteristic perfectly defined in the conditions that exists when the characteristic is considered.

3) The extent to which the correctness of information is verifiable or provable in the context of a particular activity.

STVILIA, B., GASSER, L., TWIDALE, M. B. & SMITH, L. C. 2007. A framework for information quality assessment. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58, 1720-1733.