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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.

 

Statistical validity

Characteristic Name: Statistical validity
Dimension: Validity
Description: Computed data must be statistically valid
Granularity: Information object
Implementation Type: Process-based approach
Characteristic Type: Usage

Verification Metric:

The number of tasks failed or under performed due to lack of statistical validity in data
The number of complaints received due to lack of statistical validity of data

GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons

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

Guidelines: Scenario:
Establish the population of interest unambiguously with appropriate justification (maintain documentation) (1) Both credit customers and cash customers are considered for a survey on customer satisfaction.
Establish an appropriate sampling method with appropriate justification (1) Stratified sampling is used to investigate drug preference of the medical officers
Establish statistical validity of samples -avoid over coverage and under coverage (maintain documentation) (1) Samples are taken from all income levels in a survey on vaccination
Maintain consistency of samples in case longitudinal analysis is performed. (Maintain documentation) (1) Same population is used over the time to collect epidemic data for a longitudinal analysis
Ensure that valid statistical methods are used to enable valid inferences about data, valid comparisons of parameters and generalise the findings. (1) Poisson distribution is used to make inferences since data generating events are occurred in a fixed interval of time and/or space
Ensure that the acceptable variations for estimated parameters are established with appropriate justifications (1) 95% confidence interval is used in estimating the mean value
Ensure that appropriate imputation measures are taken to nullify the impact of problems relating to outliers, data collection and data collection procedures and the edit rules are defined and maintained. (1) Incomplete responses are removed from the final data sample

Validation Metric:

How mature is the process to maintain statistical validity of data

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

Example: Source:
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 Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.

Definition: Source:
Coherence of data refers to the internal consistency of the data. Coherence can be evaluated by determining if there is coherence between different data items for the same point in time, coherence between the same data items for different points in time or coherence between organisations or internationally. Coherence is promoted through the use of standard data concepts, classifications and target populations. 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.
1) Accuracy in the general statistical sense denotes the closeness of computations or estimates to the exact or true values.

2) Coherence of statistics is their adequacy to be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses.

LYON, M. 2008. Assessing Data Quality ,
Monetary and Financial Statistics.
Bank of England. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/
statistics/Documents/ms/articles/art1mar08.pdf.