Data freshness
| Characteristic Name: | Data freshness |
| Dimension: | Currency |
| Description: | Data which is subjected to changes over the time should be fresh and up-to-date with respect to its intended use. |
| Granularity: | Element |
| Implementation Type: | Process-based approach |
| Characteristic Type: | Usage |
Verification Metric:
| The number of tasks failed or under performed due to lack of data freshness |
| The number of complaints received due to lack of data freshness |
GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons
The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation
| Guidelines: | Scenario: |
|---|---|
| Identify the natural factors which creates a particular data obsolete | (1) A seasonal change may impact the customer's food preferences. (2) Customers who are students may change their addresses frequently. |
| Considering the above factors plan for data refreshing activities by specify the frequency of refreshing the data elements and adhere to the plan. | (1) Customer contact information should be refreshed annually. |
| Identify the master data that may change over the time but may be used in longitudinal analysis. | (1) Name of customer in 2001 is ABC (PLC) Ltd, after a merger in 2006 its name is XYZ (PLC). This customer is an ongoing customer in the customer master file |
| For such master data maintain longitudinal versions with time a stamp in such a way they can be linked in longitudinal analysis | (1) 2001-2005: ABC (PLC) (2) 2006-20012: XYZ (PLC) |
Validation Metric:
| How mature is the process for ensuring data freshness |
These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.
| Example: | Source: |
|---|---|
| let us consider two databases, say A and B, that contain the same data. If at time t a user updates data in database A and another user reads the same data from database B at time t' (t < t' ), the latter will read incorrect data. If t and f are included within the time interval between two subsequent data realignments | C. Cappiello, C. Francalanci, and B. Pernici, “Time-Related Factors of Data Quality in Multichannel Information System” in Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 20, No. 3, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2004, pp.71-91. |
| currency indicates how stale is the account balance presented to the user with respect to the real balance at the bank database. | V. Peralta, “Data Freshness and Data Accuracy: A State of The Art”, Instituto de Computacion, Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay, Tech. Rep. TR0613, 2006. |
| Consider an air traffic control center which receives data from several controller stations. To regulate air traffic, the traffic control center has to cope with uncertain data.Thus, the decision process must balance the delaying receiving more accurate data of airplane positions and the critical period of time in which an“effective” decision must be made to regulate traffic; | B. Pernici, “Advanced Information Systems Engineering” in proc. The 22nd International Conference, CAiSE, Hammamet, Tunisia, June 2010. |
The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.
| Definition: | Source: |
|---|---|
| A measure of the rate of negative change to the data. | D. McGilvray, “Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008. |
| Is the information upto-date and not obsolete? | EPPLER, M. J. 2006. Managing information quality: increasing the value of information in knowledge-intensive products and processes, Springer. |
| Data is accurate if it is up to date – anti example: “Current president of the USA: Bill Clinton”. | KIMBALL, R. & CASERTA, J. 2004. The data warehouse ETL toolkit: practical techniques for extracting. Cleaning, Conforming, and Delivering, Digitized Format, originally published. |
| Currency refers to the degree to which information is current with the world that it models. Currency can measure how up to date information is and whether is it correct despite possible time-related changes. Timeliness refers to the time. | LOSHIN, D. 2001. Enterprise knowledge management: The data quality approach, Morgan Kaufmann Pub. |
| Currency refers to the degree to which information is current with the world that it models. Currency can measure how “up-to-date” information is, and whether it is correct despite possible time-related changes. Data currency may be measured as a function of the expected frequency rate at which different data elements are expected to be refreshed, as well as verifying that the data is up to date. For example, one might assert that the contact information for each customer must be current, indicating a requirement to maintain the most recent values associated with the individual’s contact data. | LOSHIN, D. 2006. Monitoring Data quality Performance using Data Quality Metrics. Informatica Corporation. |
| A datum value is up-to-date if it is correct in spite of a possible discrepancy caused by time related change to the correct values; a datum is outdate at time t if it is incorrect at t but was correct at some time preceding t. currency refers to a degree to which a datum in question is up-to-date. | REDMAN, T. C. 1997. Data quality for the information age, Artech House, Inc. |
Appropriate presentation
| Characteristic Name: | Appropriate presentation |
| Dimension: | Usability and Interpretability |
| Description: | The data presentation is aligned with its use |
| Granularity: | Information object |
| Implementation Type: | Process-based approach |
| Characteristic Type: | Usage |
Verification Metric:
| The number of tasks failed or under performed due to the lack of appropriate presentation of data |
| The number of complaints received due to the lack of appropriate presentation of data |
GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons
The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation
| Guidelines: | Scenario: |
|---|---|
| Ensure that Universally accepted standard formats are used to maintain the compatibility of information across organisations and across time | (1) A patients diagnostic card generated in one hospital is compatible with another hospital. |
| Ensure that information can be aggregated or combined through the use of compatible formats | (1) Product wise monthly sales report can be generated by combining the sales reports of three subsidiaries |
| Ensure that the data presentations are familiar to the users even if the application platform is changed. | (1) A quotation created in one system is sent to another system through an EDI message and displayed in the same presentation format |
| Ensure the media of presentation is appropriate for the target group | (1) A step by step written instruction list in a documents appropriate for a software engineer. (2) A video display is appropriate for a mechanic |
| Ensure that the presentation formats are flexible to accommodate changes easily | (1) An invoice document may require additional space to mansion authorisation evidence |
Validation Metric:
| How mature is the process to maintain appropriate presentation of data |
These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.
| Example: | Source: |
|---|---|
| my birth date is December 13, 1941. If a personnel database has a BIRTH_DATE data element that expects dates in USA format, a date of 12/13/1941 would be correct. A date of 12/14/1941 would be inaccurate because it is the wrong value. A date of 13/12/1941 would be wrong because it is a European representation instead of a USA representation. | J. E. Olson, “Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 9 January 2003. |
The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.
| Definition: | Source: |
|---|---|
| A measure of how information is presented to and collected from those who utilize it. Format and appearance support appropriate use of information. | D. McGilvray, “Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008. |
| 1) The Characteristic in which formatted data is presented consistently in a standardized or consistent way across different media, such as in computer screens, reports, or manually prepared reports.
2) The Characteristic of Information being presented in the right technology Media, such as online, hardcopy report, audio, or video. 3) The degree to which Information is presented in a way Intuitive and appropriate for the task at hand. The Presentation Quality of Information will vary by the individual purposes for which it is required. Some users require concise presentation, whereas others require a complete, detailed presentation, and yet others require graphic, color, or other highlighting techniques. |
ENGLISH, L. P. 2009. Information quality applied: Best practices for improving business information, processes and systems, Wiley Publishing. |
| 1) Appropriateness is the dimension we use to categorize how well the format and presentation of the data match the user needs. In our example, there is a difference between a high-level monthly sales report that is supplied to senior management and the daily product manifests that are handed to the shipping department for product packaging.
2) Flexibility in presentation describes the ability of the system to adapt to changes in both the represented information and in user requirements for presentation of information. For example, a system that display different counties; currencies may need to have the screen presentation change to allow for more significant digits for prices to be displayed when there is a steep devaluation in one county’s currency. 3) In an environment that makes use of different kinds of systems and applications, a portable interface is important so that as applications are migrated from one platform to another, the presentation of data is familiar to the users. Also, when dealing with a system designed for international use, the user of international standards as well as universally recognized icons is a sign of system designed with presentation portability in mind. |
LOSHIN, D. 2001. Enterprise knowledge management: The data quality approach, Morgan Kaufmann Pub. |
| 1) Data is presented in an intelligible manner.
2) Data is presented in a manner appropriate for its use, with respect to format, precision, and units. |
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. |
| Good format, like good views, are flexible so that changes in user need and recording medium can be accommodated. | REDMAN, T. C. 1997. Data quality for the information age, Artech House, Inc. |
| Data are always presented in the same format and are compatible with the previous data. | WANG, R. Y. & STRONG, D. M. 1996. Beyond accuracy: What data quality means to data consumers. Journal of management information systems, 5-33. |