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 |
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. |
Continuity of data access
| Characteristic Name: | Continuity of data access |
| Dimension: | Availability and Accessability |
| Description: | The technology infrastructure should not prohibit the speed and continuity of access to the data for the users |
| Granularity: | Information object |
| Implementation Type: | Process-bases approacd |
| Characteristic Type: | Usage |
Verification Metric:
| The number of tasks failed or under performed due to the lack of continuity in data access |
| The number of complaints received due to lack of continuity in data access |
The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation
| Guidelines: | Scenario: |
|---|---|
| Convenient and efficient platform should be made available to access data depending on the task at hand | (1) For a sales person, a web based interface run on a smart device is more suitable to quickly access data |
| Speed of the data retrieval should be acceptable for users working pace | (1) For an online customer care executive, speedy retrieval of information is necessary since the customer cannot be kept waiting (2) With the growth of the database reports become slower (Anti example) |
| Continuous and unobstructed connectivity should be ensured for data retrievals | (1) Connection lost while accessing reports (Anti example) |
| Proper concurrency control has been implemented | (1) Controlling access to data by locks |
| Technological changes in the infrastructure/system should be handled in such a way that they should not make data inaccessible | (1) New version of the software does not provide access to " X out orders" since the new version does not allow the function "X out" |
Validation Metric:
| How mature is the process of maintaining an infrastructure for data access |
These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.
| Example: | Source: |
|---|---|
| 1) For example, recording the age and race in medical records may be appropriate.
However, it may be illegal to collect this information in human resources departments. 2) For example, the best and easiest method to obtain demographic information may be to obtain it from an existing system. Another method may be to assign data collection by the expertise of each team member. For example, the admission staff collects demographic data, the nursing staff collects symptoms, and the HIM staff assigns codes. Team members should be assigned accordingly. |
B. Cassidy, et al., “Practice Brief: Data Quality Management Model” in Journal of AHIMA, 1998, 69(6). |
The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.
| Definition: | Source: |
|---|---|
| 1) Is there a continuous and unobstructed way to get to the information?
2) Can the infrastructure match the user’s working pace? |
EPPLER, M. J. 2006. Managing information quality: increasing the value of information in knowledge-intensive products and processes, Springer. |
| Data is easy and quick to retrieve. | 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) availability of a data source or a system.
2) Accessibility expresses how much data are available or quickly retrievable. 3) The frequency of failures of a system, its fault tolerance. |
SCANNAPIECO, M. & CATARCI, T. 2002. Data quality under a computer science perspective. Archivi & Computer, 2, 1-15. |