Quality of Information

The term "quality of information" is hard to define, especially as it requires a subjective viewpoint. Information that may be of high quality to one individual may be perceived as poor quality information to someone else, and vice a versa.

However, there are a number of criteria that establish universal grounds of what is generally perceived as consistently "good" information. The most basic requirements of good information are:

·        Objectivity: That the information is presented in a manner free from propaganda or disinformation.

·        Accuracy of information

·        Authenticity of information

·        Completeness: That the information is a complete, not a partial picture of the subject

·        Pluralism: That all aspects of the information are given and are not restricted to present a particular viewpoint, as in the case of censorship.

·        Gaining full and appropriate access to the available information

·        Making full use of the retrieval mechanisms, which requires an understanding of how these mechanisms work.

·        Up to date

·        Evaluation of the quality of the information.[114]

We found virtually no evidence of government-funded initiatives in this area.  For example, we found no evidence of funding to develop bench-marking or kite-marking of information, and no evidence of governments funding the collection of high-quality information in, say, a single portal or gateway.

USA

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed set of guidelines for data quality in June 2001.[115] This was in response to a requirement that the OMB was required to develop government-wide standards for the quality of information used and disseminated by the federal government. These standards had to be completed no later than the end of September 2001. These data quality guidelines, which aim to set quality thresholds for information disseminated by the federal government were open to 45 days of public comment, which ended on August 13^th 2001.

The scope of the guidelines for data quality includes a range of agency information and dissemination of such information to the public criteria that apply to the sharing by Federal agencies of, and access to, information dissemination by Federal agencies.[116].

The following key terms have been laid out in the data quality statue, as the OMB foresees these parameters as closely interrelated concepts:

·        Quality

·        Objectivity

·        Utility

·        Integrity

Under the guidelines, information dissemination must take into consideration three major elements. The first, all disseminated information must be useful to the users. Secondly, all disseminated information must be clear, complete and accurate, and finally all information must be protected from unauthorised access and revision so that the information is not compromised through falsification or corruption.  Information is defined as "any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data, or in any medium of form, including textual, numerical, graphical, cartographical, narrative, or audiovisual forms"[117].  Dissemination is defined as "the government initiated distribution of information to the public"[118].

Within the period of one year from when the OMB has issued the final data quality guidelines, all government agencies must have issued their own guidelines for information quality, which conform to the OMB guidelines established. The agencies that issue guidelines for data quality must release a report to the OMB, including a copy of their guidelines and the processes to be implemented by the authority for correcting information quality.

Conclusions

The OMB guidelines appear to be an excellent start, and we commend a similar initiative for the UK Government.

References