Information Quality - Some Definitions

Most really good discussions I have participated in don't just jump right into discussing the applications and deficiencies of what currently exists, but starts with a definition so that everyone knows what is being discussed. Right now we could all be talking about different things when we refer to 'Quality Information'.

Quality to me is not only finding material pertaining to the topic you are looking for, but finding material of the reading level you wish to read at, and in the technical terms you are familiar with (possibly even in the language you prefer to read). Quality information also has a high signal to noise ratio. Quality information depends on who the audience is. What would be quality information to a six year old would be noise to a college student or technical researcher. The terms that would be in a quality page for a researcher would be noise to the younger audiences unless they are linked to a definition. Since all these levels of expertise are present on the web, this must be considered. A way to prune out those pages targeted to a different audience would improve the information quality you receive (as perceived by you).

For an example of this one might look to 'WOW!' a new ISP from America On-line. 'WOW!' has two (or more) user interfaces. One for non-technical adults, and one for children. They are targeting their interface to the needs of their audience."

William Shaw (shaw@esa.com), Info-Quality-L 1996, "Re: Web data accessibility & ADMINISTRIVIA", 18 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

As a provider, I have a quantity of information which I feel should be accessible online. How well I structure access to my information directly relates to how useful my online site is.

When I say 'useful' I'm not just talking about how useful my site is to my audience. I'm talking about how useful it is to anyone who happens to come across my site.

If I have structured my site well, someone who has no interest in the information I am providing should be able to skip past, happy in the knowledge that my site is completely irrelevant to them. People interested in some of the information on my site should be able to navigate to that information fast, and people who are interested in everything on my site should be able to browse."

Sam Hinton (Sam.Hinton@anu.edu.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "RE: When do you judge quality and by whom? was - Introduction", 03 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

Sam Hinton (Sam.Hinton@anu.edu.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "RE: When do you judge quality and by whom? was - Introduction", 03 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

[...] [An information resource - tmc] has stages of introduction, growth, maturity, decline and ...death. How quickly this process goes depends entirely on the nature of the product and how good it is - the currency of the information, the relevance of the information and the type of information. Compare an edition of the Daily Telegraph with an issue of National Geographic. The former has currency for one day, the latter, for possibly years.

There is nothing to stop you keeping the *basic underlying structure* and simply alter the appearance, content and features of a product to *extend* its life. Look at products like magazines and motor vehicles or even Gravox gravy powder. The frequency of change relates to the currency of information, and its usefulness.

Once you're on a good thing (says the ad), stick to it.

Chris Nicholls (chrisn@softlaw.com.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "RE: Purpose of Info-Quality mailing list?", 17 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

I'd also like to point out that there are three components of communication delivery: data, noise and information. Data are raw facts that are not biased by interpretation or miscommunication. Noise are errors introduced either through interpretation, miscommunication or deliberate misinformation. Finally, information is data that has been sufficiently refined such that it is immediately useful to the individual receiving it. If it isn't immediately useful, then it isn't informative. Moreover, individuals aren't in a state of information overload, rather they are in a state of data and noise overload.

Some concepts are covered on my web site, http://www.execpc.com/~il

George Spafford (gspaff@execpc.com), Info-Quality-L 1996, "Information and a General Hello", 03 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

Enrica Garzilli (garzilli@shore.net), Info-Quality-L 1996, "Re: Purpose of Info-Quality mailing list? + Introduction", 10 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

A good or quality Web site is one which allows this, and empowers the user with the ability to discover new dimensions of the data."

Chris Nicholls (chrisn@softlaw.com.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "RE: Purpose of Info-Quality mailing list?", 17 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

I have pretty much met those goals but must confess that my standards for quality have pretty much been limited to determining whether or not a source actually provides information or is merely an advertisement for the physical site (Journals are perhaps the best example of this problem) or if we can connect to a site a reasonable percentage of the time."

Bob Skinder (skindrf1@teomail.jhuapl.edu), Info-Quality-L 1996, "Quality Group- an introduction", 04 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

The site that consists just of pointers can be a site which is giving quality judgments on the material to which it points. Far from providing nothing new to the network it could be providing a value added service such as that provided by a selective, and even better, an annotated bibliography.

Potentially the functions of the selective judgment of the publisher, the journal referee and the collection development librarian begin to merge. The act of selection of quality material can provide a bibliography, a page, a viewpoint into it. They become the same. [...]

Quality can be a question of how can you determine it, how can you find it, how can you tell what it is as well as who judges.

The central problem on the net will be finding quality in the sea of lesser material that the net will allow to bloom. It will be finding, rather than controlling, which was the case under the print paradigm. The key problem for those giving access to information, like libraries, will move from retrieval to filtering."

Tony Barry (Tony.Barry@library.anu.edu.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "When do you judge quality and by whom? was - Introduction", 02 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

What I am up to:

• An electronic doc management policy has been written
• the electronic publishing program and document migration plan done
• Archives of our own publications, (print documents and electronic files) are going through an 'audit' so that we have a 'trail' for the history of each document as it progresses to its new state in the SGML database.
• A thesaurus - or what an old fashioned librarian would know routinely as as an authority file of subject headings - has been devised to check our material is adequately described during abstracting/indexing procedures.
• the www site has been created
• the sgml database is being created
• abstracting and indexing of all our publications is underway
• reference enquiries via our www help desk are increasing - am an academic reference librarian by training.
• our electronic newsletter's gaining subscribers
• our print journal continues in its traditional format while back copies are prepared for network publishing."

Anne Hugo (Anne.Hugo@educ.utas.edu.au), Info-Quality-L 1996, "Intro:Anne Hugo; journal publishing; sgml; e-doc management", 11 Apr, info-quality-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

Maintainer: Dr T.Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek@ciolek.com)

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