Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Information Quality

Collins Concise English Dictionary defines quality as “The degree of excellence which a thing possesses” (1978).
Information quality has a degree of excellence therefore is essential to the construction and critiquing of the research for any given topic.

Through research you can find information from a lot of different sources; library, internet, books, journals, articles etc. From this you then have to define what good and poor quality is.

How do you define the difference? How do you collect the correct data analysis to produce a comprehensive outcome for your research?

Alastair Smith (2005) has an idea that is an easy way to sort through the poor and good quality of resource information found through the internet.
He starts by looking at the scope including; breadth, depth, time and format. He then goes to the content; accuracy, authority, currency, uniqueness, links made to other resources and quality of writing. Alastair also looks at the graphic and multimedia design, purpose, for what audience, reviews, working ability; user friendly, required computing environment, searching browsability and organisation, interactivity, connectivity and cost.
Alastair’s analysis of internet quality of information is both precise and detailed.

Also Wendy Lazarus and Laurie Lipper (2003) also came up with a concept to identify what information is quality and what isn’t on the internet. They came up with a very different approach where they use a point system to define if the information is quality or not.
They split the evaluation into three sections. The first section is the baseline requirements, for example the author or sponsor being clearly identified. The second section is standards for low-barrier web sites which includes the literacy level of text. The third section is the requirements for high-quality web sites, which includes information quality, presentation etc.

Information these days comes from a lot of different sources and from these two sources it seems the internet is not so different from articles, books, journals etc.

Wikipedia referenced a journal that they found, that gives a precise outline of the dimensions to find and identify information quality (Wang & Strong, 1996).

1. Intrinsic IQ: Accuracy, objective, believability, reputation.
2. Contextual IQ: Relevancy, value-added, timeliness, completeness, amount of information.
3. Representational IQ: Interpretability, ease of understanding, concise representation, consistent representation.
4. Accessibility IQ: Accessibility, access security.

Through the sources found I established that they all have a similar way of finding the best quality of information. For example Alastair’s concept of finding quality information is to first read and then eliminating the requirements as they are established in the text. Wendy and Laurie found that their concept of a point system established what grade of quality the information was produced. Together they both used similar questions towards the text to achieve an efficient way to identify quality information.

Coming back to my questions asked before: How do you define the difference?

I have found reading through my references that you find the biggest difference in the first two minutes of looking at the resources provided. For example, where is the Author or sponsor clearly stated? When the resource was last updated? Are the first few lines easy to read and understand?

How do you collect the correct data analysis to produce a comprehensive outcome for your research topic?
Through my research, Wang & Strong’s concept has a basic outline that provides a guideline to find the correct data analysis for producing a comprehensive outcome. I repeat their concept again:
1. Intrinsic IQ: Accuracy, objective, believability, reputation.
2. Contextual IQ: Relevancy, value-added, timeliness, completeness, amount of information.
3. Representational IQ: Interpretability, ease of understanding, concise representation, consistent representation.
4. Accessibility IQ: Accessibility, access security.


References:

Information quality – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2009) Retrieved March 18, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/information_quality

Smith, A.G., (2005). Criteria for evaluation of Internet Resources, Retrieved March 18 2009 from www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/index.htm

Lazarus, W., Lipper, L., (2003). The Children’s Partnership. Guidelines For Content Creation And Evaluation, Retrieved March 18 2009 from www.contentbank.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=6643

Collins, W,. Collins Cincise English Dictionary. (1978).

1 comment:

  1. Good stuff - see notes inserted below...
    FM

    Wednesday, March 25, 2009
    Victoria Walden
    Research methods
    Assessment Task 1 Blog 2 - Information Quality
    Due date
    Collins Concise English Dictionary defines quality as “The degree of excellence, which a thing possesses” (1978).
    Information quality has a degree of excellence therefore is essential to the construction and critiquing of the research for any given topic.

    Through research you can find information from a lot of (/many) different sources; library, internet, books, journals, articles etc. From this you then have to define what good and poor quality is.

    How do you define the difference? How do you collect the correct data analysis to produce a comprehensive outcome for your research?

    Alastair (don’t need to use his first name) Smith (2005) has (developed?) an idea that is an easy way to sort through the poor and good quality of resource information found through the internet. He starts by looking at the scope including; breadth, depth, time and format. He then goes to (/examines?) the content; accuracy, authority, currency, uniqueness, links made to other resources and quality of writing. Alastair (Surname – Smith or This same author?) also looks at the graphic and multimedia design, purpose, for what audience, reviews, working ability; user friendly, required computing environment, searching browsability and organisation, interactivity, connectivity and cost. Alastair’s analysis of internet quality of information is both precise and detailed.

    (It is a bit hard to tell on a blog whether you are making spacing and sp., grammar and formatting etc mistakes – I have been encouraging all of you to write your assignment as a word doc. to check for same and then cut and paste over into your blog).

    Also (Avoid starting a paragraph with “also”)
    Wendy (no first name)
    Lazarus and Laurie (ditto) Lipper (2003) also (because you have repeated the word anyway!) came up with (/developed) a concept to identify what information is quality and what isn’t (avoid abbreviations!) is not, (especially?) on the internet. They came up with a very different approach where they use a point system to define if the information is quality or not. They (have) split the evaluation into three sections. The first section is the baseline requirements (where), for example the author or sponsor being(/is) clearly identified. The second section is (/sets?) standards for low-barrier web sites, (comma before which or use “that”) which includes the literacy level of text. The third section is (about) the requirements for high-quality web sites, which includes information quality, presentation etc.

    Information these days comes from a lot of different sources and from these two sources (cited) it seems the internet is not so different from articles, books, journals etc. (For example?) Wikipedia referenced a journal that they found, that gives a precise outline of the dimensions to find and identify information quality (Wang & Strong, 1996).

    1. Intrinsic IQ: Accuracy, objective, believability, reputation.
    2. Contextual IQ: Relevancy, value-added, timeliness, completeness, amount of information.
    3. Representational IQ: Interpretability, ease of understanding, concise representation, consistent representation.
    4. Accessibility IQ: Accessibility, access security.

    Through the sources found I established that they all have a similar way of finding the best quality of information. For example Alastair (surname and by now you will need to re use date and page number)’s concept of finding quality information is to first read and then eliminating the requirements as they are established in the text. Wendy and Laurie (surnames etc.) found that their concept of a point system established what grade of quality the information was produced. Together they both used similar questions towards the text to achieve an efficient way to identify quality information.

    Coming back to my questions asked before: How do you define the difference?

    I have found reading through my references that (you find -delete) the biggest difference in the first two minutes of looking at the resources provided. For example, (I note) where is the author or sponsor clearly stated? When the resource was last updated? Are the first few lines easy to read and understand? How do you collect the correct data analysis to produce a comprehensive outcome for your research topic?

    Through my research, Wang & (and) Strong’s concept has a basic outline that provides a guideline to find the correct data analysis for producing a comprehensive outcome. I repeat their concept again:
    1. Intrinsic IQ: Accuracy, objective, believability, reputation.
    2. Contextual IQ: Relevancy, value-added, timeliness, completeness, amount of information.
    3. Representational IQ: Interpretability, ease of understanding, concise representation, consistent representation.
    4. Accessibility IQ: Accessibility, access security.
    (Don’t need to repeat…)

    References: (no need for colon)

    Information quality – Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia (2009) Retrieved March 18, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/information_quality

    Smith, A.G., (no comment) (2005). Criteria for evaluation of Internet Resources, Retrieved March 18 2009 from www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/index.htm

    Lazarus, W. (no comma but &) Lipper, L., (2003). The Children’s Partnership. Guidelines For Content Creation And Evaluation, Retrieved March 18 (comma) 2009 from www.contentbank.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=6643

    Collins, W,. Collins Cincise (sp.) English Dictionary. (1978).

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