Data, Information,

Knowledge and
Processing
CHAPTER 1
Section 1.3
Quality of
Information
Learning Objectives

• understand how accuracy, relevance, age, level of detail and

completeness of the information can affect its quality
Introduction
• 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' (GIGO).
• What it means is that if the data you put into your system is
incorrect or of poor quality, then no matter how good your
system is or how careful you are at setting up your queries,
all you are going to get in return is poor quality, inaccurate
information.
• We will be looking at the six factors which affect the quality
of information.
• You need to be able to remember each of them as well as
provide sensible examples to demonstrate how problems
can be caused.
Factors affecting quality

Accuracy Relevance Age

Completeness Presentation Level of detail

Accuracy
• If the data that you have collected is inaccurate
then the information it will produce will
inevitably also be inaccurate.
 Examples of
how inaccurate
data occurs
Questionnaires and Surveys
• Questions might be poorly worded so that users
misunderstand them.
• Questions could be considered to be 'leading' which would
result in biased answers.
• Open questions might be used where closed questions
would have been better.
• Options provided are not sufficient to cover the range of
answers possible
• A poor or unrepresentative population sample might be
selected.
Human error
If humans are collecting the data manually e.g.
recording answers to questionnaires, writing
down instrument measurements, they might
make a mistake.

They might also make a 'transcription error'

when entering correctly collected data into the
system.
Calibration • If data is being collected automatically by
sensors or other instruments then the
of results could be inaccurate if the
instruments were not correctly calibrated

instruments at the start of the data collection period.

Examples of inaccurate
information
 MOST PEOPLE CHECK THE WEATHER IF THE FORECAST WAS INACCURATE
FORECAST EACH DAY SO THAT THEY THEY COULD FIND THEMSELVES
CAN GET AN IDEA OF WHAT TO WEAR, GETTING VERY WET AND COLD.

Weather
WHETHER TO TAKE AN OVERCOAT AND
UMBRELLA.

forecasts

THEY MIGHT CHECK THE FORECAST TO IF THE FORECAST WAS INACCURATE

SEE WHETHER TOMORROW WOULD THEN THEY MIGHT BE VERY
BE A GOOD DAY TO TAKE THE FAMILY DISAPPOINTED TO HAVE CANCELLED
ON A TRIP TO THE SEASIDE OR FOR A THE TRIP ONLY TO FIND THAT THE SUN
PICNIC. SHONE ALL DAY.
 Businesses have to keep accurate records of all of the money coming in and
all of the money being paid out.

Businesses If the accountants make a mistake and don't accurately enter all of the
money received then it could look like the company has not made as much
profit that year.

This incorrect information can have a major effect on things like the
company share price - if the profit isn't as good as expected then share
prices often drop. It could affect decisions about things such as whether to
expand or build new premises. It could also mean that the company looks at
ways of saving money such as making people redundant.
Relevance
In order for information to be useful it
must be relevant to you.
School
• You have a great deal of information to learn for each of your
AS levels. Each time you go to lessons you probably take a lot
of notes and perhaps are given handouts by your teachers to
read.
• What about if your teachers decided to spend a few weeks
teaching you about things that particularly interested them?
What they had taught you might have been very interesting to
both them and you but it isn't relevant to what you needed at
the time. You would find that you had spent a few very
precious weeks learning about things that you didn't need to
know in order to pass your exam.
Whether Forecasts
• Whilst it might be interesting to find out what the weather is
like in Florida or Melbourne today, it isn't really relevant to
your everyday life. It won't help you decide whether you need
to take an umbrella with you before you leave home.
Doctor’s Appointments

You might be feeling unwell and want to make an appointment It wouldn't be very useful or relevant to you if the receptionist
to see your doctor. You phone up the local surgery to find out told you how many appointment times were available to see the
when the doctor has a spare appointment time. nurse.
 • Perhaps your parents might be thinking
of moving house.
• The first thing they would do would be to
speak to an estate agent to find out how

House Prices
much their house was worth.
• It wouldn't be useful or relevant if the
estate agent were to tell them how a
similar house in a different part of the
country might be worth.
Age
• In order to be useful, information needs to be up-to-date. In
many cases information changes over time and so old or out-
of-date information can be misleading or give you the wrong
picture of what is happening.
 As part of your revision, you have a go at
practicing lots of exam questions before the big
day and you work your way through the practice
papers and model answers that your teacher has
given you.

However, some of the papers are over five years

Exams old. How useful are the model answers for
questions such as 'which storage device would
you recommend?' and 'what is the average size
of a hard disk?'

It is well known that things move very quickly in

the world of IT and hardware and software
changes rapidly. What was a top-notch computer
just three years ago is now probably a very low-
spec machine. So the model answers are likely to
be out-of-date.
Completeness
• In order for information to be useful it needs to be
complete. If parts of the information is missing then you
will not be able to make use of it or make accurate
decisions.
Exams
• Remember those exam papers that you were doing for
revision during your study leave. Your teacher wanted you
to work your way through them and check your answers
against the model answers.
• What if you were only given the second half of the model
answer and the first half was missing? How useful would it
be to you?
Weather forecast
• You still want to plan the family picnic for tomorrow.
• However when you check the weather forecast you are only
told what the weather in the morning will be like. There is
nothing about the afternoon.
• You can't really make a decision just based upon what the
morning weather is likely to be.
Doctor's appointment
• Remember when you were feeling ill
and you needed to make an
appointment to see your doctor.
• How useful would it be if the
receptionist just told you that you
could have an appointment at 14.25?
• Does she mean today, tomorrow or
next week?
 Information which is presented
in a disorganised way or in a
manner that is hard to
understand will be less useful to
you and be of little value.
Presentation
Choosing the best method of
presenting your information
and perhaps sorting or
organising it before you present
it can make it much easier to
understand and far more useful.
Buying a house
• Your parents want to buy a new
house. Which of the following
methods of presenting information
might make it easier for them to
decide if they like a house?
Written Description
• The house has an oak wooden door.
• There are steps leading up to the front door.
• The windows are hardwood and painted white. They are in need
repainting.
• The house is half-timbered.
• It is a grade 2 listed building
Photograph of
House
Conclusion
• The photograph is a much better method of presenting the
information initially. Your parents can see instantly if the
house would appeal to them and whether they would be
interested in finding out more.
• Once they have decided they like the look of the house they
would then want more detailed written information.
However, giving them the written information first with no
idea of what the house looks like would make it difficult for
them to get an idea as to whether they would like it.
Level of Detail
• For information to be useful you need the right amount of
detail.
• There is a risk of having too much detail which makes the
information overwhelming and difficult to extract the bits
that you want to know about.
• Or there might not be enough detail in which case you won't
understand the full picture. This links closely to one of the
factors we covered earlier, 'completeness'.
Example
Too much detail Not enough detail
Ingredients Ingredients
Not only telling you that you need flour, but telling you Telling you that you need flour but not the quantity
all of the different brands of flour and how the choice you will need to weigh out.
of each one would affect the rising of your cake.

Method Method
Telling you exactly how many times you need to beat Telling you to mix the ingredients together but not
the eggs and for exactly how many seconds you need informing you of the correct order in which to
to fold in the flour. combine them.

Cooking Cooking
Telling you the exact amount of minutes that the cake Telling you the temperature to cook the cake but not
should be baked for every type of oven that is how long to leave it in the oven for
currently for sale.