Abstract
This article introduces a general-purpose framework aimed at capturing the elusive concept of quality of measurement information (MI), a critical issue for both researchers and practitioners when dealing with MI-enabled decision-making. The framework is a blueprint for the definition, assessment, communication, and improvement of MI quality, as analyzed through a set of general criteria, classified according to the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic layers of semiotics, as suggested in the ISO 8000-8:2015 technical standard. The top-down analysis, where each criterion is specified in terms of characteristics and each characteristic in terms of domain-related indicators, is complemented with a bottom-up synthesis and operationalized by means of a flowchart. An application example, about the quality of information provided by the networks of measurement instruments reporting pollutants in the air, is presented to test the usefulness and the limitations of the framework.
Highlights
I N TODAY’S information society, data rule transformative technologies, and with them the social and economic progress, assuming a role analogous to the one that oil had in the industrial society: a valuable resource, and a key enabler for almost everything, from governments, to companies, to everyday activities
Discussion about differences and novelties proposed in this article with respect to the existing literature will be focused on papers concerned with Quality of Information (QoI) in sensor networks or Internet of Things (IoT) in their parts involved with measurement
The validity of that approach is recognized by the ISO 8000 family of standards [9], [29], which proposes a categorization based on semiotic layers, but dealing with the general topic of QoI without considering the peculiar characteristics of Quality of Measurement Information (QoMI)
Summary
I N TODAY’S information society, data rule transformative technologies, and with them the social and economic progress, assuming a role analogous to the one that oil had in the industrial society: a valuable resource, and a key enabler for almost everything, from governments, to companies, to everyday activities. Development would be hampered, and economies would shrink. In the last years, increasing amounts of data from both the empirical world and the internet have been acquired, transmitted, and stored, often at very low (and sometimes zero marginal) cost, by means of digital systems. Manuscript received October 4, 2020; revised November 26, 2020; accepted December 15, 2020. Date of publication December 29, 2020; date of current version January 19, 2021.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
