Representations of Data Quality

Abstract

Adding data quality information to the database raises a number of issues. One of the still dominant models, the map or object model, has well-documented deficiencies as a model for representing data quality. This chapter proposes an object-oriented model for representing data quality. The static deterministic model is the simplest to implement but supplies the least comprehensive information on data quality. A stochastic model for data quality is one in which phenomena to be represented are subject to uncertainty and governed by the laws of probability. The chapter presents three versions of a conceptual model that supports increasingly comprehensive representations of quality. The first case describes a model which is static and deterministic. In this version data quality is assumed to be constant. The second case describes a model for data quality which is dynamic. The third case presents a model for data quality which is stochastic.