FIZ Karlsruhe addresses the issue of data quality in the information business.
'A good scientific information service requires a quality-controlled production process over the whole information life cycle,' said Sabine Brunger-Weilandt, describing a problem that gains high importance with the increasing amount of electronically available research information.
According to FIZ Karlsruhe's managing director and chief executive officer, the quality of data has a significant influence on the search results obtained from an information system.
Information services used for important business decisions have to be reliable - with regards to content, retrieval methods and electronic post-processing.
Brunger-Weilandt thinks that the public has to be made aware of how important the quality of information is.
In times when the internet suggests that any information can be made available by just a few mouse clicks, the quality of information and information skills should be discussed in public.
The quality of the methods used to access the databases is decisive for whether or not all relevant information is found and displayed and whether a repeated search will yield the same answers.
High precision will guarantee that users do not have to spend hours working through irrelevant answers.
Brunger-Weilandt is convinced that with growing amounts of data, precision and recall of search results become key factors in procuring knowledge.
She wants the information sector to address the topic of information quality in order to make the public aware of it.
