HANDSWORTH INSTITUTE OF HEALTH SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

COURSE: DATA ANALYSIS

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NRC / ID #:

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QUESTION: Processed or analyzed information is very important in decision making in all

fields. However, quality decisions depends on quality information with good qualities. Discuss
the good qualities of information ?

DUE DATE: June 10th, 2020.

Introduction:

Information is vital for communication and for decision making both in an organisation and as an
individual. Good decision people have made in life is always based on the information they have
gathered or come across be it good or bad. However, there are some aspects which when you put
them together they make up good information. We are going to discuss then in here so that we
can get a broad understanding.

Main Body

Good information is that which is used and which creates value. Experience and research shows
that good information has numerous qualities. It is relevant for it’s purpose, sufficiently accurate
for its purpose, complete enough for the problem, reliable and targeted to the right person. It is
also communicated in time for its purpose, contains the right level of detail and is communicated
by an appropriate channel, that is understandable to the user. In the latter conceptualization,
Qvortrup (1993) suggests that information is viewed as a difference that finds a difference. The
ability to create a difference meaning is thereby moved from the information itself as it exists in
the external world, and attributed instead to the observer/ receiver. In this tradition, “information
can be defined as a mental difference which finds or is confirmed or stimulated by a difference in
the world” (p. 13).

Information should be easy to obtain or access. Information kept in a book of some kind is only
available and easy to access if you have the book to hand. A good example of availablility is a
telephone directory, as every home has one for its local area. It is probably the first place you
look for a local number. But nobody keeps the whole countrys telephone books so for numbers
further afield you probably phone a directory enquiry number. For business premises, say a hotel
in Lusaka, you would probably use the internet. Business used to keep customer details on a
card-index system at the customers branch. If the customer visited a different branch a telephone
call would be needed to check details. Now the centralised computer system, business like banks
and building societies can access any customers data from any branch. This is the issue of
availability and accessibility.

Every information which we release or receive can be either of good quality and or poor quality.
However, there are some aspect which can determine to the quality of information. Quality of
information is an important concept. Information quality is a multi-attribute concept. If the
attributes define quality or of high value then the information is said to have good quality. The
attibutes of quality of information are; Timeliness: the speed at which the information is
received. Normally the faster the information the better is its quality. Timeliness refers to the
time expectation for accessibility and availability of information. This can be measured as the
time between when information is expected and when it is readily available for use. The success
of business application relys on consistent and timely information. If the information is received
later that its expected it becomes useless.

The other aspect is Appropriateness. Information should be relevant to the purpose for which it is
required. It must be suitable. What is relevant for one manager may not be relevant for another.
The user will become frustrated if information contains data which is irrevant to the task in
hand. Exampla a market research company may give information on users perceptions of the
quality of a product. This is not relevant for the manager who wants opinions on relative prices
of the product and its rivals. The information gained would not be relevant to the purpose.

Reliability also plays an important role in the quality of information. This deals with the truth of
information or the objectivity with which it is presented. The reliability of information is a key
attribute of quality. Only if the information is reliable, is it of any use. The understanding of
reliability comes from past experience, the standing / reliability of the sources , the methodology
adopted to aquire and process the information and the channel of delivery also matters most.
The information needs to be accurate for the use to which it is going to be put. To obtain
information that is 100% accurate is usually unrealistic as it is likely to be too expensive to
produce on time. The degree of accuraacy depends upon the circumstamces. At operational
levels information may need to be accurate to the nearest ngwee, on a supermaket till receipts,
for example. At tactical level department heads may see weekly summerise correct to the nearest
K100, whereas at startegic level directors may look at comparing stores performances over
several months to the nearest K100 000 per month. Accuracy is important. As an example, if
government statistics based on the census wrongly show an increase in births within an area,
plans may be to build more schools and construction more social amenities to cater for the
population which is wrongs estimated and does not exist. Normally the higher the accuracy of
the information, the better is its quality.
Information should contain all the details required by the user. That’s what is called
completeness. Otherwise, it may not be useful as the basis for making a decision. For example, if
an organisation is supplied with information regarding the costs of supplying a fleet of cars for
the sales force, and servicing and maintenance costs are not included, then a costing on the
information supplied will be considerably understestimated. Ideally all the information needed
for a particular decision should be available. However, this rarely happens, good information is
often complete. To meet all the needs of the situation you often have to collect it from a variety
of sources. Completeness, is the measure of comprehensiveness. It is required to ensure that the
information provided gives the complete picture of reality and not a part of the picture.

Finally, Presentation. This is another aspect which contribute to quality of information. The
presentation of information to the user can be more easily assimilated if it is aesthentically
pleasing. For instance, a marketing report that includes graphs of statistics will be more concise
as well as more aesthenntically pleasing to the user within the organisation. Many organisations
use presentation software and show summary information via a data projector. These
presentations have usually been well though out to be visually attractive and to convey the
correct amount of details.

Conclusion

Information quality is a foundational notion within information studies. Information studies is

fundamentally concerned with providing a user with “what we can call the best textual means to
his end” (Wilson, 1968, p. 21 ). That best textual means is often one that is correct, true,
authentic, and of high quality. The assessment of information quality, however, enters into a
complex web which must take into consideration the sender’s intention and knowledge; the
intertextual knowledge about the subject matter; the societal, cultural, and contextual facts about
the subject matter; and the reader’s activities and interests. By situating the notion of information
quality within a philosophy of information, a better articulation is achieved for what is meant by
information. To understand the notion of information quality, we need to understand what is
meant by information. As such, if the information released or received does not contain the
above articulated then the quality of such information will be a compromise.
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