Data & Information in Today’s Global

World

DATA ADMINISTRATION 4 (DBA400S)

BTECH: IT

MISS SIPHOKAZI TSWANE

2018
 Intro

 Data administration aka data resource management

 Isthe process by which data is monitored, maintained and

managed by a data administrator and/or an organization.
 Allows an organization to control its data assets,
as well as their processing and interactions with different
applications and business processes.
 Ensures that the entire life cycle of data use and processing is on
par with the enterprise’s objective.
 Data and Information - Enterprise Asset

 Data and information are the essence of the 21st century economy.
 In the Information Age, data is recognized as a vital enterprise asset.

"Organizations that do not understand the overwhelming importance of

managing data and information as tangible assets in the new economy
will not survive.” Tom Peters, 2001
 Data and the information are now widely recognized as enterprise assets .
 No enterprise can be effective without high quality data. Today's organizations
rely on their data assets to make more informed and more effective decisions.
 As organizations need and increasingly depend on data, the
business value of data assets can be more clearly established
 The amount of data available in the world is growing at an
astounding rate
 Yet for many important decisions, we experience information
gaps — the difference between what we know and what we
need to know to make an effective decision.
Information gaps represent enterprise liabilities with
potentially profound impacts on operational effectiveness
and profitability.
 What is data?
 Raw facts (letters, numbers, images, sound, etc.)

 What is information?
 Processed data? Data with meaning?

 Information does not exist??

 What is knowledge?
 Information

 Those without access to this

information are
 increasingly becoming isolated.
 We live in a digital world.
 Introducing Technology

 Introducing technology solutions

 Addressing information literacy at the same time.
Information Literacy
 Online Environment & Context

 The online environment

 The information producer & consumer -in a specific context.

 The information needs of these people need to be considered.

 Information Context

 In community-based contexts
 Information intermediaries
 often provide information to individuals from communities with a low literacy level.
The contextual relevancy of the
right information for the right
person at the right time, for the
right purpose in an open data
open science environment

How much data is crystalised into

meaningful and responsible
knowledge?
 Defining Information Quality

 People need the right information at the right time for the right
purpose.
 Data / Information Quality

 Information quality is
 complex,
 multidimensional
 and has human involvement

 What is meant by these data

Fit for purpose?
quality dimensions
 The right information means that it must have:-
Meaning Recipient Access Appropriate

R-Information Recipient R-Time R-Purpose

in the context of use
 Data Quality

(Chisholm, 2012)

Data Quality is Not Fitness for Use

The special problems of the relationships between data and what it is used for will require a different set of approaches and should
be called something other than “data quality”
Malcolm Chisholm, Information Management Online, August 16, 2012
 (Chisholm, 2012)

Data Quality is Not Fitness for Use

The special problems of the relationships between data and what it is used for will require a
different set of approaches and should be called something other than “data quality”
Malcolm Chisholm
Information Management Online, August 16, 2012
 Problems with the “Fitness for use” definition of data quality

 The interpreter is independent of the data. It understands the data and can put it to use.

 But if the interpreter misunderstands the data, or puts it to an inappropriate use, that is
hardly the fault of the data, and cannot constitute a data quality problem.
 Data quality is an expression of the relationship between the thing, event, or concept and
the data that represents it. This is a one-to-one relationship, unlike the one-to-many
relationship between data and uses. Therefore, I would propose the definition of data
quality as:

“the extent to which the data actually represents what it purports to represent.”

 The interpretant misunderstands the data.

 The interpretant uses data for a purpose that is incompatible with the data.
 •Data is faked and used for illegal or unethical purposes
 Utility Characteristics of Information

 Any piece of information, in order to be useful, should be:-

 Knowable - Nearly everything (but not all, as Heisenberg[1] taught us) is knowable, although
sometimes very difficult to learn or discern.
 Recorded - In some sharable, objective medium and not just in some human brain.
 Accessible - (with the right resources and technology)
 Navigable - (it may be there but is it easy to find?)
 Understandable (language, culture, technology, etc. )
 Of sufficient quality (for the intended use)

 Topically relevant to needs (perceived needs and unknown needs)

(otherwise, it is noise)
Social Understanding of Data

(Based on Chisholm, 2012)

 Contextual aspects

• Cultural
• Language
• Literacy
• Methods used to collect data – capture details of methods
• Interact with people
• Mechanisms to unlock the context (research fatigue)

Metadata
 As open as possible but as closed as necessary
(Open by default)

With utility value? Reputable?

https://ec.europa.eu/research/press/2016/pdf/opendata-infographic_072016.pdf
 Data roles:  Data stakeholders have:
 Data producer  Knowledge
 Skills
 Data consumer
 Technical
 Data custodian
 Adaptive
 Data manager
 Interpretive

 When interacting with data they:

 Communicate
 Improvise
 Reflect-in-action
 Collaborate
 An Open Data Repository

Data activities Data elements

Knowledge claims
Report, Findings
Disseminate Results
Organised Data Conclusions
Present
Further Research

Anonymise Codes
Analye, Categories
Interpret, Processed Data Sub-themes
Reflect Themes
Design
Observations
Answers
Record
Transcriptions
Document Collected Data
Translations
Images
Narratives
 Individuals in a Data Role

Present,
Disseminate
Organised Data Communicate
Data Consumer

Read,
Analyse,
Processed Data Interpret

Data Custodian Data Prosumer Data Manager

Curate data Plan,
(access, Collect, Organise,
format, record, Monitor,
standardise, Collected Data capture data Direct)
backup,
securing) Data Producer
 Semiotics

 Semiotics theory refers to how signs and symbols are used to convey
knowledge with relations between:
 syntactic as the relationship between sign representation (structure)
 semantic between a representation and its referent (meaning)
 pragmatic between the representation and interpretation semiotic levels (usage)
 The process of interpretation, called semiosis, at the pragmatic level
depends on the use of the sign by the interpreter in the case of data, the
data consumer.
 The sign (data) is not a representation of an objective reality but
depends on the shared understanding in the context of the
communication process
Semiotic Levels
 Exercise

1. Please suggest other principles that could be added to the FAIR data principles
2. Please define indicators to determine measures for the FAIR data principles
3. Identify any text and evaluate it according to the FAIR+ indicators
 Exercis
• Please suggest other principles that could be added to the FAIR data principles
• e
Please define indicators to determine measures for the FAIR data principles
• Identify any text and evaluate it according to the FAIR+ indicators
Data Principle Indicator Evaluation Reason