P&S Data Quality

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Discussion from March 28, 2006

What dimensions of quality should be considered?

Quality control

Error bar

Missing data

Contamination (weather, clouds)

Instrument error (recalibration)

stability

Cross instrument consistency

Objective scales

Ratings from 1 to 10 reliability across a set of categories

For example, environmental contamination moisture in air

Consistency with other measures that should reflect same observables

Quality assurance (someone tags it as valid)

Useful metadata provided?

Subjective scaling (e.g. quality judgement with range 0-5)

Instrument Verification and Validation

Data processing

Re-processing tag and notification

input errors and forcings

re-gridding

missing data

Usage issues

High enough resolution?

Valid inference about what is measured

Chain of Custody (for legal use)

Strategic breakdown

1. Instrument (accuracy, completeness, consistency)
2. Environment (cloud)
3. Processing

3rd party ratings

NCDC

NCDC Certified data (only states that it is in the archive)

GCMD

DIF records have some minimum required fields to accept

then have a text field to describe quality

ECHO

"measured parameters" from ECS model

QA percent cloud cover; missing pixels;

CLASS/Climate Data Record

Maturity Model approach for data (John Bates application from software maturity)

Level of maturity (five levels of improved treatment)

FGDC

Whole section on quality, text only

Testimonials

Peer review

Discussion

Consistency

• Is this a measure of quality?

Depends on stated offering from the provider; if they claim it is complete and it isn't

Assertions about datasets

We may want some standard for claiming and measuring how valid a claim may be

Additional Questions

• What common data quality standards can the Federation offer within the Earth Information Exchange?
• How can we enforce these standards within the Earth Information Exchange?
• Are there similar ratings for "data services"?