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Chapter 3
Subjective Information
Quality in Data Integration:
Evaluation and Principles
ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the science of human perception of information quality and describes a subset
of Information Quality (IQ) dimensions, which are termed Subjective Information Quality (SIQ). These
dimensions typically require a user’s opinion and do not have a clear mathematical technique for finding
their value. Note that most dimensions can be measured through multiple techniques, but the SIQ ones are
most useful when the user’s experience, opinion, or performance is accounted for. This chapter explores
SIQ while considering information obtained from multiple sources, which is a common occurrence when
employing visualizations to perform business or intelligence analytics. Thus, the issues addressed here
are the assessment of subjective perception of quality of data shown through visual means and principles
on how to estimate the subjective quality of combined information sources.
INTRODUCTION
Modern analytics tools employed in business,
intelligence, and even science, rely increasingly on
rapid exploration of multiple information spaces
and on a combination of various information di-
mensions and sources performed by an analyst.
Integrating information quality involves provid-
ing users with a unified view of this data quality.
This process becomes significant in a variety of
situations both commercial and scientific, par-
ticularly with the widespread use of information
visualization to allow end-users prompt access
to large amounts of data. Integrating information
appears with increasing frequency as the volume
and the need to share existing information grows.
Ahmed AbuHalimeh
University of Arkansas – Little Rock, USA
M. Eduard Tudoreanu
University of Arkansas – Little Rock, USA
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4892-0.ch003