Visible Evidence of Invisible Quality Dimensions and the Role of Data Management

Past research has shown that data reusers are concerned with the issue of data quality and the identified attributes of quality. While data reusers find evidence of the attributes of data quality during their assessment of data for reuse, there may be other dimensions of data quality that reusers are concerned about but that are not always visible to them. This study explores these invisible dimensions of data quality that have been identified by data reusers. The findings of this study indicate that data reusers are concerned with two kinds of invisible characteristics for assessing the data: the efforts put on data, and the ethics behind the data. While these quality dimensions cannot be easily measured at face-level, data reusers find proxy evidence that indicates the presence of these invisibilities. This finding signifies the role of data management that can make these invisible data qualities visible.

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