Portal:Digital Information Quality

From Digital Native

What is Digital Information Quality?

Information quality refers to information that is fit for its intended use. E.g. correct, complete, unbiased, and coherent information would be considered as high quality information.

A general definition of the term „information quality“ is not suitable as the quality of information depends on the respective circumstances and the affected individuals.

A number of normative and descriptive criteria can constitute a general framework to evaluate the quality of information in particular contexts. Sample:

Problems

Does our conception of “the more, the better” that is derived from an offline world still apply to the digitally connected world? This conception is based on the idea that people can take better decisions based on a set of diverse information sources among which they have a choice. However, in these days the lack of diverse information is not a threat anymore to most western societies. Information is no longer solely provided through a small number of hieratically and centralized structured media companies. Today, everybody has a voice in the internet and can contribute his thoughts to the online world. Thus, the problems in these days have shifted:

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Solutions

We have come historically close to an important policy goal of our democratized information society. Thanks to the internet we have reached a state where information is created and accessed through multiple and diverse information sources. At the same time, this achievement raises new concerns in terms of quality issues. How can we ensure that users do not only have potential access to high quality information but can really harness and process such information? Addressing such concerns means taking measures on several layers. We are convinced that regulating information in its totality or setting uniform top-down quality standards are not appropriate ways to deal with information quality issues as it would endanger the openness and sustainability of the net. Information quality is complex. It requires consideration of different contexts, dimensions, and individual informational needs. Therefore, possible solutions should be reflected from various perspectives, including market, code, norm, and law perspectives.

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Narratives

The rise of digital natives and their relationship to the internet raises questions with regard to digital information quality that are considerably distinct from quality conflicts in offline situations. Consider the following narratives for an illustration of such issues:

TVNewser Dr. Google	Rewriting History Divided Opinions on Wikipedia

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How the Internet Fosters High Quality Information

The internet has fundamentally changed the way how digital natives create, distribute, access and use information.

Creation: Everybody with a computer and internet access can be a publisher on the internet. Information is no longer created by a small group of hierarchal organized professionals but by integrating the a large number of digital natives. Digital information on the internet is mostly not reviewed by institutional reviewers such as newspaper editors.

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