Open Data Quality Evaluation: A Comparative Analysis of Open Data in Latvia

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the quality of Latvian open data, highlighting differences based on data sources and common issues, and provides a guide for assessing open data quality to ensure trustworthiness in decision-making.

Contribution

It introduces a step-by-step methodology for analyzing open data quality and compares data from different Latvian sources, revealing variability and common problems.

Findings

Data quality varies between centralized and decentralized sources.

Trustable data suppliers do not guarantee error-free data.

Common data quality issues are shared across Latvian and European open data.

Abstract

Nowadays open data is entering the mainstream - it is free available for every stakeholder and is often used in business decision-making. It is important to be sure data is trustable and error-free as its quality problems can lead to huge losses. The research discusses how (open) data quality could be assessed. It also covers main points which should be considered developing a data quality management solution. One specific approach is applied to several Latvian open data sets. The research provides a step-by-step open data sets analysis guide and summarizes its results. It is also shown there could exist differences in data quality depending on data supplier (centralized and decentralized data releases) and, unfortunately, trustable data supplier cannot guarantee data quality problems absence. There are also underlined common data quality problems detected not only in Latvian open data but also in open data of 3 European countries.