Quality of Information

Not every piece of information is actually useful. A report can be technically correct and still be useless if it arrives too late, or if it is missing half the details a manager needs. This note covers the five characteristics that decide whether information is genuinely good quality.

Why Does Information Need to Be Good Quality?

Good quality information helps a decision maker act correctly. Poor quality information does the opposite, it wastes time and leads to bad outcomes.

Good quality information:

• helps in decision making
• increases efficiency
• reduces errors and risks
• builds trust and reliability

The Five Characteristics of Good Information

Good information has five important characteristics: relevancy, completeness, accuracy, timeliness, and cost effectiveness.

1. Relevancy

Information should be relevant to the purpose and need it is meant to serve.

When studying for an ICT exam, notes on computer viruses are relevant. Notes on cricket scores are not.

2. Completeness

Information should be complete. All the necessary parts should be included, missing even one part can make the whole record unreliable.

A school admission form should include the student's name, class, and a parent's contact number. If the contact number is left blank, the school cannot reach home when it needs to.

3. Accuracy

Information should be correct and free from mistakes.

If a report card shows a student's mark as 90 when the real mark is 60, the information is inaccurate.

4. Timeliness

Information should be available when it is needed, not before it is ready and not after the moment has passed.

An exam timetable is only useful if students get it before the exam. A timetable that arrives after the exam is over is useless, even if every date on it is correct.

5. Cost Effectiveness

The cost of obtaining information should be reasonable compared to the value it provides.

Buying expensive software to track the attendance of one small class is not cost effective, a simple attendance register does the same job for far less.

Summary

• Good quality information supports better decisions, saves time, and reduces errors.
• The five characteristics are relevancy, completeness, accuracy, timeliness, and cost effectiveness.
• Each characteristic tests a different way information can fail, being correct is not enough on its own, it also has to be relevant, complete, on time, and worth its cost.