A Process for Assessing Data Quality

This industrial contribution describes a tool support approach to assessing the quality of relational databases. The approach combines two separate audits - an audit of the database structure as described in the schema and an audit of the database content at a given point in time. The audit of the database schema checks for design weaknesses, data rule violations and deviations from the original data model. It also measures the size, complexity and structural quality of the database. The audit of the database content compares the state of selected data attributes to identify incorrect data and checks for missing and redundant records. The purpose is to initiate a data clean-up process to ensure or restore the quality of the data.