Relativity of Inforamtion Quality: Ontological vs. Teleological, Internal vs. Eternal View

Abstract

This chapter presents a qualitative inquiry into the universe of quality attributes of symbolic representation such as data and information values. It offers a rationale for a move from the internal toward the external, from the ontological to the teleological perspective. The focus is on approaches that derive attributes from established theories. The special relativity of qual-ity as applied to information values is discussed at various levels of viewing those attributes within business-decision contexts. Four cases offer examples of top-down, dataflow-up examination of quality attributes to demonstrate the potential of the teleological perspective. A rationale for a broader use of qualified names for quality attributes is given. The evolutional, by Liu and Chi (2002), and the purpose-focused, by Gackowski (2004, 2005a/b), views of operations quality offer a new potential for integrating the present theoretical contributions into a more complete, cohesive, and pragmatic model. Examples begin with the quantity and utility value of information, the direct primary attributes of quality, some of the direct secondary attributes, and end with samples of indirect attributes.