Data quality and governance: glossary
The terms behind trustworthy numbers: cleaning, duplicates, nulls, silos, governance and a single source of truth.
- Data QualityData quality is how well data fits its purpose, usually judged by whether it is accurate, complete, consistent, timely and unique.
- Data CleaningData cleaning is finding and fixing errors in data, such as duplicates, wrong formats, typos and missing values, before analysing it.
- NULL ValueA NULL is a database marker meaning a value is missing or unknown; it is not the same as zero or an empty string.
- Duplicate RecordsDuplicate records are multiple rows that describe the same real-world thing, such as one customer entered twice with slightly different details.
- Data GovernanceData governance is the set of rules and responsibilities that decide who can use which data, how it is defined and how it is protected.
- Data SiloA data silo is a store of data that one team or system controls and that is not easily shared or combined with the rest of the organisation's data.
- Single Source of TruthA single source of truth is one agreed, authoritative location and definition for each important piece of business data, so everyone gets the same answer.
- Data LineageData lineage traces where a piece of data came from, what transformations it went through and which reports depend on it.