Data quality and metadata

Even when published under an open licence and adhering to FAIR data principles, data must still be quality in order to be usable

The quality of data is determined by a set of practical, legal, social and technical requirements, defined by community-driven standards.

In addition to the open licence, there are three legal requirements that need to be considered by open data publishers. You must:

• Protect sensitive information like personal data

• Preserve the rights of data owners

• Promote the correct use of data

In order to meet the practical requirements of quality open data, publishers must:

• Link to the data from the relevant website

• Update the data regularly if it changes

• Commit to continue to make the data available

There are three recommendations that define the technical aspects of open data:

• The format in which the data is published

• The structure of the data

• The channels through which the data is available

For data use to be sustainable, it is important to have an engaged community of users. The best datasets have:

• Active support channels

• Discussion groups and forums

• Published how-to guides on working with the data

Good quality open data should also be referenced through metadata – data that describes the content, structure or use of a dataset. This can include basic information such as the name of the author, a description date created, date modified and file size.

Metadata helps makes data easier to find for potential users, helps them understand whether the data would be useful for them and understand how others may have used the data before them.

For more information about metadata, take a look at Opendatasoft's 'What is metadata and why is it as important as the data itself?'