Open Data Quality Evaluation: A Comparative Analysis of Open Data in Latvia

Abstract: Nowadays open data is entering the mainstream - it is free available for every stakeholder and is often used in business decision-making. It is important to be sure data is trustable and error-free as its quality problems can lead to huge losses. The research discusses how (open) data quality could be assessed. It also covers main points which should be considered developing a data quality management solution. One specific approach is applied to several Latvian open data sets. The research provides a step-by-step open data sets analysis guide and summarizes its results. It is also shown there could exist differences in data quality depending on data supplier (centralized and decentralized data releases) and, unfortunately, trustable data supplier cannot guarantee data quality problems absence. There are also underlined common data quality problems detected not only in Latvian open data but also in open data of 3 European countries.