By working to show the importance of delivering quality data for business processes and decision-making, Arkansans have led the way for others interested in information quality. A number of those individuals – some with ties to UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT)– took the stage at the 12th annual International Conference on Information Quality (ICIQ) held last week, Nov. 9-11, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Claire Bailey, chief technology officer for the State of Arkansas, delivered the conference’s keynote address, which focused on the state’s approach to delivering information quality education. She noted that the world’s first Master of Science degree program in Information Quality was begun at UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT).
Bailey also announced that UALR’s EIT would begin offering a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Applied Science with a concentration on Information Quality. The new offering will begin in 2008.
“Through its collaboration with MIT, UALR’s EIT became the first university to develop a master’s degree in the new, and rapidly growing, field of information quality,” said Dr. Mary L. Good, EIT dean. “We are so pleased to now offer a doctoral degree in applied science with a concentration in information quality, which will help us recruit even more students to this successful program. Currently our information quality program has students on campus at UALR and attending class online across the United States, South America, and Africa. Our corporate partners helping support the new program are also international in scope.”
In addition to Bailey’s announcement, UALR’s EIT students and faculty played a leading role in the conference, which is considered the premier academic conference on information quality. This year it was attended by more than 150 leading experts from around the world who presented research papers and panels on information quality research, education, and practice.
UALR EIT student Londraies Thomas was the only undergraduate student to present a paper at the ICIQ event. He worked with EIT associate professor Dr. Elizabeth Pierce to craft the research study titled “Assessing Information Quality through the Use of Prediction Markets.”
“Measuring the quality of one’s data can be a major challenge,” Thomas said. “This study introduces a new technique to assess the quality of data. Prediction markets are speculative markets similar to stock exchanges except in prediction markets individuals place a value upon the outcome of some future event rather than on some company or commodity. The study demonstrates how prediction markets can be applied to the assessment of information quality using measurements on things like newspaper corrections, for example.”
At the conference, Pierce also moderated a discussion titled “The State of Information Quality Education,” which included EIT’s Dr. John Talburt as a panelist. Pierce and Talburt both teach in the UALR EIT Information Quality Program.