Recent shenanigans around the world have highlighted the importance of good quality information. Over at idqcert.iaidq.org I’ve written a mid-sized post explaining why I am a passionate supporter of the IAIDQ’s Certified Information Quality Practitioner certification.
Basically, there is a need for people who are managing information quality challenges to have a clear benchmark that sets them and their profession apart from the ‘IT’ misnomer. A clear code of ethics for the profession (a part of the certification as I understand iit) is also important. My reading of the situation, particularly in at least one Irish financial institution, is that people were more concerned with presenting the answer that was wanted to a question rather than the answer that was needed and there appears to have been some ‘massaging’ of figures to present a less than accurate view of things – resulting in investors making decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information.
Hopefully the CIQP certification will help raise standards and the awareness of the standards that should be required for people working with information in the information age.
I agree that this type of certification is greatly needed in our industry. Information Quality must be embraced as the business/technical symbiosis that it truly is. I believe that the IAIDQ CIQP program will be a significant success.