The purpose of this tool is to provide justice practitioners with guidance in evaluating the information quality of justice information reports associated with justice events, and to increase policymakers’ awareness of the importance of assessing information quality via the self-administered worksheet.
This document provides a self-assessment tool that was designed to provide practical, hands-on assistance to information systems personnel. This tool aims to aid practitioners in four things: becoming aware of information quality (IQ) dimensions; identifying gaps in roles and responsibilities, policies and procedures, and information technology that beget information quality problems; implementing information quality practice; and enhancing overall understanding of the effects that business processes related to information collection, maintenance, management, dissemination, and disposition have on information quality. The document is structured as a matrix of self-assessment questions within a process framework that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of an agency; the series of questions aim to help each agency determine its relative level of information quality by clarifying what IQ is and how it applies to specific functions. It recommends that agencies should use the tool periodically, as part of an ongoing IQ program, to evaluate the impact of changing business practices on information quality, and that agencies would be best served by using this tool in conjunction with the information life cycle: collecting, managing, sharing, and disposing of justice information.