Understanding quality control
Quality control is the process of testing data to ensure data integrity. Here, we will go over when to perform quality control checks and what sorts of things these checks are trying to find. Remember, bad data leads to bad results, and bad results are worse than no results because they are actively misleading. It is important that your data is as accurate as possible, and to do that, you need quality control.
When to check for quality
While you will probably automate as much of the quality control practices as you can, there are times beyond the routine when it is important to check the quality of your data. You may use different quality control techniques in different instances, but in general, you need to check your data any time there is a major change. Lots of things may qualify as a major change, but the most common are as follows:
- Data acquisition
Data acquisition is whenever you get new data. This doesn’t necessarily...