A MODEL OF THE DATA (LIFE) CYCLES WITH APPLICATION TO QUALITY

The purpose of the paper is to present a new model of the data life-cycle. Such a model is needed to clarify activities involving data, from its creation through use, and to establish the relationships of these activities to one another. The proposed model features four principal data cycles: the acquisition cycle includes activities that create and store data, the usage cycle includes activities that retrieve and use data, and the two kinds of the combined cycles incorporate both acquisition and usage activities. The model also includes quality checkpoints and feedback loops. These are particularly useful in clarifying data quality issues.