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**Reminder**
TITLE: Verifying Data in Public Records Databases
SPEAKER: Tom Johnson
AFFILIATION: Institute for Analytic Journalism
TIME: Wed Aug 24, 12:30p
LOCATION: 624 Agua Fria Conference Room
Lunch will be available
ABSTRACT
Tom Johnson will talk about the problem of and strategies for verifying data in
public records databases.
An uncountable number of public agency databases have been created in the past
30 years. More and more, public and private decision-makers draw on this
collected, digital data to make decisions about everything from disciplining
doctors to zoning decisions to law enforcement to deciding who gets to vote.
The often-unquestioned assumption is that the data, as found, analyzed and
presented by a government or quasi-government agency, is valid data.
Increasingly, anecdotal evidence indicates that data is riddled with serious
errors. Often, if initial investigations indicate the data is too suspect --
and the cost to clean the data by hand or automatically too high -- then good
and important analysis and investigations are put aside.
Tom will also describe an upcoming workshop -- Ver 1.0 -- the Inst. for Analytic
Journalism is sponsoring in Santa Fe in April 2006. The workshop is unique in
that it is believed to be the first ever to bring together eight to ten
journalists with track records of high-concept involvement in analytic
journalism and who have demonstrated in-depth knowledge of database sciences.
They will be joined by an equal number of biomedical researchers, public
administrators, data-mining experts, statisticians, forensic accountants,
computer scientists and social scientists interested in the problem of database
veracity.
[1] "Ver" as in "verification" and "verify" and, from the Spanish verb ver: "to
see; to look into; to examine."
NB: Sponsorship support is being sought!
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