News story

New courses on assessing data quality

Understand the quality of your data using a structured approach

We have launched two new courses on assessing data quality: an introductory course to explain the concepts of good data quality assessments and a ‘how to’ course that will guide you through designing a data quality action plan and putting it into practice.

Good quality data is needed to provide proper services, establish sound policies, and make the right decisions. But do we know the quality of data that we use? Why is it important to make good data quality assessments? How do we assess data quality and take the right actions to tackle quality problems? The following courses could help answer these questions.

Introduction to data quality assessments

This course covers what good data quality assessments look like and why they are important for government data. It also introduces the concept of data quality action plans. The course is designed for new data professionals and for anyone interested in understanding more about carrying out regular assessments.

Data quality action plans

This course presents a structured approach to assessing the quality of data. It explains a method to identify the root cause of quality problems that allows you to make impactful improvements. It includes a scenario of a hypothetical example with exercises that consolidate the learning throughout the two modules of the course. The course is designed for new data professionals who have completed the course on data quality assessments and for those who are managing data already.

Thank you to all the colleagues across government who have tested a version that combined the two courses. This helped us to improve the content and led us to divide it into these two separate courses.

Tell us what you think

At the end of each course, we have provided a feedback form. We would love to hear what you think, and what other courses you would like us to develop next.

You can learn more about our offer to help you with your data quality challenges and initiatives. If you need tailored advice and support, please contact us by emailing DQHub@ons.gov.uk. Please visit the Data Quality Hub website for articles, tools, and case studies.

Updates to this page

Published 28 April 2022