Towards quality-oriented data warehouse usage and evolution

As a decision support information system, a data warehouse must provide hig h level quality of data and services. In the DWQ project (Foundations of Da ta Warehouse Quality), we have proposed how semantically rich meta-informat ion of a data warehouse can be stored in a metadata repository. This static representation of the various perspectives of data warehouse components an d their linkage to quality factors is complemented by an operational method ology on how to use these quality factors and achieve the quality goals of the users. This approach is an extension of the Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) approach, based on the idea that a quality goal is operationally defined ov er a concrete set of questions, i.e., algorithmic steps. The proposed appro ach covers the full lifecycle of the data warehouse, allows capturing the i nterrelationships between different quality factors and helps the intereste d user to organize them in order to fulfill specific quality goals. Further more, we prove how the quality management of the data warehouse can guide t he process of data warehouse evolution, by tracking the interrelationships between the components of the data warehouse. Finally, we present a case st udy, as a proof of concept for the proposed methodology. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.