Information validity problems in OLAP systems

Abstract Here, we deal with the notion of information validity and relevance, and data source reliability as applied to the design, development and information updating in contemporary OLAP systems. Many up-to-date information systems employ a great many external data sources but the reliability of these sources and data validity therein raise doubts. In addition, the data is continually changed and updated from the old to the latest, which needs to be borne in mind. The problem is that there is no unified system for qualitative and quantitative assessment of information attributes such as degrees of relevance and validity, and data source reliability. On the other hand, there is an array of information attributes that can be the judge of relevance and validity. The present study aimed to elaborate approaches to assessing information relevance and validity, and data source reliability for an OLAP database system and propose units of measure, algorithms and computational methods for the same. The elaborated approaches will further be actualized as algorithms and programs as part of the OLAP database system under development.