User:Grannanj/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Data integrity

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it is one of the main values of digital preservation. When preserving data, it is important that it has digital integrity, in that it has not been changed and that the information is the same when it is used later. It is important for this class and for preservation because when working with digital curation, the archivist/curator needs to maintain the data's integrity as much as possible. I also believe that it is an important part of digital preservation as we need to provide future users with the exact information that items were created with. This explanation is also the general facts of what I know about this topic before doing more research here.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

The lead section has a very concise and explanative first sentence. If one only needed to know the exact definition of digital integrity, they would be able to find it within that sentence. This sentence also provides a good introduction to what the rest of the article is about. The rest of the lead also provides more summary of data integrity that expands upon the first sentence.

There are few mentions of other similar topics that seem to be placed in the paragraph just for the sake of it, as though they had nowhere else to put them. These include the mention of “data corruption” and “data security”. The last sentence about “data security” in the first paragraph is especially jarring and does not seem like it should be the closing sentence. It is a more general statement and should probably be near the beginning of the paragraph if it is kept. These two examples do not especially hinder the information or the legibility of the paragraph, however, and seem fine to include since the information is pertinent.

As for a description of what is included in the article, the only mention is from the “contents’ box below the main opening paragraphs.

Content

From what I can tell, the information seems up to date. The most recent edits of the page are from the past few months and the most recent reference is from 2018.

There are only four main sections within this article, and they are all relatively short. However, they are all relevant to the topic and provide more detailed information for those who want to know more.

As a more general reader myself who does not have much knowledge on the topic, I cannot tell how much or what information is missing. While reading the different sections, it does seem as though there is more information that should be added. The final section, for example, looks like it only a few examples were collected and put together quickly without much more research or detail. These are only examples, though, so it more detail might not be needed.

The only reference I have to what is missing is the small amount of information in this article versus the importance of the topic and the large amounts of information from outside sources that there are. But even based on the editors themselves, there is still much that is missing from this article. It has been given the rating of C-Class on the quality scale, meaning there is still a lot of information missing and that the article is really only good for a casual reading. The talk page also indicates this with the editors still changing and adding information and asking for more help.

Tone and Balance

This article does seem to be neutral and balanced. The information given is all very general, and although more information could be added, it is not because of a lack of different perspectives.

The final section does include examples of data integrity in various industries and how they manage regulations. This section has an emphasis on financial, medical, and other government industries, such as the FDA. Although these industries and agencies are data-heavy, all other industries also use and preserve data. The article does not provide anymore detail for these other industries and it may be nice to see how smaller companies handle data integrity.

Sources and References

For such a relatively short article, there are many references, a total of 21. There are certainly more sources available for this topic, as indicated by the reference lists on some of hte article's references. However, the article is very short itself and still appears to be a work in progress. Of the references whose dates are included, they range from 2012-2018, making the sources recent. This is a topic that does not change drastically from year to year, so the older references are still reliable.

Most of the links still work. The link in the first reference takes you to the Way Back Machine, but the page it is supposed to be showing is not there. The link for reference 15 does technically work, but you need an account to get to the article. The link for 18 also works, but the page no longer exists.

About half of the references are from reliable sources through books or journal articles. The other half are sources from various websites or university pages and research. Some of the resources using websites are used for information specifically about that agency or company. This does stand the chance of having some bias.

The main problem with the sources is that they are only referencing three sections in the entire article: the lead, and the two sections at the end where examples are included. And out of the 21 references, only four are used in the lead, the rest are used for examples. The main bulk of the article has no references attached. The reader cannot be sure where any of the information came from. Although there are plenty of general facts stated in the article, there are many parts that include terms, lists, and more detailed explanations. There are no citations and not many of the resources at the end seem to contain that type of information.

Organization and Writing Quality

In terms of writing and grammar, the article is well-written. Aside from some of the more specific terms and topics involved that I did not quite understand, the way it was written and the wording was all good. I also did not notice any spelling or grammar mistakes.

The organization also worked well in the article. Each section built upon the other and were all relevant topics. The only problem was that it sometimes seemed like the sub-topics came out of nowhere. However, with more information added that should hopefully fix the problem. It is difficult to make something cohesive when not a lot of information is there.

Images and Media

There are no images or other types of media in this article. I do not think this detracts from anything as it is a more general topic where images are not needed.

Talk page discussion

As I mentioned earlier, the talk page indicates that this is still a work in progress and that the editors are hoping for more help and information. Although the last message was from 2018. Because this article is still being worked on, all of the messages involve large edits and information being added. There are not a lot of messages on the talk page so it is easily possible to see all of the messages and edits from the very start.

The messages are organized into topics and it is interesting to see the different topics involved in the editing process. For example, there is a message section on possibly merging the article with another article and the ultimate decision not to. There is also one message discussing the appropriate title and name for the German version of the article, which I personally found interesting being a language person.

As I also noted earlier, this article is rated C-class on the quality scale, meaning that it is only good for casual reading and needs more improvement. The importance scale is rated as High Importance and as High Importance in the WikiProject Computer Science.

Overall, this article although not complete, goes into more detail than we have in class. It is also more general in scope than we would have discussed as the topic is important in all areas of computer or library science, not just digital curation.

Overall Impressions

Overall I think this is a good article to generally understand the topic of data integrity. It was well-written and divided into separate sections that helped to provide more information in an easy to digest format. As a new learner, I found the article to be very useful and easy to understand, especially the lead. It provided me with all of the information I needed to understand the topic without inundating me with unneeded information. If I did want more information, I could read the rest of the article and get a little more detail on the topic. Also, because the article is relatively short, I was not intimidated by it and easily read the whole thing.

That being said, the lack of depth could be unfavorable to those who already have more knowledge on the subject or who want a more detailed explanation. This is especially true for those from the computer science community who indicate that this article is of high importance and is still only considered useful for light reading.

The bones are definitely there. The article needs to be filled out more and more references are needed to get that information. They are especially needed in the main body of the article where there are no citations. If more proper sources are found and used, the article could be improved. At this point, that seems to be the main thing that is missing that could really help.