Recent events have highlighted the importance of knowing the origin and reliability of information.
The first was the establishment by the UK doctors’ professional body, the British Medical Association (BMA), of a website to provide validated health information for concerned patients surfing the web. The second was the case of mistaken identity between an IT commentator and a job applicant.
For a number of years family doctors have reportedly had problems with patients entering surgeries with reams of website output of dubious authority, and challenging the doctor on diagnoses and treatments. To help address this, and to reduce the burden of the ‘worried well’, the British Medical Journal has launched www.bestreatments.co.uk, using a subset of information (in ‘patient friendly’ language) from its clinical evidence website, which is targeted at health professionals.
The second example is that of a job interviewee who was ushered into a studio to take part in a live interview after BBC News 24 staff mistakenly believed him to be respected IT commentator Guy Kewney
Mr Kewney runs a website campaigning for and commenting on wireless and associated technologies. He had been asked by the BBC to speak about the outcome of the branding/logo dispute between Apple Corps, the record label established by the Beatles, and Apple Inc, which is making a very substantial sum out of distributing music via its iTunes software. One has to give full marks to the interview candidate for answering questions in the live interview, even though the BBC did not realize the mistaken identity until after the item was finished.
There is an innovative European Commission project, www.gridprovenance.org, currently focusing on organ transplant and high technology research, which should help in the design of a provenance architecture for information systems in the future, but as was illustrated by the BBC’s mistake, when human beings get involved in the process there will always be a question of validity.
With ever increasing volumes of information, and a reduction in time to deliver analysis, the question of provenance can only get larger.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
