The AISB (The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour) and the
IACAP (The International Association for Computing And Philosophy) have merged their annual 
symposia/conferences to form the AISB/IACAP World Congress, as part of the celebration of the 
Turing year in 2012.  http://www.turingcentenary.eu/ Information Quality (sometimes called Data 
Quality)

This symposium is sponsored by the AHRC-funded project “Understanding Information Quality Standards
and their Challenges” (2011-2013).

Biological and artificial agents survive and thrive insofar as they can successfully manage their 
information. A necessary (although of course not yet sufficient) condition for such successful 
management is represented by the quantity and quality of the input: without a reliable flow of 
good data or information, no agent, no matter how smart or intelligent, may interact with the 
environment and cope with its challenges. This holds true for a spider, a child, a robot, a tank 
or a multinational company. The problems concerning the quantity of data/information have become 
quite obvious today. “Big data”, “infoglut”, “information deluge” and other similar expressions 
are common in newspapers. They have already begun to attract some philosophical attention. The 
problems concerning the quality of data/information have only recently come under philosophical 
scrutiny.

What is information quality (IQ) exactly? So far, our answers have been less than satisfactory. 
In the United States, the Information Quality Act, also known as the Data Quality Act, enacted in 
2000, left undefined virtually every key concept in the text.  In the UK, some of the most 
sustained efforts in dealing with IQ issues have concerned the health care system. However, in 
2004, the NHS Information Quality Assurance Consultation stressed that “Consideration of 
information and data quality are made more complex by the general agreement that there are a 
number of different aspects to information/data quality but no clear agreement as to what these 
are”.

Lacking a clear and precise understanding of IQ standards (such as accessibility, accuracy, 
availability, completeness, currency, integrity, redundancy, reliability, timeliness, 
trustworthiness, usability, and so forth) causes costly errors, confusion, impasse, and missed 
opportunities. Part of the difficulty lies in constructing the right conceptual and technical 
framework necessary to analyse and evaluate such standards, and to translate them into 
implementable requirements.

This symposium seeks to contribute to our understanding of IQ by bringing together epistemological 
and ethical research, developed in the philosophy of information, with scientific and technical 
research developed in computer science, ICT, AI, and information management.

Speakers:
-          Luciano Floridi, Universities of Hertfordshire and Oxford: Information Quality: Mapping the Problem
-          Phyllis Illari: University of Hertfordshire: Data quality and information quality: a perplexing relationship.
-          Kieron O'Hara, Webscience Foundation, Southampton: tbc
-          Min Chen, University of Oxford: tbc
-          David Hand, Imperial College, London: tbc


Short abstracts of 500 words to be emailed to the symposium organizer, Phyllis Illari, University 
of Hertfordshire, phyllisillari@hotmail.co.uk. They will be refereed by the programme committee.

·         Submissions to Symposia by Sunday 15th April.
·         Acceptance/rejection notifications on Sunday 6th May.
·         Short Papers for conference booklet by Friday 1 June.

For any further information, please contact Phyllis Illari, University of Hertfordshire, 
phyllisillari@hotmail.co.uk