Data and Metadata Quality Management for Biobanks

Medical research requires biological material and data of documented trustworthy policy for delivering relevant and reproducible results. The management of the quality of biological samples for medical research received high attention in recent years resulting is well documented and audited standard operating procedures and standards for the documentation of various quality characteristics. We need similar efforts to establish systems, policies, procedures for assuring well documented quality characteristics of data and metadata. We review on the typical characteristics for data and for metadata and point to precise definitions of these properties. We present and discuss the requirements for managing these qualities and propose a process and the necessary tasks for biobanks to establish such a a holistic system for data quality management. The complex nature of biobanks as data producers, data providers, data mediators and data archives dealing with data from various sources and the highly sensitive nature of personal health data for quality data make them a most interesting use case for data quality management supporting both known and unknown future demands.