From the course: Data Analytics for Business Professionals

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Data failure: When data is just wrong

Data failure: When data is just wrong

From the course: Data Analytics for Business Professionals

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Data failure: When data is just wrong

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- In 2010, Nicaraguan troops crossed over the San Juan River and planted their national flag on Calero Island. However, this island had been determined to be a part of Costa Rica, dating all the way back to 1897. So was this a foreign invasion? In fact, this mistaken incursion had a source: bad data from an erroneous Google map, which showed the island within the Nicaraguan borders. According to "The Telegraph," the president of Costa Rica made an appeal to Google, and after investigation, Google acknowledged the error in its maps. Data errors may not be the source of an invasion at your company, but if the underlying data is wrong, all the sophisticated analyses in the world won't suddenly give you better or more reliable results. Sometimes simple errors in the data can lead your analyses quite astray. A few examples to watch for. The fat finger problem. This goes back to the days when people hand-entered data and might have hit a key incorrectly. This can generate sales numbers that…

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