ALCOA or ALCOA+

My colleague Michelle Eldridge recently shared this video for the differences between ALCOA and ALCOA+ from learnaboutgmp. It’s cute, it’s to the point, it makes a nice primer.

As I’ve mentioned before, the MHRA in it’s data integrity guidance did take a dig at ALCOA+:

The guidance refers to the acronym ALCOA rather than ‘ALCOA +’. ALCOA being Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original, and Accurate and the ‘+’ referring to Complete, Consistent, Enduring, and Available. ALCOA was historically regarded as defining the attributes of data quality that are suitable for regulatory purposes. The ‘+’has been subsequently added to emphasise the requirements. There is no difference in expectations regardless of which acronym is used since data governance measures should ensure that data is complete, consistent, enduring and available throughout the data lifecycle.

Two things should be drawn from this:

1. Data Integrity is a set of best practices that are still developing, so make sure you are pushing that development and not ignoring it. Much better to be pushing the boundaries of the “c” then end up being surprised.
2. I actually agree with the MHRA. Complete, consistent, enduring and available are really just subsets of the others. But, like they also say the acronym means little, just make sure you are doing it.

Data Integrity, it’s the new quality culture.