Improving Business Intelligence Traceability and Accountability

A Business Intelligence (BI) system provides users with multi-dimensional information (a so-called ‘BI product') to support decision-making. However, existing BI systems overlook the lineage metadata which supports individual data quality dimensions such as data believability and ease of understanding. Using a design science research paradigm, this paper proposes and develops an integrated framework (known as BI Product and Metacontent Map - ‘BIP-Map') to facilitate the traceability and accountability of BI products. Specifically, the business workflow layer of the integrated framework is modelled using business process modelling notation, and an information product map is used to model the second layer's information manufacturing process, whilst the third layer represents the metacontent detail of the data validation stage, from source system through to ETL, to the data warehousing stage. Also, the authors develop a BIP-Map informed prototype in collaboration with an online job advertising firm, the framework then being validated by key BI stakeholders of the firm. The integrated framework addresses individual-related data quality issues and builds user confidence by enhancing the traceability and accountability of a BI product.