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Data Mining
ALSO CALLED: Datamining, Analytics, Data Dredging, Database Analytics, Datamine, Data-mining
DEFINITION: Data dredging, sometimes referred to as "data fishing" is a data mining practice in which large volumes of data are analyzed seeking any possible relationships between data. The traditional scientific method, in contrast, begins with a hypothesis and follows with an examination of the data. Sometimes conducted for unethical purposes, data dredging often circumvents traditional data mining techniques and may lead to premature conclusions. Data dredging is sometimes described as "seeking more information from a data set than it actually contains." Data dredging sometimes results in relationships between variables announced as significant when, in fact, the data require more study before such an association can legitimately be determined. Many variables may be related through chance alone; others may be related through some unknown factor.
Most organizations can be currently labelled 'data rich', since they are collecting increasing volumes of data about business processes and resources. Typically, these Data Mountains are used to provide endless 'facts and figures' such are 'there are 60 categories of occupation', '2000 mortgage accounts are in arrears' etc. Such 'facts and figures' do not represent knowledge but if anything can lead to 'information overload'. However, patterns in the data represent knowledge and most organizations nowadays can be labelled 'knowledge poor'. Our definition of data mining is the process of discovering knowledge from data.
Data mining enables complex business processes to be understood and re-engineered. This can be achieved through the discovery of patterns in data relating to the past behaviour of a business process. Such patterns can be used to improve the performance of a process by exploiting favourable patterns and avoiding problematic patterns.
References
http://www.bitpipe.com/tlist/Data-Mining.html
http://www.ithound.com/browse/business-management/business-intelligence/data-mining
http://www.xpertrule.com/tutor/mining.htm |
