1. Designing for Repurposable Data
The fast pace and unpredictability of business decision-making can require repurposable data – data that can flexibly accommodate new business requirements. However, to acquire repurposable data, businesses must contend with the challenges of designing data collection systems that measure and improve data repurposability while ensuring data quality. Using the example of data crowdsourcing systems – systems that pool data about observations and experiences from the crowd for decision-making purposes – we propose design principles to guide the collection of repurposable data. We also outline a research program to examine the potential benefits and pitfalls of seeking repurposable data and how to design data collection systems to realize these benefits while mitigating the pitfalls. We discuss our ongoing research in this area and opportunities for further research on data repurposability.