During the development of this paper we have been drawing some explicit conclusions which were stated at the end of each chapter. They were then used for justifying and introducing our effort in the subsequent chapter. We present now an overview of the whole study in the form of a combined series of the earlier statements and some concluding remarks.

The reviewed EDP literature does not present definitions of quality of information, in the sense that no explicit support is found for the formulation of operational definitions of the concept.

The quality of information, however, is of fundamental importance for the development and use of data-banks and information systems: this is the opinion implied in the reviewed EDP literature and it also is implied by the lack of a scientifically justified cost-benefit analysis of data-banks and information systems.

We have reviewed empirical results and reported experience intuitively or explicitly related to quality of information in EDP. Their quantitative content assumes a concept of quality in terms of communication theory - theory of signal transmission.

The utilization of such results and experience in the context of a particular information system, as well as the development of other necessary measures, require a broader concept of quality.

It is possible to illustrate some of the consequences of the communication approach to quality by observing that it may easily lead to the uncritical acceptance of aggregated data in the context of high-level decision-making. It may also lead to a technical interpretation of the coding issue disregarding the possibility to consider it as a source of symptoms of inadequate model building or systems design.

The search for an adequate concept of quality leads to regarding information systems and data-banks as integrating different theories or models at different levels of "maturity". This integration requires the development of an overall concept of quality of information.

It is possible to meet this requirement by redefining accuracy and precision as two aspects of overall quality of information, with the purpose of allowing inferences on the reproducibility of the computational results.

Our study provides a starting point and a set of suggestions on how to proceed in order to develop a complete and detailed quality-control of information in the context of a particular information systems.

A fundamentally important overall conclusion from this study is that the quality-control effort must be concetrated on designing into the systems those features which allow for THE STRONGEST DISAGREEMENT.

Eventually, this study raises suggestions concerning the existence and possible solution of some important quality problems. In a more informal way, and in different degree of justification the suggestions are presented in appendix A11 in the form of comments, questions, and proposals for further action. Some of the suggestions, like regarding the right to know and disagree about personal attributes, stem directly from the main arguments of our study and should be regarded as strong recommendations for immediate action. Other suggestions are more loose speculations about exceedingly complex and important matters: they are presented in order to stimulate debate and further research.