ALCOA+
The nine attributes of trustworthy data: attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original, accurate, plus complete, consistent, enduring and available.
The original five letters came from FDA inspection vocabulary in the 1990s; the plus four were added later as electronic records made completeness and longevity the harder problems. Together they work as a checklist you can hold against any single record, paper or electronic, and instantly see where it bends.
The practical use is diagnostic. Shared logins break attributable. End-of-shift recording from memory breaks contemporaneous. Reporting only the passing run breaks complete. Almost every data integrity finding ever written maps to one of the nine words, which is why the acronym refuses to retire.
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