Utility

{
  "id": "MLC-T-ENV-029422",
  "term": "Utility",
  "field": "Environment",
  "definition": "1. One of three main components of quality in EPA's Information Quality Guidelines. Utility refers to the usefulness of the information to the intended users.\n\n2. A utility is a municipal or private business that provides electricity to the public and is subject to governmental regulation.\n\n3. The extent to which an evaluation produces and disseminates reports that inform relevant audiences and have beneficial impact on their work.\n\n4. The satisfaction of wants and needs obtained from the use or consumption of goods and services (including \"passive\" uses). Synonymous in the aggregate with social welfare.\n\n5. A criterion for information quality under the OMB and EPA Information Quality Guidelines (IQGs). \"Utility\" refers to the usefulness of the information to its intended users, including the public. In assessing the usefulness of information that the agency disseminates to the public, the agency needs to consider the uses of the information not only from the perspective of the agency but also from the perspective of the public. As a result, when reproducibility and transparency of information are relevant for assessing the information's usefulness from the public's perspective, the agency must take care to ensure that reproducibility and transparency have been addressed in its review of the information.\n\n6. One of three main components of quality in EPA’s Information Quality Guidelines. “Utility” refers to the usefulness of the information to the intended users (EPA 2002a).",
  "subject": "Policy and guidance",
  "references": [
    "Modeling Glossary",
    "Clean Energy Glossary; Green Power Markets Glossary",
    "Program Evaluation Glossary",
    "Core Ecosystem Services Research Program Standard Lexicon",
    "Great Lakes: Quality Management Training - Data Review Glossary; Great Lakes: Quality Management Training - Quality Glossary",
    "EPA Guidance on the Development, Evaluation and Application of Environmental Models EPA/100/K-09/003 | March 2009 at http://www.epa.gov/crem/library/cred_guidance_0309.pdf"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/environment/utility/"
}