Evaluation of Duplicate Detection Algorithms: From Quality Measures to Test Data Generation

Duplicate detection identifies multiple records in a dataset that represent the same real-world object. Many such approaches exist, both in research and in industry. To investigate essential properties of duplicate detection algorithms, such as their result quality or runtime behavior, they must be executed on suitable test data. The quality evaluation requires that these test data are labeled, constituting a ground truth. Correctly labeled, sizable, and real or at least realistic test datasets, however, are not easy to obtain, creating an obstacle for the advancement of research. In this tutorial, we present common methods to evaluate duplicate detection algorithms and to generate labeled test data. We close with a discussion of open problems.