# Undefined By Data: A Survey of Big Data Definitions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.5821 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1309.5821/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 20 Sep 2013.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Do Datasets Have Politics? Disciplinary Values in Computer Vision Dataset Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.04308/) (2021)
- [The State-of-the-Art in Air Pollution Monitoring and Forecasting Systems using IoT, Big Data, and Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.09574/) (2023)
- [Identification of Dynamical Systems using Symbolic Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06131/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The term big data has become ubiquitous. Owing to a shared origin between academia, industry and the media there is no single unified definition, and various stakeholders provide diverse and often contradictory definitions. The lack of a consistent definition introduces ambiguity and hampers discourse relating to big data. This short paper attempts to collate the various definitions which have gained some degree of traction and to furnish a clear and concise definition of an otherwise ambiguous term.