The process of gathering, collecting, or obtaining data from various sources for use in analysis, a system, or a dataset.
Data acquisition is broader than data extraction. It encompasses all the ways an organization obtains data: purchasing datasets, downloading open data, collecting sensor readings, conducting surveys, receiving data feeds, scraping websites, or extracting from internal systems. The term is common in scientific, engineering, and data management contexts.
Good data acquisition practices include documenting the source, date, and method of acquisition for every dataset, and verifying the terms of use before using acquired data.
Example: A research team acquires data for a study on urban heat islands through multiple channels: downloading satellite imagery from NASA's open data portal, purchasing high-resolution aerial photography from a commercial provider, extracting temperature readings from Environment Canada's weather station API, and collecting field measurements using portable sensors. Each acquisition method is documented in the study's methodology.