Which term describes a change in the structure of data over time, such as renaming attributes in a dataset?

Which term describes a change in the structure of data over time, such as renaming attributes in a dataset?

• A. data drift
• B. schema drift
• C. format drift
• D. structure drift

Answer: (B)

The change describes how the data’s schema evolves over time. When the structure of the data itself changes—like attribute names being renamed, new fields appearing, or existing fields being removed—that is schema drift. This is distinct from changes in the values those fields take (data drift) or changes in how the data is formatted or serialized (format drift). Renaming an attribute is a classic example of a schema change, which is why the term schema drift is the correct description.

The change describes how the data’s schema evolves over time. When the structure of the data itself changes—like attribute names being renamed, new fields appearing, or existing fields being removed—that is schema drift. This is distinct from changes in the values those fields take (data drift) or changes in how the data is formatted or serialized (format drift). Renaming an attribute is a classic example of a schema change, which is why the term schema drift is the correct description.