What term describes detecting errors and reconstructing the original data in transmission?

• A. Error Correcting
• B. Error Detection
• C. Parity Checking
• D. Data Scrubbing

Answer: (A)

Error correction handles both spotting errors and restoring the original data, using redundancy added to the transmission so the receiver can infer and reconstruct what was sent even if some bits are corrupted. This is done with error-correcting codes, often referred to as forward error correction, examples of which include Hamming codes and Reed-Solomon codes. These methods enable the receiver to determine the actual data without needing a retransmission.

In contrast, error detection only signals that something went wrong, without necessarily fixing it. Parity checking is a simple form of error detection that can tell you a mismatch occurred but not correct the data. Data scrubbing is a broader term used for cleaning up corrupted data in storage or processing environments and isn’t the standard descriptor for handling transmission errors.