Responsibilities for Data Governance at UNLV
Data Stewards
See Summary - Subject Data Stewards - Community of Interest Stewards - Technical Data Stewards - References
OR go to the Data Stewardship section of the Data Governance Council as data stewards collectively work as the Data Governance Council.
Data Stewards are appointed by Executive Sponsorship Group to carry out the data policies that have been established, as well as the University's overall administrative data security policies. Data Stewards are responsible for making known the rules and procedures to safeguard the data from unauthorized access and abuse. They authorize the use of data within their functional area, and monitor to verify appropriate data access. They assist University data users by providing appropriate documentation and training to support institutional data needs.
There are 3 types of data stewards
1. Subject data stewards whose responsibility for data stored in their own operational unit of the University,
2. Technology, representing the technology component corresponding to the subject area,
3. "Communities of interest". Community of interest stewards are responsible for data elements when ownership is shared across organizational boundaries. One steward will be responsible for collaborating with others to be the "owner". An example is address data, shared among all units who have persons in their data bases.
One individual could serve as a data steward for more than one subject area, and could be both a subject data steward and a "community of interest" data steward.
Each data steward's specific responsibility will be designated at the data element.
Step one in establishing Data Stewardship Responsibility is to address the following questions with each data steward.
1. Describe each area of responsibility.
2. List the data systems used to meet those obligations?
3. Are some of these external to the "core" systems?
4. What data is entered and managed by other departments?
5. What data does your unit enter and manage that is unique?
Subject Data Stewards are responsible for defining the procedures, data meanings and requirements, and for implementing policy in their own subject area. They are responsible both for the business processes, and for the data in their unit. One person could be the subject data steward for multiple area, depending on their job responsibilities.
- Assigning each item of administrative data to one of the following three security levels: Unrestricted, University Confidential, or Restricted sensitivity. See OIT Policy IS02, Information Sensitivity and Classification for further explanation of each category. Approving access requests and authorizing use of data.
- Regularly verifying the accuracy of existing authorizations for individuals in their departments and monitoring for inappropriate access activity.
- Providing data descriptions for data dictionaries that will let data users know what shareable data are available, what the data mean, and how to access the data stored within the databases for which they are responsible.
- Ensuring the rules and conditions that could affect the accurate presentation of data are well known by data users and supporting them in the use and interpretation of administrative data, primarily through documentation, training, and problem resolution.
- Establishing procedures and standards for initial definition and change of data elements within their domain.
- Specifying data viewing, copying or downloading procedures that are unique to a data element or data repository.
A community of interest data steward is probably already a subject data steward in their primary area, although not necessarily. They have the additional responsibility of organizing a small group of stewards whose data crosses organizational boundaries, and which has to be shared with common definitions and values. An example is data related to persons. Someone from Human Relations might be designated to be responsible for contact information, while someone from the student area might be responsible for demographic information (age, gender, etc). There would in this example be a community of interest data steward for personal contact data, and another for personal demographic data. Any decision or action regarding data that crosses organizational boundaries will be the result of collaboration and consensus, but is the Community of Interest steward who is responsible for that negotiating and communication of decisions. Any disagreements or differences in perceived need will be directed to the Executive Sponsorship group for resolution.
The technical data steward works with the aligned subject data steward on the same system or database. They have the operational responsibility for the maintenance of the data base/system environment that supports the application. These will be individuals with IT experience and skills.
Their expertise will be valuable in locating and implementing tools (ex. Metadata Management products, repository) that will be part of the data governance and managed data environment.
References specific to Data Stewardship
The Data Administration Newsletter July, 2005
DATA STEWARD ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Robert S. Seiner, KIK Consulting & Educational Services, LLC & TDAN.com
DMReview, Information Is Your Business --DM Direct Newsletter November 10, 2006 Issue
Man in the Middle: The Evolving Role of the Data Steward
By Tony Fisher
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Data Stewards
Computerworld - March 15, 2004, Mary Brandel
Data Stewards Seek Data Conformity
They have a variety of different titles, but these analysts work with the IT and business groups to improve data quality and standardization.
CRM News, 12 Jul 2004
A data steward's job is never done
By Barney Beal, News Writer
The Data Administration Newsletter
DATA STEWARDSHIP: FINALLY A PROCESS FOR ACHIEVING DATA INTEGRITY
Claudia Imhoff, Intelligent Solutions, Inc.
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