Responsibilities for Data Governance at UNLV
Overview
The function of applying formal guidelines and tools to manage the University's information resource is termed data governance. Responsibility for the activities of data governance is shared among the Executive Sponsors, data stewards, data administrators, data users, and the University Data Quality Administrator.
Overview of Roles for Governing University Data
The Executive Sponsors are senior University officials who have planning and policy-level responsibility and accountability for data, including its creation and maintenance, within their appropriate functional area. They fill a knowledge management role at UNLV. By understanding the planning needs of the institution, they are able to anticipate how data will be used to meet these needs. The trustees work and bring in people as needed to translate data to accomplish this role. Read reports to Executive Sponsors from Data Stewards.
Data Stewards
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 will be 3 kinds of data stewards - those with ownership for data stored in their own unit at the University, those representing technology, and those representing "communities of interest". Community of interest data stewards have responsibility when data elements are commonly used 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 people in their data bases.
Area "Experts"
Area Data "Experts" are individuals within the University, reporting to a Data Steward, who have an intricate understanding of the data in their area. They establish procedures for the Governance of data, including data entry, and reporting. Other Data Administrators are part of a technology unit with responsibilities for implementing the decisions of the stewards in functional areas, assuring that backups retention plans are implemented according to defined needs and assuring that database software and hardware operates as it should. . Because these " data experts" have a hands on role with data, they evaluate for quality and integrity of the data.
Data Users Groups
Data stewards from each enterprise level system would establish the Data Users Groups to provide a formal mechanism for communication among data users, area "experts", and data stewards. These individuals connect the data stewards to ways in which the institution uses the data.
University Data Quality Administrator
This individual works with the campus community to define a campus-wide structure of data stewardship by making explicit the roles and responsibilities associated with data management and monitoring compliance. This person is responsible for coordinating data policies and procedures in the three primary enterprise data systems: Finance, Student, and Human Resources, ensuring representation of data stewards, managers, and key users. This person is also responsible for developing a culture of data governance beyond the major administrative systems, to those smaller but critical databases. Establishing an effective campus-wide communication structure will be key to success in this position.