Data Governance Committee

datagovernance-chairs@pugetsound.edu

What is Data Governance?

Data governance is the framework providing the necessary structure, strategy, and support needed to ensure that all data have integrity, are collaboratively managed, and can be relied upon as a critical University asset.

What is an Institutional Data System?

An institutional data system is an interconnected set of technological resources such as databases, software, applications, and network components, either onsite or provided as a service by a third party, designed to organize, process, store, and distribute data for specific operational functions within an organization.

Data Roles

Data Owner

  • Department(s) responsible for creating, entering, editing, and/or managing data within one or more institutional data systems.
  • Accountable for the data asset - its integrity, quality, validity, and security.

Data Steward

  • Primary person(s), typically the department head, providing oversight of data within each relevant data-owning (as defined above) department. 
  • Responsible for and has authority to make decisions about specific sets of institutional data, including determining data classification, defining requirements for security controls, ensuring appropriate use, and approving access to data owned by the department.
  • Serves to promote the data needs of their department and the institution at-large.
  • Ensures communication and coordination with other departments regarding (but not limited to) changes to existing data and the addition of new data in institutional data system(s).
  • Ensures their data fields are clearly defined and that the definitions are made available to relevant Data Managers and Data Users.
  • Ensures data are compliant with institutional, state, and/or federal regulations (where applicable).
  • Provides oversight of reporting, internally or externally, on data for which their department is responsible.
  • Ensures their department is represented on the Data Governance Committee.
  • Identifies Data Managers within their areas of responsibility. 

Data Manager

  • Person(s) responsible for managing their department’s data within an institutional data system. 
  • Responsible for loading or entering data into an institutional system and validating the results.
  • Responsible for ensuring appropriate security controls are in place as identified by the Data Owner and Data Steward(s).
  • Executes routine audits of their department’s data to assess its completeness and accuracy.
  • Identifies and corrects errors and other data issues within an institutional data system.
  • Notifies the data steward(s) (and other departments) of errors, corrections, or other changes to data values when necessary; in particular, when such data issues may affect the operations of other departments.
  • Assists the data steward(s) in creating and maintaining definitions of their department’s data fields.
  • Summarizes and visualizes institutional data to fulfill internal or external data requests. 

Data User

  • Any person(s) or entity with viewing access to institutional data. 
  • Responsible for handling data appropriately according to its sensitivity.
  • May have permissions to generate or access queries or extracts from institutional data systems. 
  • Person(s) with access to summarized data or limited unit record-level data from institutional data systems via other Data Users, Data Managers, or Data Stewards.
  • Includes the campus community at-large, though individuals’ access will vary based on various factors including the sensitivity of the reported data.

 

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