Summary Proposal for a University Data Management Structure
University data are institutional assets maintained by the University to support its central missions of teaching, research, and service. Lack of University oversight in the area of data management leaves UNLV without a long-term direction for effectively using information resources to support university goals and objectives. Currently, there are no University-wide policies and procedures that ensure consistency within or across our student, financial, and human resource data systems. This situation places UNLV at a disadvantage in its ability to use new technologies that promote our status as a research university. The Director of Institutional Analysis and Planning, at the direction of the CIOC and Integrated Information Systems Steering Group (IISSG), proposes that a three-tier committee structure, a senior data administrator assigned to the Office of Institutional Analysis, and one assistant data administrator assigned to each of the enterprise functions, be established to recommend and implement policies and procedures that:
1. Improve the quality of the data, including accuracy, timeliness, and definition;
2. Improve the security of the data, including confidentiality and protection from loss;
3. Improve ease of access, assuring that data are easily located, easily accessed once located, and that people have enough information about the data to understand what they have found; provide clear and accessible documentation about data; make data more accessible to non-technical users;
4. Reduce the redundancy of the data, by supporting sharing of data rather than replicating it in multiple sources and by integrating data from separate operational systems;
5. Provide the university with the opportunity to make data accessible from legacy systems, bridging the gap until new systems are in place;
6. Prepare the university for potential conversions to new systems by improving data and processes.
The committee structure would consist of a Data Policy Committee, a Data Managers Committee, and associated Users Groups. Together these groups would represent policy-level and operational-level responsibility for managing the University’s information resources. Data managers from each enterprise level system would establish the Data Users Groups to provide a formal mechanism for communication among data users, data processors, and data managers. These individuals connect the data managers to ways in which the institution uses the data.
The role of the central data administrator is to manage institutional data as a University resource so that members of the campus community have the information that they need, when they need it, to do their jobs. A data administrator manages the resource of university data in the same way other administrators manage facilities, money, and employees. This is a highly specialized position that would provide expertise on nationally accepted data standards and principles governing the use and creation of data at UNLV, working directly with managers and users to resolve data problems and conflicts. This position would be instrumental in the creation and maintenance of a University-wide enterprise data model and architecture that serve as a framework for technological decision-making, including the design and implementation of new data systems. The data and information-oriented focus of this position and need for the active support of senior management would benefit from a reporting relationship within the Office of Institutional Analysis and Planning and its close association to institutional planning.
There will be additional responsibilities associated with implementing campus policies and standards for managing data within the administrative computing units. In order to ensure implementation of procedures and compliance with standards for managing data, each of the three enterprise functions will need a qualified individual charged with these responsibilities. This expertise is not available currently.
Approved by CIOC, 3-2005
Approved by Cabinet, 4-2005