Accountability Structure
One of the first steps in developing an accountability model for data governance is to define responsibilities for the university's data assets. Data can be segmented into data domains, which typically represent broad categories of data, and further divide into sub-domains, which are more specific areas within these domains that are used for assigning stewardship of data.
Data responsibilities have been assigned based on the accountability structure to the right.
Data Governors are Senior Executives who are accountable for the University's strategic goals. They champion change in data use and sharing practices, and provide direction to leverage opportunities for innovation using data and emerging technologies while ensuring oversight for protection of data assets.
Data Trustees are members of the University leadership team who have legislative or delegated authority over policies and procedures about access, usage, and business definitions for their assigned data domain. Their role in enterprise data governance is to develop a strategic, cross-functional view of domain data for the benefit of the university, to promote data governance within the domain’s business processes, to resolve conflicts, and to remove barriers to data access and usage.
Data Trustees make decisions to give access to domain data for disclosed uses and decide on safeguards and standards that should be in place to manage data risks. They also oversee the development of policies, standards, and common definitions to realize the shared value of data.
Specific responsibilities include:
- identifying and appointing Data Stewards and ensuring their time is allocated for data governance;
- reviewing and approving access requests for data in their domain;
- participating in development of common policies and standards to ensure accuracy, integrity, standardization, and accessibility of data for the university; overseeing the development of common definitions for critical data (Data Glossary);
- overseeing the classification of data in their domain as per data classification standards;
- resolving issues escalated from data stewards and/or data working groups; and
- providing advice to the Data Governance Council and its sub-committees.
Data Stewards are designated individual(s) authorized by Data Trustees as having direct operational responsibility for the management of one or more sub-domains of institutional data. Data Stewards are the focal point for data governance activity and issue resolution. They propose and finalize business definitions, in collaboration with data users, as well as manage and maintain data quality, confidentiality and integrity. Data Stewards also recommend or make decisions about data sharing and escalate decisions to Data Trustees as needed.
Specific responsibilities include:
Data Access, Sharing and Usage
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facilitating appropriate use and sharing of data in compliance with the Data Access Sharing Usage (DASU) Standard, the Data Usage Request (DUR) Form and Guidelines;
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making decisions or recommendations to data trustees for data requests to facilitate timely action;
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providing advice for data usage and interpretation to data users;
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supporting data discovery by ensuring data in the sub-domain is available in future enterprise data catalogues and repositories; and
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participating in initiatives for developing common definitions for the university-wide data glossary.
Data Quality
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participating in enterprise initiatives for the development of data quality standards;
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regularly evaluating data quality and enforcing data quality standards;
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identifying and resolving data quality issues (integrity, timeliness, accuracy, completeness); and
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identifying and recommending solutions to address data discrepancies and issues.
Data Protection and Privacy
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maintaining awareness of, and compliance with, legislation, policies, and standards;
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ensuring data in sub-domains are managed based on risk level and in compliance with data classification standards;
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consulting legal and privacy offices for requests involving personal information or when developing data-sharing agreements;
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reporting privacy breaches as per the reporting process; and
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ensuring staff training for handling personal or confidential information.
Data Custodians are technology experts who have authority for the operation and management of systems, platforms and servers that collect, manage and provide access to data. Data Custodians are responsible for the security, transport, and storage of data, implementing business rules and de-identification protocols based on decisions received from the data steward. Also referred to as “IT System Owners,” they ensure compliance with data architecture principles, security policies, and standards that govern the design and collection of data and metadata.
Specific responsibilities include:
- ensuring solution design and implementation are aligned with policies and architecture principles for data and information security;
- ensuring security practices for all supported systems and solutions; coordinating with Data Stewards and Business System Owners to ensure integrity, quality, and security of data within application systems;
- initiating privacy breach notification and reporting activities in the event of a breach; and
- providing advice and guidance to Data Stewards and data governance tables as a trusted advisor on data management principles and best practices.
A Data User (also known as a Data Consumer) is an individual who consumes or uses data. A Data User is granted access to view and use data for specified purposes. They can make use of data “as is” or can develop insights and analytic products, and interpret data.
Specific responsibilities include:
- using the documented process and Data Usage Request (DUR) Form and Guidelines for making requests as specified in the DASU Standard;
- understanding data and following access and permission-associated rules;
- ensuring sign-off by Data Trustees/Stewards on data insights generated and used for publishing or wider sharing;
- protecting personally identifiable information from release and ensure the sanctity of de-identified information;
- seeking approval from Data Trustees/Stewards for non-specified uses, or for releasing and sharing of data with non-specified users; and
- ensuring storage, retention and archiving based on relevant policies and standards.
A Business System Owner (also referred to as an Organization System Owner) is responsible for articulating the needs of their business area of the organization. They take part in the development of systems and work with data stewards and data custodians (who are IT system owners) and are responsible for the technical environment and database structure.
Data Producers are people in administrative or academic units who collect or create data during the regular course of their day-to-day activities and responsibilities.
Find Data Trustees and Stewards
Visit our list of assigned Data Trustees and Data Stewards (accessible to Queen's staff and faculty members):