Institutional data are an important strategic and ever-growing asset of the University. Data Governance is the coordination and collaboration of people, processes and technology across the University to manage institutional data—a framework that establishes overarching principles and guidelines to inform policies and procedures to manage data acquisition, classification, accessibility, integrity, security, retention, disposal and privacy. Essentially, it is central to knowing where, when, with whom and how we share and store data.
Institutional Data Definition
All data that is created, owned, received, stored, or managed by Villanova University. This includes all data that the University is legally or contractually obligated to secure.
Institutional Data includes all forms of information, records, or documents in paper or electronic format, including but not limited to word-processing or portable document format files, spreadsheets, databases, e-mails, web pages, images, and videos. Institutional Data does not include documents, records or other data owned by members of the Villanova community that is for personal use or otherwise unrelated or incidental to any business or educational purpose of the University.
Institutional data, that is currently under the scope of the data governance policies, is defined as administrative, academic and data gathered through University administered surveys predominantly used for administrative reporting and decision-making purposes.
Exclusions:
Any individual who interacts with any University administrative data systems—enters data, manages, curates and uses it for reporting, planning and/or decision-making.
The Data Governance Ecosystem depicts the continual interrelationships of people, processes and technology—the Data Governance Committee comprising of the Data Governance Board and the Data Stewards Committee are responsible for developing and maintaining the standards and the policies that will help guide the set-up of the centralized data environment, and how data is managed and consumed by the various university constituents.
Data Governance is a University-wide initiative sponsored by the Provost, on behalf of the President—responsible for overall project prioritization, approval and funding as well as ensuring project resources are available for meeting project goals and timelines.
View the Office of the Provost website.
Comprised of the senior leadership of the University, the President’s Cabinet are Data Trustees who have planning and policy-making responsibilities for Institutional Data and ensures that effective data management principles are created and applied to University data, reviews and offer feedback to data standards and policies for effective use, maintenance, retention and protection of University data drafted by the Data Governance Board, and recommends to the Board of Trustees for approval. The Cabinet is responsible for overseeing the establishment of Institutional Data management policies and procedures, and for the assignment of data management accountability.
View the University Leadership.
Comprised of Data Domain Trustees and key data users, members of the DGB are senior manager level employees who are responsible for the content of information systems at the University and who liaise between colleges/departments/units and IT. They drive the data management and quality recommendations for specific subject areas.
The data domain trustees have subject matter expertise in administrative, financial and technology issues. They serve as coordinators of data sources, security, accuracy, and ensures best practices are implemented across the University. The data domain trustees also manage the authorization of data access for both data stewards and data end users.
Data users who sit on the DGB are active participants in the university data governance structure but are not responsible for information system content. These data users share responsibility for the stewardship and protection of institutional data and accountability for the appropriate use and dissemination of data. The Data Domain Trustees implement policy as established by Data Trustees, assign Data Stewards, and serve as the first escalation point for problem/policy resolution from the Data Stewards. The Assistant Vice Provost for Decision Support and Data Integrity sits on the DGB and acts as the liaison for this group with the President’s Cabinet.
Data Stewards are typically operational managers in a functional area with day-to-day responsibilities for managing business processes and establishing the business rules for the Transactional Systems. Data Stewards are appointed by the respective Data Domain Trustees. Data Stewards managing a segment of Institutional Data and have responsibility for approving access requests and maintaining controls over access to their assigned segment of Institutional Data. DSC reviews the operational effectiveness of Institutional Data management policies and procedures and makes recommendations to the Data Governance Committee for improvement or change.
Membership:
Office of Decision Support & Data Integrity
Student Domain
College Domain
Advancement
Finance Domain
Office of Strategic Planning & Institutional Effectiveness
University Information Technology (Data Custodians)
Data Custodians are are information technology experts assigned to each transactional and reporting system which maintains Institutional Data. They oversee the safe transport and storage of data, establish and maintain the underlying infrastructure, and perform activities required to keep the data intact and available to users. In addition, Data Custodians are responsible for working with Data Stewards and the Office of Decision Support and Data Integrity to develop automated processes which identify erroneous, inconsistent, or missing data.
Data Users are individuals who access Institutional Data to perform their assigned duties. Data Users are responsible for safeguarding their access privileges, for the use of the Institutional Data in conformity with all applicable University policies, and for securing such data. Data Users have responsibility to think critically about the information and evaluate the accuracy of information available. Data discrepancies and inconsistencies should be reported to the area Data Steward. Data users must comply with all university requirements, policies, procedures, and contracts. Includes students, faculty, visiting faculty, staff, volunteers, alumni, persons hired or retained to perform work for the University, and any other person extended access and use privileges by the University under contractual agreements or otherwise. Employees who are Data Users relinquish university data when employment ends
The Office of Decision Support and Data Integrity shall be responsible for working with the appropriate Data Stewards to develop definitions of commonly used terms and will define how official University metrics are calculated. Further, in the course of its work, the Office of Decision Support and Data Integrity will typically discover data discrepancies and inconsistencies and will promptly report such to the appropriate Data Steward for resolution.
Comprised of support business areas such as University IT, University Compliance, University General Counsel and Internal Audit.
Three working groups comprising of the data governance board members are currently working on the following policies:
