Education

What is Data Governance?   Why is it important to SMU?

• Data as a University asset has value like any other University asset.
• Data serves as a foundation for the information needed by decision makers to inform and guide the decision making process.
• Data serves as a foundation for reporting based compliance and regulation requirements of the University.
• Data is owed by the University with individual Data Stewards responsible for the oversight and regulation of that data.
• Data Governance establishes the policies, procedures, and methods for access to, and the appropriate use of, University owned data.
• Data Governance determines the primary system of record for data elements, as well as helping to coordinate efforts toward superior data quality including data input, data storage, data extraction, reports and visualizations.
• Data Governance is already occurring at the University, but a formal Data Governance program helps to keep “big picture” information needs in focus, by helping to coordinate and refine the already occurring Data Governance processes.