What is Data Governance?

Data governance includes all the policies and practices that ensure UDW+ provides the university community with accurate and consistent information while protecting data security and confidentiality. Establishing systematic data management has been one of the principal objectives of the UDW+ Program.

The key goals of establishing NYU's Data Governance Infrastructure include the following:

  • University Administrative Data Management Policy
  • Common definitions and metadata to facilitate efficient and accurate use by the reporting community. The components of UDW+ metadata include:
    • Common definitions to control inconsistent reporting, maintained in the NYU Business Glossary
    • A data dictionary of all UDW+ data elements
    • For ad hoc reporting, mouse-over access to the definition of individual data elements
    • Relevant information about the data, definitions, available drills, use notes and target audience for all dashboard pages and reports
  • Governance structure and process for data validation, data and content certification, and metadata.
  • Data governance practices that ensure the ongoing integrity of UDW+ data and support the certification of published content. Data management practices include the following:
    • Data and content validation
    • Ongoing certification of data and standard reports
    • Business process validation
    • Error management
    • Metadata management
    • Security and access management

Data Trustees, Data Stewards and Data Custodians have been or will be actively engaged in these subject areas and will continue to work with the Decision Support Group and UDW+ team in certifying and validating data.

To coordinate all data governance efforts, NYU established a Data Governance Initiative organized through the Office of Institutional Research and Data Integrity, with a website dedicated to that effort.

UDW+ Security