Data Governance Council 2018-19 Annual Report

Approved September 12, 2019 

• Adoption of new academic level codes (U5 and U6) for students pursuing additional baccalaureate degrees
• Resolution of admit types used on East campus to properly code students new to the institution vs. new to East campus.
• Standardization and clean-up of academic plan names and naming conventions
• Adoption of process and coding structure for tracking students who were in the foster care system
• Resolution of item type mismatches between finance and financial aid tables 

Completed projects will improve compliance efforts for financial aid distribution, identification of cohorts for federal graduation rates and outcomes measures, improve distribution of reports Tableau dashboards, comply with SUNY requirements to report foster care information, and align reporting between finance and financial aid. 

In progress projects are listed below.

Completed initial data asset inventory

The DGC extended its efforts to implement the University Data Strategy by creating an inventory of major university data assets. This inventory includes 80 data assets principally associated with the University and 161 data assets associated with the hospital and clinical practice.  For the University, the DGC identified responsible administrators as primary contacts for 77 data assets, gathered a basic description of contents, identified storage location, and collected a sensitivity level based on Stony Brook’s P302 Sensitive Information Classification Policy.

   

For the Hospital, it was determined that advancement of the data asset inventory would be coordinated in conjunction with update of the Hospital’s recovery plan. Inventories would be merged subsequently.

Oversaw initial implementation of Data Cookbook metadata management tool

The Data Cookbook was acquired at the end of 2017-18. This metadata management tool provides a repository for data definitions and other metadata that will be integrated with existing data tools. 

In 2018-19, the technical implementation team configured all administrative components of Data Cookbook, including alignment with SBU Data Dictionary Standards, workflow creation, establishing security roles and user permissions for data stewards, integration with NetID for single sign-on, and configuration of the API for integration with existing data tools. Content developed includes 75 definitions and 15 specifications. The Data Cookbooks was demonstrated to the DGC and FDGCs.

In 2019-20, the team will develop best practices, naming conventions and style sheet for developing definitions; train data stewards on the process to manage data definitions for their area; create profiles for existing reports and analytics as integration points for the Data Cookbook; and add the required coding and files to finalize the report and analytics integration.

Demonstrated improvement in maturity of data governance 

In May 2019, the DGC evaluated the university’s maturity in data governance practices compared to a baseline measured in spring 2017. This maturity model measures practices in communication, culture, organizational structures, data quality, and roles and responsibilities across five data domains: financial, student/academic, human resources, research, and facilities.  Maturity was rated on a 5-point scale (1-informal, 2-developing, 3-adopted & implemented, 4-managed & repeatable, 5-integrated and optimized). Members of the DGC and the Functional Data Governance Committees were invited to participate; 32 responses were received. Overall, maturity improved from the “developing” range to the “adopted & implemented” range.