Data Governance Roles

Domain Executive

A domain executive is an upper-level university administrator who provides direction for a functional area of the university. Domain executives are responsible for establishing procedures and communicating to the university community policies applicable to institutional data domains under their oversight. The domain executive has the highest level of responsibility for the management of institutional data in their area and will interpret and clarify data policy when necessary.

Domain executive responsibilities include:

Advocate for data-informed decision making and establish strategies to encourage and recognize the successful use of data to impact institutional outcomes.
Engage in data-related strategic planning and approve policies for all organizational units under the executive’s charge that manage or receive institutional data.
Allocate necessary resources to support data objectives, data literacy, and data insight development.
Collaborate with other domain executives to resolve data conflicts at the highest level and ensure institutional data policies align with one another.

Data Trustee

A data trustee is a senior university administrator with strategic and policy-setting authority for an operational area that uses a system or application serving as an authoritative source of data relied upon by the campus community. The data trustee is responsible for establishing institutional data business usage standards, identifying data stewards, ensuring institutional data is appropriately classified, and periodically monitoring compliance.

Data trustee responsibilities include:

Designate and manage data stewards for the trustee’s data domain.
Ensure that data stewards and their organizational units actively support the policies, programs, and guidelines of data and information governance.
Establish data stewardship as an essential job duty for appropriate direct reports.
Provide conflict resolution in cases where stewardship polices are not clear or closer examination is needed.

Data Steward

A data steward is a staff member with oversight responsibility for a subset of institutional data. The steward is typically an end user within an operational area who is deemed an expert with regard to the data managed by that operational area. They may also be considered data owners or stewards of data stores/systems they purchase, operate, or contract with third/party services providers to operate or host. Data stewards’ core responsibilities should be clearly defined within their individual position descriptions.

Data steward responsibilities include:

Serve as the primary point of contact and coordination for data management issues and operations within the steward’s data domain.
With appropriate controls and restrictions, ensure broad access to institutional data that enables institutional and organizational unit operations, reporting, business intelligence, and decision support.
Determine and document classification of data elements and assets.
Understand and apply security and privacy standards, guidelines, and practices.
Review access requests and assign permissions to institutional data, information, and systems, as appropriate, to end users (internal and external), organizational units, system integrations, and sharing agreements.
Before issuing access and permissions (internal or external), verify users have accepted responsibility for appropriate use and confidentiality of data, technology, and user credentials.
Review and determine acceptability, conditions, and controls applicable to requests for institutional data to be processed, stored, or hosted by a third party.
Actively represent the concerns and interests of the steward’s organizational unit through participation in the Data Governance Council.
Carry out activities and directives approved by the data trustee to whom the steward reports.

Data Custodian

A data custodian is a system administrator or other technical professional who is responsible for some aspect of the management and operation of a system that serves as a source of institutional data. Data custodians are responsible for the technical aspects of maintaining institutional data, including implementing appropriate safeguards and monitoring usage and policy compliance.

Data custodian responsibilities include:

Provide a secure infrastructure in support of the data.

Ensure system availability and adequate response time.
Participate in setting data governance priorities.

Data Liaison

A data liaison is a unit representative in the institutional data hub-and-spoke structure. While their specific duties may vary, data liaisons act as advisers and resources for their organizational leadership, units, and individual data users. They champion the use of data within their units and serve as a communication channel between data users in the unit and the central hub (including data stewards and data providers).

Data liaison responsibilities include:

Act as a conduit between organizational and departmental data users with the central data hub.
Champion data informed decision making.
Listen and learn from constituents their data needs and obstacles so that they can be shared with data stewards, data providers and data custodians.
Push information about institutional data, as shared from the central hub to the appropriate individuals within the org and departmental units.
In conjunction with institutional resources, provide data literacy and data interpretation support.

Data Provider

A data provider is an individual who provides institutional data to campus members in the form of raw data, insights, reports, or dashboards to support data-driven decision making.

Data provider responsibilities include:

Ensure data stewards are aware of, and approve, the intended use of data they are sharing with users.
Ensure data is being provided to users in a manner that aligns with institutional policies and procedures.
Ensure users are trained in the appropriate use and handling of the data being provided.

Data Consumer

Any University of Iowa employee, regardless of role or level, is a data consumer. In today’s digital environment, all employees are exposed to institutional data and are expected to be familiar with policies regarding its appropriate use.

Data consumer responsibilities include:

Use institutional data for the sole purpose of fulfilling the responsibilities of the consumer’s role within the institution.
Use institutional data in a way that complies with data confidentiality, handling, and appropriate use policies.
Work with data liaisons and data stewards to understand institutional data and use it appropriately.
Use institutional resources to advance individual data literacy skills.