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why it matters
why it matters
Establishing data governance — the way you will manage data — is a critical step for ensuring the sustainability of a data project. This step includes establishing guidelines for data management, assigning roles and responsibilities to data owners and stewards, defining data processes and workflows, and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. This process is complex, but breaking the work up into stages can be a helpful way to ensure the project is well-organized and facilitates implementation.
Checklist
Checklist
Map roles and responsibilities for the data pipeline, ranging from data entry all the way to decision making. Clearly defining these points will support project implementation and sustainability.
Identify an interagency champion who has the credibility and motivation to effectively advocate for the adoption of data governance practices.
Clarify data ownership and document how data will move through the system.
Craft the requisite data sharing agreements, ensuring you have accounted for all local, state, and federal compliance and privacy regulations.
Consult with legal experts to identify solutions for potential legal barriers to data-sharing.
Key Questions
Key Questions
What are the key pieces of data, where do they come from, and what is their purpose? How do they come together to achieve your project goals?
Who collects, manages, and verifies data quality? Who integrates data sources and generates reports? Imbalances in who controls data can lead to data bias issues.
Are you disaggregating data to help identify inequalities between population groups?
How will your team organize a stewarding committee for launch?
Who or what are the oversight authorities? What are the timelines for reporting out?
Are there any legal, compliance, or privacy issues that affect how the data can be used or shared across agencies? Is your use case consistent with allowable uses under the laws or regulations governing each data source?
Are legal agreements needed to collect and share data? Are there existing data-sharing agreements you can use or modify? Do they incorporate equitable practices in how data is used and shared? Reviewing examples of data-sharing agreements or guidance documents can help you develop your own.
Tools + Resources
Tools + Resources
R.A.C.I. Worksheet: A Tool for Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
Lessons in Data Governance (Education Commission of the States)
Shifting Power through Data Governance (Mozilla)
Data Sharing Playbook (State of Connecticut)
Data Sharing Guidebook (North Carolina DHHS)
About the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
About the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University seeks to improve people’s daily lives by helping governments utilize data, design, technology, and policy to better meet the needs of their residents. An anchor of Georgetown University’s Tech and Society Initiative, the Beeck Center works alongside public, private, and non-profit organizations to identify and establish human-centered solutions that help government services work better for everyone, especially the most vulnerable and underserved populations.
About the national governors association
About the national governors association
The National Governors Association is the voice of the leaders of 55 states, territories, and commonwealths and supports governors in their work to develop innovative solutions to today’s problems. Through the NGA Center for Best Practices, Governors work with policy teams to identify priority issues and deal with matters of public policy and governance at the state, national and global levels.
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