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Skip Navigation LinksDepartments/Institutional Research and Effectiveness/Data Governance

    Data Governance

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    Data governance is defined as a system of decision rights and accountabilities over the institutional data by providing directions and oversight for Data Management in regard to the needs of QU, through a combination of people, processes, and technology. It serves to exercise control over processes and methods used by its Data Stewards and Data Custodians to improve data quality, security, privacy and integrity.  Data Governance enables QU to be data-driven, by putting in place the strategy and supporting principles, policies and stewardship practices. It ensures all the data and stakeholders are aligned, and that the organization recognizes and acts on opportunities to get value from its data.

    Data Governance Program Vision:
    Support a strong culture of campus-wide data-driven decision-making by providing, in a useful, secure and consistent manner, a trusted, accurate and accessible data to advance QU’s vision and mission.


    Data Governance Program Mission:
    Enhance the quality, value and security of institutional data by engaging QU stakeholders. The Data Governance program will protect institutional data through planning, execution, and oversight of relevant policies and practices while establishing a framework for appropriate access to and use of institutional data. . 

    In line with QU strategic goals, the Data Governance Framework has been established to represent the goals of the program. The below Figure schematizes the framework.

     

    The Data Governance Program is driven by the following principles:
    • Awareness: Increase the awareness of data governance principles and practices across QU. Data Governance should be viewed as a value-added function.
    • Clarity and Transparency: Clarity and transparency in relation to decisions, and processes. These decisions and processes will be audited to support compliance-based requirements.
    • Consistency: Decisions are to be applied consistently.
    • Accountability: QU community needs to be accountable in supporting data governance. This includes all campus stakeholders (as definied below).
    • Flexibility: Data-related processes should be flexible when applicable.
    • Metrics-Driven: Metrics are needed to monitor the progress of the program in different categories. Metrics will grow and change as the DG program matures.
    • Ownership: Data is owned by the university and not by any specific college/department/office/unit.

    The Data Governance Program is governed by the Data Governance Executive Council, the Data Governance Committee, and Data Stewardship Working Groups. These groups are responsible for promoting environments that support data-driven decision-making. In addition, the program is supported by the Institutional Research and Efecctiveness Department to ensure that the program is moving forward meeting its goals.  




    This is the high level Committee in the DG Organizational Structure. It consists of senior campus leaders who provide executive-level guidance to the Data Governance Program.

    The council’s responsibilities include the following:

    • Approve charters and strategies related to data projects.
    • Take the necessary action to approve data-related policies according to QU procedures.
    • Monitor and oversee the University’s data governance framework.
    • Approve the University's domains and their data trustees.
    • Ensure that data trustees remain accountable for, engaged in, and committed to data quality, effectiveness, and strategy, according to QU policies and procedures.
    • Resolve any emerging disputes of responsibility where data overlaps between different domains of multiple data trustees.
    • Prioritize and approve high-level data-related projects, and award financial assistance to them.
    • Oversee the operation of the Data Governance Committee. 

    Members:       

    • Existing Executive Management Committee members composed from the President, all VPs and the General Legal Counsel.

    The Data Governance Committee consists of selected subject matter experts in both business (data stewards from each sector) and Information Technology, in addition to selected data users, who can discuss critical campus data/reporting needs and create plans to meet those needs.

    The committee’s responsibilities include the following:

    • Draft and recommend data-related policies to the Data Governance Council.
    • Recommend the University's functional areas and their data trustees.
    • Promote appropriate data quality and data integrity by setting data standards for common data used across different systems.
    • Ensure compliance with data-related policies of the State of Qatar.
    • Create communication plan in order to ensure that policies and standards are communicated in an efficient way to the concerned stakeholders and they are enforced.
    • Promote data governance across the University.
    • Contribute to the development/delivery of a campus data training program.
    • Ensure the existence of initial institution-wide risk management program that enables the institution to gather information about the types of data and conduct a risk assessment of those assets.
    • Recommend appropriate levels of resources (staff, technical infrastructure, etc.) and ensure that proper planning protocols are in place to support the data needs of the entire University.
    • Report to the Data Governance Executive Council all data governance initiatives and recommendations for approval.
    • Provide progress report to Data Governance Executive Council at the end of each semester.                                                           

    The Data Stewardship Working Groups are groups that represent specific domain nominated by their respective Trustee (E.g. Academic Affairs, Student Affairs…). In consultation with the Data Governance Committee and the Institutional Research and Analytic department, the groups work on and resolve data-related issues in their particular domain. For interrelated domain data request or issue, different working groups from different domains will meet.

    Responsibilities of the Working Group are:

    • Create the data assets register for their domain.
    • Create and document procedures and standards for data within their domain to comply with QU data-related policies.
    • Managing Data Quality issues within their domain.
    • Executing operational Data Governance activities.                                                            

    The Institutional Research and Analytic ensures that the Data Governance program is executing consistently and effectively across QU. It ensures that the Data Governance program is moving forward meeting objectives and collecting key performance indicators around Data Governance and data quality. The department will maintain documentation pertaining to the Data Governance Program (charter, policies, procedures, list of data trustees, data stewards and custodians, etc.).

    This is a permanent organization comprised of one or more individuals. The office will support and facilitate the work done by committees and the working groups.                                                                                               

    Campus stakeholders are people across campus who are responsible for the daily management and delivery of data for the purpose of data-driven decision-making.

    Data trustees are institutional officers who have authority over policies and procedures regarding business definitions of data and the collection, handling, access and usage of that data within their delegations of authority. They are accountable for data at a strategic level and for their domain's compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies regarding data management and security. Data Trustees typically delegate the day-to-day Data Governance responsibilities to Data Stewards and Data Custodians within their domain. Responsibilities include:

    • Identify data stewards within their functional area, and communicate their list to the Data Governance Committee.
    • Oversee data stewardship efforts for institutional data within their functional area.

    Data Stewards are the subject matter experts in their respective data domains. They are responsible for the quality, integrity and the protection of the data within their domains. They collaborate with other stewards to ensure that overlap areas work across the board. They work closely with Data Custodians to ensure that appropriate data controls are well implemented for data security, privacy and integrity. Responsibilities include:

    • Authorize access to data.
    • Create processes and procedures for data access (granting and revoking), including the criteria for authorization based on role and/or individual.
    • Create a business glossary to define and document data set within their data domain.
    • Create and maintain Data Assets Register.
    • Establish data-quality metrics and requirements, including defining the values, ranges, and parameters that are acceptable for each data element, and set procedures to detect and correct data quality issues.
    • Address data quality issues that are identified by campus stakeholders.
    • Facilitates communication regarding business process changes that may affect downstream systems or analytics relating to specific data elements, and report the change to Department of Institutional Research and Analytics.
    • Provide ongoing training and documentation to employees with data-entry and maintenance responsibilities. • Ensure compliance and security of the data according to QU policies.

    Data Custodians are information technology administrators responsible for maintaining data on the IT infrastructure in accordance with business requirements. Responsibilities include:

    • Implement business rules.
    • Assist Data Stewards with day-to-day data administration activities.
    • Implement controls to ensure compliance with data-related policies and procedures.

    End users include the people that are granted access to data for specific uses. Among many examples, end users may include staff, tasked with managing the records of students, employees, financial transactions, etc.; persons granted access to data for analysis and reporting. Responsibilities include:

    • Provide input to Institutional Research and Analytic about data/reporting needs.
    • Access data/reports for the purpose of data-driven decision-making.
    • Identify and report issues of data quality to Data Steward.
    • Attend training to clearly understand their own responsibilities relative to the data entrusted to them, and follow procedures to ensure data security.

    Data Producer include the people that collect and input data into QU’s systems. They are responsible for the quality of data within the parts of the source systems to which they have access.

                                                                
    photo of Qatar University buildings - right side
    photo of Qatar University buildings - right side