IT governance & Data

IT governance

Goal

Ensure agile and efficient decision-making​

Theme co-leads

  • Greg Smith (interim), Information Systems & Technology

  • Catherine Newell-Kelly, Registrar's Office

  • Stefan Idziak​, Faculty of Science

Recommendations

  1. Establish a more defined governance structure for IT which enables efficient and responsive decision-making, appropriate oversight, an ability to address issues and concerns and clarifies the roles, responsibilities and relationships for all groups in the IT community.
  2. Provide clarity regarding the senior leadership role for IT and any decision-making role(s) and distributed authority for IT across the University. This includes the nature of the senior appointment (e.g., staff or faculty), focus of the role and accountability for the position.
  3. Make efficient and strategic use of required committees that support sharing, oversight and decision-making for IT support in the key areas of research, teaching and learning, administrative systems and infrastructure.
  4. Ensure visibility, transparency, responsiveness and prioritize work based on welldefined principles and factors, including user requirements, compliance and best use of resources.
  5. Provide the necessary budget and funding coordination and transparency across units.
  6. Communicate and consult in a manner that reaches the appropriate communities and gathers feedback to support planning and operational needs.
  7. Provide specific direction and clarify accountabilities for technology and systems governance among faculties, IST and ASUs.
  8. Conduct a review of policy(s), statements, guidelines and procedures related to IT.
  9. Ensure that the necessary stakeholder voices are appropriately represented on all governance bodies, with consideration for student, faculty and staff participation.

Data

Goals

Enhance support for the campus community

Theme co-leads

  • Greg Smith (interim), Information Systems & Technology

  • Catherine Newell-Kelly, Registrar's Office

  • Stefan Idziak​, Faculty of Science

Recommendations

  1. Develop a comprehensive institutional data infrastructure including a central data repository (‘data lake’) populated with data from multiple sources including core administrative systems.
  2. Create a more robust centralized data integration capability, which minimizes the replication of point to point connections and multiple data stores.
  3. Support improved data governance and data management practices by: Creating a comprehensive set of definitions and inventory of available data
  4. Support improved data governance and data management practices by: Enabling data literacy, training, and community of practice or related support.
  5. Support improved data governance and data management practices by: Providing an easy mechanism to manage requests for information in alignment with data stewardship and related governance
  6. Support improved data governance and data management practices by: Developing a systematic approach to identify and address specific data quality issues.