This is an outline of the roles and responsibilities that need to be considered in creating and maintaining an effective Data Administration program at a client site.

Data Administration Functions

The Data Administration function within an IT organization is responsible for the definition, organization, supervision, and protection of data in order to provide good quality, shareable, and accessible data throughout the enterprise. A data administrator establishes and implements policies and procedures to support the mission of the Data Administration program.

The importance of enterprise data is that it establishes:

• Reusable building blocks to foster the use of common information across an organization’s systems;
• Agreed business terms across business areas; and
• Blueprints to communicate information requirements to vendors and designers.

1. Establish policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards for the planning, operation, and assessment of the Data Administration program;
2. Support data sharing and reuse within the organization, with other government agencies and private sector organizations, and with individuals, as appropriate;
3. Recommend tools and techniques within the Data Administration program to ensure consistency and interoperability of information;
4. Provide education to staff on the principles, methods and techniques to achieve a shared data environment;
5. Identify planning, reporting, and resource requirements for effective Data Administration;
6. Establish model-based methods to identify and document information needs and design data for maximum data sharing and reuse capability;
7. Standardize data for maximum data-sharing capability; and
8. Comply with organizational and national standards as appropriate before creating unique standards (e.g., postal code formats).

• Role of Data Administrators
• Role of Data Stewards
• Role of Data Managers
• Role of Database Administrators

• Implement and enforce Data Administration policy, procedures, and standards;
• Manage data in accordance with Data Administration policy, procedures, and standards;
• Develop and maintain meta-data about enterprise data elements, held in a shareable central repository or data dictionary for easy access by data users and application developers;
• Implement and coordinate the data standardization approval process to include quality assurance of meta-data and usage, in conjunction with subject matter experts, application developers, and responsible staff in other affected areas;
• Review and approve data models and elements; ensure compliance with standards, and provide resolution of conflicts;
• Assign data stewardship and arbitrate issues or inconsistencies related to data stewardship and usage;
• Identify and provide for Data Administration training and education requirements;
• Coordinate with appropriate security personnel to ensure that data security needs are met, including security risk analysis and definitions of policies and procedures to control data access;
• Develop and adopt data modeling, documentation, and naming standards.

• Determine the definition, structure, and acceptance criteria (i.e. valid values) for data under their responsibility;
• Specify the standards by which data may be created, retrieved, updated, deleted and preserved;
• Determine, monitor, and review the security classification and shareability rules for data under their responsibility, both in operational systems and when extracted;
• Ensure that data under their responsibility complies with Data Administration policies and practices;
• Solicit and respond in a timely way to the information needs of data and system users;
• Promote the accurate interpretation and responsible use of the data for which they are responsible.

• Approving the data architecture of systems and applications under their responsibility;
• Maintain repository information (meta-data) containing descriptive information pertaining to each data element for use;
• Establish and maintain data standards and structures, developed in coordination with data stewards;
• Arbitrate data issues that cross areas of responsibility;
• Facilitate appropriate and secure access to organizational data.

• Maintain the functional integrity and security of systems and data under their responsibility;
• Ensure that systems and data elements accurately represent the policies and standards set by data stewards and Data Administration;
• Monitor data for accuracy, integrity, and dependability, and initiate action concerning those issues when required;
• Provide and maintain data descriptions for organizational “meta-data” so that users know what data is available, what it means, and how to access it;
• Understand and make known to data users any rules and conditions affecting the accurate presentation of data;
• Work with other data managers, stewards, and Data Administration to identify gaps and redundancies in enterprise data, recommending and validating solutions to bring data into conformance with Data Administration guidelines.

• Establishing procedures for initial data definition and subsequent modification of data objects within their areas of responsibility;
• Providing shareable data in the format and structure agreed upon;
• Defining standard views of data in order to aggregate from multiple sources, segment into smaller and more manageable subsets, or segregate data according to confidentiality or other characteristics.