[Part 3 in a series on institutional data]
When an address change comes into your school who owns and enters that data into your system(s)? When standardized testing scores come in, who enters the data? If an alum, who is also a parent has a new email address who makes the change? Which system(s) are involved? How are changes communicated and shared?
When you are trying to make sense of the flow of information within a school you need to be clear about whose responsibility it is and who (domain) owns the information. In an earlier post (Defining Data Domains for Entry, Ownership and Support) I tried to define the different data domains with a school and answer the question of who owns the data… but what data are we talking about.
There is data specific to each domain that is relevant only to those areas (prospect data, attendance, giving, payroll, etc.), but there is certain data points that may cross domains or have greater school-wide significance.
I am trying to define those domains and the domain specific information they would be responsible for within the school. The following table outlines some of my initial thoughts and ideas.
| Admissions | All prospect, current family and student biographical, demographic and enrollment data. Examples: siblings, legacy data, grandparents (?), ISEE data |
| Academics | All current and former students academic data. Examples: ALL grades/comments, standardized testing data (Gates, CTP, PSAT, AP, SAT, SAT II, etc.) |
| Development | All alumni, past parents and employees, former students (Did Not Graduate) biographic and demographic data. |
| Business Office / Human Resource | All current employee biographical and demographic data |
| Auxiliary | All non-school (prospective or enrolled) family and student biographical and demographic data. |
| College Counseling Office | All data relating to the college process and matriculation (?) |
Areas not included, but represented in the chart are: Ad Hoc, Activities and Communications. I excluded these, as their data needs leverage information from the other domains with the possible exception of the Communications domain depending on how your institution is structure.
I am curious as to what your thought and ideas are for not only the domains that should be included, but also data that you believe they are responsible for that may be in question. Please share you thoughts below. Thanks!
Earlier posts:
Questions for a set of Data Entry Rules and Style Guide – http://www.williamstites.net/2011/09/15/questions-for-a-set-of-data-entry-rules-and-style-guide/
Defining Data Domains for Entry, Ownership and Support – http://www.williamstites.net/2011/11/13/defining-data-domains-for-entry-ownership-and-support/
Image credit: https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/IST432TEAM12/Future+Legal+Implications
This is a great series of posts. Very helpful for me as I work on thinking about privacy practices at our school, which of course requires you know what data you are collecting and who has access to it.
Steve Taffee
Data is the never ending rabbit hole. You want to track more and more so that you can do more and more, but the management and ownership issues must be defined and managed in order to make use of everything.
Good luck to us both!