Data Governance Critical Success Factors on University Policy Document

This study is to find out from universities’ published data governance policy, how they follow the best practices of implementing the critical successful factors that suggested by professionals and researchers. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The ordinal scaling method was used to compare between university policies’ document and Data Governance successful factors (discovered by reviewing the literature) and how the document reflected these factors. The three scales used were first, reflected (R) clearly stated in the document, second, Somewhat Reflected (SR) – not directly stated in the document but understood within the context, and finally, Not Reflected (NR) not easy to find in the document. Findings: The analysis of ten university policy documents reveals how the reflection of the success factors within them. Each university policy document listed in the table shows how the scale of success factor reflection. The result also shows all the ten universities secure the executive support, and all have governance organization structure except Towson University. In addition, New York university policy is the only one that has all critical success factors clearly reflected in the document. Application/ Improvements: Successful data governance initiatives required to address all critical success factors. The reflection of these factors in policy documents will help all stakeholders to work towards successful data governance implementation. *Author for correspondence


Introduction
Data Governance (DG) is the managing the data used in an organization for security, usability, availability and integrity 1 . A sound data governance program includes a governing body or council, a defined set of procedures and a plan to execute those procedures.
Universities like any other big organizations have large data to manage and protect. In this study, we will discuss the universities' policies regarding data governance. The idea of this study is to find out if these universities data governance policy adhere to data governance successful factors.
governance implementation success critical factors: 1) Executive sponsorship: Executive sponsors will make the data governance program visible to other executives. And help of removing any roadblocks to program success 4 , 2) Training and education: A change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior of the employees required education and training 5 , 3) Governance organizational structure: The roles, responsibilities, and decision rights at different levels need to be defined clearly, with suitable definition of duties in place. 4) Communication and collaboration: The communication is an effective way to convince people involved in data governance policy 6 . Different roles at organization need to collaborate and work together 7 , 5) Stakeholder engagement and support: the people who enter the data, administer data, consume data, store data, and analyze data from different departments and units must be involved and convinced of the value that data governance can provide 8 , 6) Skills, knowledge, and expertise: a variety of skills, knowledge, and expertise are needed for data governance initiatives to be successful such as data quality and stewardship technical skills, knowledge of data for good business, and soft skills like interpersonal skills and communication, and skills of management and organization 9 , 7) Practicable and enforceable data governance policy: A practical and enforceable data governance policy promotes greater accountabilities. A high-quality organizational data depends on effective data governance policy, 8) Incremental approach to implementing data governance: An incremental approach brings business support to each stakeholder or sponsor. In addition, incremental approach establishes data governance as a repeatable project 10 .

University Data Governance Policy Document
A DG policy is a documented set of guidelines and policies for warranting the appropriate management of an organization's data. Universities issue their data governance policy document to show that there is DG in place. In this study, ten universities were selected for examination. The universities are: Rowan University 11 , Australian Catholic University (ACU) 12 , University of Technology Sydney (UTS) 13 20 . Most policies are available in PDF file format; however, some of them are HTML format. In University policy documents one will notice the following subjects or headings: title, policy number or version, entities affected by policy, issuing authority, responsible officer, adopted date, amended and last revision dates, purpose, definition, policy statement, accountability, applicability, terms and definitions, scope, data steering group, data trustees, data steward, data usage, data custodian, data manager, data reporter, data user, communicating data governance standards, resources or attachments, data classification and data types, roles and responsibilities, compliance and regulations, contact information, revision history, data governance committee, audience, policy principles, policy maintenance, related policies, education and data storage .

Research Methodology
In this study, one will use ordinal scaling method to compare between university policies' document and DG successful factors and how the document reflected these factors. the three scales used are first, Reflected (R) -clearly stated in the document, second, Somewhat Reflected (SR) -not directly stated in the document but understood within the context, and finally, Not Reflected(NR) -not easy to find in the document. It is important to mention that this study based on available and published documents. Some university does not make all their policy entities available online to public. Ten university policy documents used for analysis against eight critical success factors mentioned in literature. By reviewing each policy document one was able to discover the critical success factors reflection in these documents.  The result also shows that all ten universities secure the executive support, and all have governance organization structure except Towson University. In addition, New York university policy is the only one has all critical success factors clearly reflected in the document.

Conclusion
Successful data governance initiatives required to address all critical success factors. The reflection of these factors in policy documents will help all stakeholders to work towards successful data governance implementation. Probably some universities may need to revisit their policy document and practices to make sure they adhere to the successful factors shown in the literature as best practices. New York university document could be used as model for reflecting all success factor of discover the gaps to cover it in the document if already implemented or work towards implementation of missing factors. Implementing all data governance success factor is only way to guarantee proper data governance at universities.