Data governance, data literacy and the management of data quality

Abstract

Data governance and data literacy are two important building blocks in the knowledge base of information professionals involved in supporting data-intensive research, and both address data quality and research data management. Applying data governance to research data management processes and data literacy education helps in delineating decision domains and defining accountability for decision making. Adopting data governance is advantageous, because it is a service based on standardised, repeatable processes and is designed to enable the transparency of data-related processes and cost reduction. It is also useful, because it refers to rules, policies, standards; decision rights; accountabilities and methods of enforcement. Therefore, although it received more attention in corporate settings and some of the skills related to it are already possessed by librarians, knowledge on data governance is foundational for research data services, especially as it appears on all levels of research data services, and is applicable to big data.