Data Stewardship

data stewardship - Data stewardship is the management and oversight of an organization's data assets to provide business users with high quality data that is easily accessible in a consistent manner.

While data governance generally focuses on high-level policies and procedures, data stewardship focuses on tactical coordination and implementation. Data stewards can also be responsible for carrying out data usage and security policies as determined through enterprise data governance initiatives.

Effective data stewards provide agreed-upon data definitions and formats and ensure that business users adhere to specified standards. They often collaborate with data architects, business intelligence developers, extract, transform and load (ETL) designers, business data owners and others to uphold data consistency and data quality metrics.

Corporations use data stewardship programs as part of overall data lifecycle management efforts and to help accomplish data quality improvement projects. Data stewards can come from either the IT department or business units, acting as liaisons between IT and the business side. Data stewards function both as "data coordinators" who track the movement of data inside an organization and "data correctors" who understand and enforce internal rules on how data can be used. Some organizations have created formal data steward positions, while others assign stewardship responsibilities to database administrators who have other duties as well.

Data quality tools, including data profiling software, are key technology components of many data stewardship programs.

See also: business-IT alignment

Related glossary terms: data, data governance (DG), data curation, chief data officer (CDO)

[Category=Data Management ]

Source: WhatIs.com, 24 July 2013 08:16:30, http://whatis.techtarget.com/glossary/Data-and-Data-Management