As 2021 draws to a close, we here at DATAVERSITY HQ want to take some time to reflect on the highlights (and lowlights) of this year. What kinds of content made you jump for joy? Which Data Management topics most helped data people succeed in and advance their careers?

With in-person events on hold for much of the year, we focused a lot of our attention online: expanding article and blog content, hosting new educational webinars, and launching a slew of live online courses and on-demand learning plans in our online training center, which proved to be a big hit with the data community. 

Read on for our top 20 articles and blog posts written and published in 2021, plus our most popular webinars and online courses of the year. There’s a wide variety of subjects represented – from cloud computing to graph databases to streaming analytics to machine learning to ransomware attacks. Our audience still loves all things Data Governance and Data Architecture, which remain especially important as companies continue to struggle with data security and privacy amid the work-from-home revolution. Readers also showed a stronger-than-ever interest in exploring Data Literacy and training to become certified data professionals. 

Curious to know what performed best and what your peers were into reading in 2021? Check out our lists below and let us know if there’s a topic that you’d like to see more of (or less of!) in the coming year. 

Top 20 Articles and Blog Posts:

1. Article: Managing Data Governance Throughout the Data Lifecycle
2. Article: The Future of Data Literacy
3. Article: Data Architecture: One Size Does Not Fit All
4. Blog Post: How the Cloud Has Evolved Over the Past 10 Years
5. Blog Post: 2021: Three Game-Changing Data Modeling Perspectives
6. Article: Advances in Machine Learning
7. Article: Redefining Success with Agile Data Governance
8. Blog Post: How to Ensure Data Integrity in Your Organization
9. Blog Post: Why Graph Databases Are an Essential Choice for Master Data Management
10. Article: Data Fabric vs. Data Mesh
11. Article: Working with Metadata Management Frameworks
12. Article: A Brief History of Microservices
13. Blog Post: How to Survive a Ransomware Attack: Five Backup Best Practices
14. Article: Is Streaming Analytics the Future of Business Analytics?
15. Blog Post: Five Data Governance Trends for Digital-Driven Business Outcomes in 2021
16. Article: Fundamentals of the Data Lakehouse
17. Blog Post: The Little Red Data Hen – A Cautionary Tale
18. Blog Post: Defining Principles, Elements, and Roles and Responsibilities in a Data Governance Policy
19. Blog Post: Dear Laura: Should We Hire Full-Time Data Stewards?
20. Article: Citizen Data Scientists: Where Do They Belong?

Top 10 Webinars:

1. Data Management Meets Human Management – Why Words Matter
2. RWDG: Governing Your Data Catalog, Business Glossary, and Data Dictionary
3. RWDG: Data Governance and Data Science to Improve Data Quality
4. RWDG: Data Governance and Metadata Management
5. RWDG: Data Architecture Is Data Governance
6. RWDG: Building Data Governance Through Data Stewardship
7. Data-Ed: Essential Metadata Strategies
8. RWDG: Data Governance vs. Information Governance
9. DAS: Data Quality Best Practices
10. Death of the Dashboard

Top On-Demand Learning Plans:

1. DMBoK and CDMP Preparation Learning Plan
2. Data Governance Learning Plan
3. Business Glossaries, Data Dictionaries, and Data Catalogs Learning Plan 
4. Data Architecture Fundamentals Learning Plan 
5. Data Stewardship: A Complete Guide Learning Plan 

Previous Top 20 Lists:

1. 2020 DATAVERSITY Top 20
2. 2019 DATAVERSITY Top 20
3. 2018 DATAVERSITY Top 20