The Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBOK) defines Data Stewardship as:
“The most common label to describe accountability and responsibility for data and processes that ensure effective control and use of data assets. Stewardship can be formalized through job titles and descriptions, or it can be a less formal function driven by people trying to help an organization get value from its data.”
According to the Data Governance Institute:
“Data Stewardship is concerned with taking care of data assets that do not belong to the stewards themselves. Data Stewards represent the concerns of others. Some may represent the needs of the entire organization. Others may be tasked with representing a smaller constituency: a business unit, department, or even a set of data themselves.”
Some Stewardship Activities are:
- Creating and managing core metadata
- Documenting rules and standards
- Managing Data Quality issues
- Executing operational Data Governance activities
- Setting and managing guidelines around data
Other Definitions of Data Stewardship and Data Stewards Include:
- “Manage data from a variety of sources, for a variety of uses.” (Amber Lee Dennis)
- “Formalization of accountability over the management of data and data-related resources.” (Robert S. Seiner)
- Subject matter “experts for their departments and act as trustees of data, rather than owners of it. These people are visible, respected, and influential.” (Gartner)
- “Work that makes a company’s data trusted, dependable, and high quality.” (David Plotkin)
- “Responsible for establishing requirements and assessing the quality of the data in a database or a portion of a database used to make any official decision.” (USGS)
- “Behavior in the valuation, creation, use, storage, archiving, and deletion of information, all with the objective of ensuring data quality control and integrity.” (University of Michigan)
Businesses Use Data Stewardship to:
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