About Data Services

By moving from a siloed approach to a collaborative effort, Data Services at OTDI will enable better decision making at Ohio State, decrease compliance risk and become a trusted institutional asset.

The university’s data management work will follow the guiding principles below.

Data Transformation Initiatives

The implementation of Workday and other enterprise technology platforms encourages a commitment to shared data, leveraging one source of truth. The data transformation initiatives in progress will enhance data quality and analytics while reducing the university’s IT footprint. These initiatives include:

• Establishing data governance processes and documentation, including standard data definitions.
• Building the Reporting and Analytics Environment (RAE) to meet external reporting requirements, house historical data and explore data with flexibility and ease.
• Adopting and supporting modern analytics tools, such as Tableau Server.

Guiding Principles

• Self Service and Data Availability: Data is securely accessible to all via simple, self-service tools that enable analytics and strategic decision making.
• Data Insights: New technology, skills and processing abilities foster an analytical culture that enhances data quality and advances university goals.
• Protected Data: Ohio State data is maintained with appropriate levels of privacy and security while still meeting the university’s shared needs.
• Certified Reporting: Common reports and dashboards are available across the enterprise and represent a single source of truth for Ohio State data.
• Data Governanc: Trust and value in university data is increased through common policies, procedures and structures that emphasize data integrity, availability, and usability.
• Minimal Duplication: The need for local, less-secure copies of university data is reduced through a reporting analytics environment and data tools that meet college and unit needs.

Benefits to the Campus Community

IT professionals, data analysts and report users across campus will all be directly impacted by the positive outcomes of this work.

• Security through simplified access and more comprehensive data monitoring.
• Consistency through eliminated data copies and increased clarity of data definitions.
• Access to accurate datasets and improved tools.
• Alignment in common technologies and skills throughout the university community.

Data governance helps us move from a state where there is little trust in data to a future state where there is confidence in the data and it is trusted for use in making sound business decisions.

Related Ohio State Resources

The Translational Data Analytics Institute brings together Ohio State faculty, students and industry partners to create data science and analytics solutions for global problems.

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