The Data Governance team has made a great deal of progress the fiscal year 2026. Our report of accomplishments is organized according to key focus areas of the Data Governance program.
Data Catalog
- We strengthened metadata standards and governance expectations for catalog participation.
- We improved the organization and consistency of metadata, business definitions, and supporting documentation.
- We expanded resources and guidance to help stewards document and manage institutional data.
Data Literacy and Metadata
- The team presented at Stronger Together, OTDI’s spring conference
- We collaborated with the Data Visualization team to promote best practices for metadata development and maintenance.
- We expanded guidance for business definitions, metrics, and reporting documentation.
AI Governance
- We provided guidance that educated data stewards and stakeholders on AI opportunities and risks.
- We promoted the role of metadata, data quality, definitions, and stewardship in successful AI initiatives.
- Team members facilitated discussions on human accountability and oversight in AI-assisted processes.
- We co-presented the university-wide Command Artificial Intelligence Safely webinar as part of the Risk Management Series, helping faculty and staff understand how governance supports responsible AI adoption.
- We integrated AI governance concepts into stewardship education and outreach activities.
Data Stewardship
- We onboarded and supported new Primary and Secondary Domain Stewards.
- We conducted bimonthly Data Steward meetings to update stewards on Data Governance initiatives, training, resources, and emerging issues.
- We released a university-wide Data Management Survey, which provided valuable insight into how institutional data is used, managed, and understood across Ohio State.
Data Classification
- The team continued to promote the redesigned IDP Calculator.
- We collaborated with university partners to make several quality-of-life improvements to the IDP Calculator.
- We continued to maintain data classification guidance and supporting resources.
- Our group collaborated with security, privacy, and records management partners.
- We supported classification reviews for emerging data and technology initiatives.
- We updated element classifications
- Name
- Legal name
- Preferred first name
- Preferred middle name
- Preferred last name
Other Efforts
- The Data Governance team participated in the Big Ten Academic Alliance Data Governance Group and led meeting topics discussions.
- We continued to collaborate with higher education and industry governance communities.
- Our team attended the Data Governance & Information Quality (DGIQ) Conference in San Diego, bringing back insights on governance maturity, metadata management, data quality, and AI governance.
- Data Governance colleague Amy Cogswell earned the Applied Data Governance Practitioner (ADGP) certification, further strengthening the team's governance expertise.
Check out FY25 Accomplishments
Our fiscal year 2025 report of accomplishments is organized according to the six focus areas of the Data Governance program.
Data Domains
- We created the IT Security Logs domain along with its many secondary domains.
- We updated the secondary domains for the Academic Learning domain to a new structure, which the Data Governance Council approved.
- The project to move student data from the ODS into the RAE was completed and added four new domains.
Data Stewardship
- We appointed and onboarded new Primary and Secondary domain stewards, providing them with training and resources.
- The Marketing and Communications team delivered the data steward onboarding video, which is now available on our website.
- The Person stewards committee continued to meet regularly and addressed classification issues.
- In total, we onboarded and trained 64 new data stewards this year to support new domains and stewardship changes.
- Our bi-monthly data steward meetings focused on foundational topics, including presentations on domain structure and access approvals.
Data Classification
We were excited to receive resources for developing a new IDP Calculator, based on feedback from last year's focus groups. We quietly implemented the new IDP Calculator in June and plan to launch broad communications in August.
- We began updating the annual IDP training course, which will be ready for the 2026 training assignment period.
- A dedicated workgroup developed a guide for Determining Data Classification Levels, now published through the IDP webpages on the OTDI site.
- The person stewards classified partial Social Security numbers (SSNs), aligning them with the classification for full SSNs. The updated classification now appears in the IDP Calculator.
Data Catalog
We continued implementing the Ohio State Data Catalog, powered by data.world, in collaboration with the Medical Center's Analytics Center of Excellence. The catalog serves as a metadata inventory, helping users find and request data access while maintaining a glossary of enterprise terminology and acronyms.
- Although the data catalog production tenant currently includes only a portion of the university’s data, we’re actively working with campus partners to expand content in the Sandbox environment.
- This year, we added a comprehensive list of over 4,000 custom Ohio State Workday reports and EPIC reports from the Medical Center to the data catalog.
- We resolved a vendor-related technical issue with Tableau Server metadata ingestion late in the fiscal year. At our request, the vendor also made notable accessibility improvements.
- We added reference data from Advancement’s TAS system and posted a video introduction to the catalog on its landing page. Job aids for the Administrative Resource Center (ARC) are in development and will be implemented soon.
- We continue to meet regularly with the vendor and collaborate with other higher education customers using data.world.
Definitions
- Although institutional definitions weren’t a primary focus this year, we drafted, approved, and added a definition for the term "Learner" to the institutional glossary.
- A highlight of the year was Amy Cogswell’s presentation on our definition process at the Higher Education Data World (HEDW) conference. Her session was the most attended aside from the keynote and received excellent feedback.
- To help the community understand our approach, we published the Process for Posting Definitions on the Data Governance website.
Data Literacy
A successful data governance program depends on equipping the community to handle data responsibly. This includes using data ethically, securing it according to classification, and applying it only for approved business purposes.
- In partnership with Privacy and Records Management, we added internal and external resources to the Data Governance website to support our community.
- We’re currently planning a contribution to the 2026 Love Data Week programming.
Other Efforts
- We actively participated in the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Data Governance group and the Educause Data Governance Community Group.
- Inquiries to our data governance email increased by 408% (13 inquiries were received the previous year and 66 were received this year! This increase shows growing awareness and engagement for Data Governance.
- We implemented new governance steps in the Tableau public dashboard process and refined them based on experience.
- This finalized process was used three times and successfully added metadata to dashboards.
- The Data Governance team transitioned to a new organizational home under the Chief Applications Officer.
- The Data Governance Council met monthly to provide strategic guidance throughout the year.
Team Members
Laura Gast, Data Governance Program Director
Amy Cogswell, Senior Data Governance Analyst