Purdue starts data certification program for key reports and dashboards

Key reports used by University leaders to make high-level, strategic decisions will soon carry a seal that certifies the report’s underlying data and associated calculations, making them the authoritative source for information on a subject.

Gerry McCartney, executive vice president for information technology and chief information officer, says the change, while relatively small, packs a punch.

“The goal is to end situations where we have multiple reports, often with conflicting numbers, from which decision-makers somehow have to glean the necessary information,” McCartney says. “Now, we’ll have one certified version of each of these key reports that can be used to make informed decisions.”

The creation of the seal and the process for certifying reports was spearheaded by the Office of Institutional Research, Assessment and Effectiveness as part of Purdue’s data governance initiative. OIRAE also implemented Data Cookbook, an online repository of data definitions, in November in connection with the project.

The seal lets users know that a report is the University’s authoritative source for information on the subject, vetted and approved with any shortcomings clearly identified.

Diane Beaudoin, Purdue’s chief data officer, says the seal and certification process were developed by a campus-wide task force of leaders and data owners. The group identified approximately 40 reports from the student, business and research areas. The official seal task force will begin its vetting process with the reports and dashboards for enrollment and for retention and graduation rates.

Anyone who has data quality comments on either of these reports is welcome to email their concerns to datagovernance@purdue.edu.

A data quality working group of data analysts and consumers will review the reports for data quality issues and clear them for stamping with the seal. Some of the data quality issues to be scrutinized include data entry errors, missing data, computational errors and improper audits of the data. If a report is found to have data quality issues and they are not corrected, the report may still receive the seal, but the data quality issues will be clearly noted in the report and in Data Cookbook.

“Data is an institutional asset and needs to be treated as such,” Beaudoin says. “Data quality issues have been raised in the past and identifying and correcting them are now a priority. In addition, better audits will be put in place to prevent their recurrence.”

Reports that carry the seal will have the following characteristics, as defined by the task force:

  • All fields in the report or dashboard are clearly defined.
  • There is context provided, such as the purpose of the report, its uses and any cautions.
  • Persistent data quality issues, if any, are documented transparently.
  • The data is reproducible.
  • The data is consistent across other certified sources.

Sarah Bauer, OIRAE’s institutional data governance program manager, says it is important for those working with University data to remember that standard operational reports will not be affected by this new process.

“Part of this effort is to educate people on the difference between standard reports and certified reports,” Bauer says. “We have hundreds of standard reports that will continue to provide the necessary access to data for which they were designed. The certification process is aimed at those key reports identified by senior executives for their use in making strategic decisions.”

Writer: Kirsten Gibson, technology writer, Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), 765-494-8190, gibson33@purdue.edu 

Last updated: April 23, 2018