Institutional data are valuable resources of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) that directly support its central mission of education, scholarship, and service. Institutional data are used to both inform routine operational functions and to guide policy formation, program development, assessment, and strategic planning. Because the utility of data derives from its quality, security, and ease of access, sound data governance and management are essential to the attainment of institutional goals.
UNLV is the owner of institutional data even though individual units have been entrusted with the management of those data. The university intends for its data to be regarded as key institutional assets and shared with all employees and authorized non-employees having a legitimate business need for information, in accordance with its business, legal, and ethical obligations to maintain data security and confidentiality of sensitive information in its care.
The data policy at UNLV arises from a purposeful intent to maximize the value of its data resources. It is grounded in the university's data vision of being recognized as a leader in the development of best practices for creating and continually evolving a data-rich culture, and is centered around its data mission of delivering a data-informed environment through a collaborative process that provides high quality, accessible, and widely utilized information to support the university’s strategic goals.
This policy applies to all users of UNLV's institutional data, regardless of their institutional affiliation (internal to UNLV or external), the location of data access (on-campus or off-campus), the medium of data delivery (electronic, paper, or verbal), the form of data storage (internal or external server), the mode of data presentation (system view or extraction), or the level of data transformation (raw, revised, or derived).
However, clinical or client data generated from the provision of services by such entities; data produced from research or scholarly activities; instructional notes and materials; and other intellectual property, even though they may reside in institutional systems, are outside the scope of the definition of institutional data. Such data may be subject to other university policies.
This policy should be read by any person granted access to, seeking access to, or charged with entry or maintenance of UNLV institutional data, including, but not limited to, faculty, staff, students, contractors, consultants, agents, volunteers, and guests.
The institution will maintain a robust set of policies, practices, and data definitions to ensure the highest quality of data governance.
Appointed by the Executive Vice President and Provost, the Data Oversight Committee (DOC) consists of senior administrative officials who are responsible for the maintenance of the data governance policies and practices for the institution.
Prioritization of institutional needs come before unit-based needs with the understanding that unit needs are important and will be addressed in a manner that is consistent with institutional needs.
Ultimately the Data Oversight Committee is responsible for determining the prioritization of needs and resources to meet those needs within UNLV’s environment. Data needs will inevitably arise from and be driven by specific units. However, in establishing the order of priority for those needs in a resource constrained environment those efforts that benefit the broader institution will be worked on first over those that only benefit an individual department.
Decision-making will be collaborative and involve diverse opinions and discussion. Once a decision is reached the institution will move forward with implementation.
UNLV recognizes the benefit of diverse opinions within the decision-making process. As such, the Data Oversight Committee will consist of a broad array of members from units across the university, and will include input from various other units. However, once a decision is reached within the Data Oversight Committee, the university will move forward with implementation to ensure that forward progress is maintained within the data environment.
The university is the owner of all data about the institution. Official data must reside in an authoritative system of record. Only data from an authoritative system of record will be used for official reporting and decision-making.
While individual units will ultimately be responsible for maintaining the quality of the data over which they have the purview as custodians, the university is the owner of all institutional data. To allow for high-quality data governance and reporting, all official data must reside in a system that the university has designated as an authoritative system of record; only data from these authoritative sources will be used for official reporting and informing the university’s decision-making process. The university will be responsible for ensuring that data needed for official reporting and decision making will transfer from the system of record to the institutionally approved data management environments.
To ensure a viable data environment, data custodians of institutional data are ultimately responsible for the quality of, integrity of, and access to the data for which they have been assigned stewardship. Applicable units are responsible for completion of agreed upon reports about the data in accordance with institutional best practices.
The university ultimately owns all institutional data. However, individual units will have oversight of those data elements that fall within their custodial responsibilities. As such, those custodial units are responsible for establishing and maintaining the quality of those elements with input from the Data Oversight Committee.
To establish and maintain a highly functional reporting environment, those units assigned responsibility by the Data Oversight Committee will complete all agreed upon reports. Those reports must be created and maintained based upon the best practices established by the Data Oversight Committee for the institution.
Data elements for reporting needs must be placed in institutionally approved data management environments. Business processes will be modified, as required, to allow for the capture and validation of institutional data. The data will be integrated as needed.
The institutionally approved data management environments will be the area for reporting utilized by the university, thus it is of highest priority that all necessary data elements are placed in that environment. Where business processes must be modified to allow for the placement of the highest-quality data in the reporting environment, the units with custodial responsibility for the data will do so.
For the institution to achieve maximum benefit from the use of its data it is necessary for those data elements that arise from disparate systems of record to be integrated into the reporting environment. As such, the institution, through the efforts of the Data Oversight Committee, will actively create those integrations.
There will be an institutional dialogue and review around how and when official reports are generated and released. Official reporting will be done from institutionally approved data management environments.
For UNLV to maximize the benefit of its data environment it is essential that it establishes procedures around its official reports. The Data Oversight Committee is tasked with the responsibility for ensuring that appropriate dialogue occurs and for establishing the process for official reports.
It is essential for consistency and replicability that all official reporting be conducted from the institutionally approved data environments. Where a unit within the institution chooses to utilize an external system for operational needs, any reports done from that system will not be accepted as official. When it is necessary to use reports generated by external systems for official reporting, every effort should be made to gain approval from the Data Oversight Committee. It is the unit’s responsibility to work with the Data Oversight Committee to integrate the data from their external system with official systems of record.
The institution will provide access to all data necessary for individuals to perform the functions of their positions at the university. For public reports, the underlying data details are accessible to those who have a need to know based on job function.
For optimal use of the university’s environment, all data elements necessary for the performance of an individual’s position must be accessible to that position. This includes access to data at the level of granularity necessary for the performance of the essential functions of the position.
UNLV will provide public reports, as necessary, to meet the goals of its underlying mission and to meet all federal and state compliance requirements. While those public reports will be accessible to anyone, the underlying data details will only be accessible to those positions where it is necessary for the performance of their job functions.
To provide high availability and prevent data from being used for unauthorized purposes, data custodians of institutional data must:
Data privacy procedures must be approved by the Data Oversight Committee.
UNLV will always conduct itself and operate within compliance of federal, state, system, and campus statutes, regulations, and/or policies.