What Are Institutional Data?
What Are Institutional Data?
Institutional Data are informational elements created, captured, curated, and managed within the inclusive context of Western’s administrative and operational processes. Such datasets are typically arrayed within structured databases but can also be found as unstructured in nature.
Institutional data exist within the university’s enterprise resource platform (ERP), student information system (SIS), learning management system (LMS), customer relationship management (CRMs) systems, and other data environments that fall under the definition of institutional systems of record (SoR). Institutional data may also reside within divisional or departmental contexts as line of business systems (LoB), or may be housed within granular local solutions such as forms, Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, etc.
Western’s data systems may also contain sensitive information not intended for institutional analytics, but they are still considered part of Western data governance in terms of defining purpose and roles and responsibilities. Such data repositories would include metadata and certain forms of transactional data.
