#data standards

Master Data Governance is a strategic framework that ensures an organization’s critical data—such as customer, product, supplier, and employee data—is accurate, consistent, secure, and well-managed across all business systems. It defines the policies, processes, roles, and standards required to manage master data effectively throughout its lifecycle.

A strong Master Data Governance program establishes clear ownership and accountability through defined data stewardship roles. Data owners are responsible for setting rules and quality standards, while data stewards ensure those standards are followed in daily operations. This structure helps prevent data duplication, inconsistencies, and errors that often arise when data is managed in silos.

One of the key benefits of Master Data Governance is improved data quality. By enforcing validation rules, approval workflows, and data standards, organizations can maintain a single, trusted view of their master data. This leads to better reporting, more reliable analytics, and confident decision-making across departments.

Master Data Governance also plays a vital role in regulatory compliance and risk management. Well-governed data supports compliance with regulations by ensuring data accuracy, traceability, and audit readiness. Additionally, it strengthens data security by controlling access and maintaining proper documentation of data changes.

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Robert Redfield emphasized the importance of science and data in meeting with employees.

JAMES GATHANY, WIKIMEDIA

Robert Redfield, the newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), delivered an emotional address to agency members Thursday (March 29) in which he said he was honored to lead the best “science-based, data-driven agency in the world,” reports the The Washington Post. During his remarks he frequently emphasized the importance of science and data, saying they are the reason for the agency’s credibility. According to the Post, the speech was well received by agency employees.

In January, top CDC officials reportedly instructed employees to avoid using seven words in budget documents, including “evidence-based” and “science-based.” That same month, Brenda Fitzgerald resigned as director of the agency after less than a year in the position because of financial conflicts of interest. Redfield did not address either issue in his remarks.

Redfield, who took the helm of the CDC last week, also vowed to bring the opioid crisis “to its knees” (via The Republic). He said the AIDS epidemic could be ended in the U.S. “in the next three to seven years, if we put our mind to it,” according to STAT News.

In the address, Redfield called the opioid epidemic “the public health crisis of our time,” noting it is a medical, not a moral, issue, and saying the CDC would help direct the government’s response, The Washington Post reports. “If any of you have tried to access care for addiction in this nation, I can guarantee you it’s complicated,” he said.

Reactions to Redfield’s appointment from AIDS activists has been mixed. Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), says in a March 21 Wall Street Journal article that “HIV advocates have pointed to Redfield’s record of promoting stigma and fear around HIV and AIDS and that should give us pause about this appointment.” In the same article Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute, says Redfield’s appointment “provides us with great optimism.”

In an opinion published March 23 in Foreign Policy, Laurie Garrett, a former Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Global Health Program, calls Redfield “exactly the wrong person for the job.” She writes that Redfield’s record in HIV research “has been a scientific and moral failure,” citing his policy that mandated HIV testing for all troops in 1985, while he was a US Army major at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Redfield was also involved in an unsuccessful attempt to require HIV testing of health-care professionals who perform invasive procedures in 1991, according to The Washington Post). 

Data Structure Standards, also known as Metadata Structure Standards, are something that I touched on in my previous posts. These standards give museums guidelines on how to record the metadata in their records. 

You are probably wondering “Wait, there is more than one standard?”

Yes, there is. The art world uses language that the natural sciences do not use. So each discipline has data standards to choose from. You can check out the list here: https://www.canada.ca/en/heritage-information-network/services/collections-documentation-standards/chin-guide-museum-standards/metadata-data-structure.html

Here is an example of one data standard: 

SPECTRUM

The SPECTURUM data standard (Standard Procedures for Collections Recording Used in Museums) was created in 1991 by the Collection Trust, a non-profit organization located in the United Kingdom. This standard has five versions, the latest one being released this year. Today SPECTRUM is the collections management standard in the United Kingdom and used in many countries around the world. The website gives you all the resources you need to do anything related to documenting an object in a museum. 

SPECTRUM is unique in that it is both a data and procedural standard. A procedural standard means that it goes through each step in the process of adding or removing an object from a museum’s collection. Having this additional usage means that SPECTRUM is a multi-functional standard. 

All of this praise may seem like it would be the perfect standard for everyone to use, but that it not the case. This standard was created by and for museums in the United Kingdom. This means that users in other countries need to make sure that they enter information that best fits how their users are searching the catalog. For example, United States users will find measurements in inches more helpful than those in centimeters. There is also a very long list of fields that can be used in this standard; the appendix is a one hundred and sixty seven page long document. What this means is that users must choose the fields that fit their needs.

One of the great things about the internet is people can write however they want to write. Grammer and spell check are out the window. At first it can seem like there is no constancy on the internet. However, websites and social media have found a way to help people find what they are looking for when they are searching. A great example of this is hashtags. When I am writing these posts, I have been attaching hashtags that I think are relevant to the post and its content. If someone is looking for a post about metadata, for example, they can search on Tumblr using #metadata. This allows the search engine to narrow down what the user is looking for in a massive sea of posts. It’s why you see all those wedding hashtags; because no one wants to take a lot of time trying to find everyone’s Instagram or Snapchat posts from your friend’s wedding last weekend. 

This is the exact same thought process when it comes to standards for data in a catalog record.