Purpose and Principles

Data Administration Purposes

• Increase the ministry's ability to exploit information so that it can better meet its business objectives.
• Promote an integrated view of the business by providing a vision for the totality of the data resource.
• Help the ministry identify its future information needs.
• Keep the sense of perspective about data on the business, not on technology or automation.

Data Administration Principles

• Manage ministry data as a corporate resource.
• Model the inherent logic in ministry data structures an dmake the models available to ministry staff.
• Communicate through standard message protocols (e.g. standard codes, standard data names, standard metadata structures, etc.)
• identify future issues so that any required data structure changes can be planned for well ahead of emergency situations.
• Coordinate shareable data and related application system components across the ministry.
• Promote data sharing and integration across the ministry.
• Market information as a vital resource for all areas of the ministry, and market the management of information as an essential and worthwhile effort by all staff.

Information is intrinsic to the business requirements of the ministry and is thus an important corporate resource. The quality and reliability of ministry data must meet basic standards or continually be improved, so that appropriate decisions can be made based on verifiable information.

The following concepts must be part of the ministry's business culture, so that appropriate decisions can be made by the appropriate areas, and maximum communication and cooperation between different segments of the ministry can be achieved:

• Data/Information Sharing
• Custodianship
• Conflict avoidance or resolution

Information resource management is founded on these basic principles:

1. Data Drive Design of Systems
   • Data is naturally integrated across the business, so our models of it must be designed from a corporate perspective, with emphasis on the sharing of data.
   • Data structure is independent of any physical pplatform, so our models of the business information must not be unduly restricted by the current equipment base (the model for the physical design of an information system, and the project developing it, of course must consider the physical platform).
   • Custodians of data and applications ensure that the ministy's information resources are managed effectively.
   • Business information needs are identified using diagrams for clearer understanding, and produced by following information engineering rules.
2. Active Data Management
   • Multiple-platform distribution possibilities for corporate data.
   • Defining the scope (Corporate, Local and Personal) of specific data groups and the management rules for each (not including technology of how data is physically stored).
   • Defining the type of data (Operational, Tactical and Strategic) and how its existence can assist the ministry in doing its business.
   • Provision for archiving select groups of data for historical access.
   • Standard ministry-wide codes defined for those codes in regular use.
   • Active marketing of the need for custodianship and information sharing to manage data from a corporate perspective.
3. Facilitated Data Use
   • Data Dictionary/Directory
   • Informatoin Access tools to allow 'ad hoc' queries
   • Support from Data Administration staff to help ensure the data design in the data dictionary will assist users in getting an accurate and correct answer to a question.