Data Governance

Happy New Year and welcome back to a whole new year of blog posts by ADC!

A New Year is upon us and yet I’m still stuck questioning the value of data and how everyone else values data.  I know I talked a bit about this last year in my What happened with the “old” data anyway? post and I know I have sprinkled this question in a few other posts, but I’m really struggling with the value or maybe the perceived value of TODAY’s data and not just the archived or “old” data.  Are we just going to collect data as we have in the past, grab what we need from it, then let it sit on a shelf to be forgotten?  We need to wake up and change the data culture, to recognize that in order to value data – we need to care for it!

Let’s see if I can explain my concerns and worries.   In the agri-food industry, or really any industry, we talk about challenges at a very high level – is the industry sustainable, climate change outcomes, etc… We love to talk about the challenges, the impending changes, the effects any change may or may not have on a particular outcome, and really the list goes on…..  If there is a data person involved in these conversations, you betcha that the answer ALWAYS falls back on the data to support whatever claim people are making.

BUT…..

My worry is the state of that data.  I think it’s safe to say that many questions we ask – can indeed be answered with DATA.  Isn’t that the basis of evidence-based decisions?  But what happens if that data you are using to answer your question is NOT very well documented, is NOT stored and accessible for future use, is NOT managed or governed appropriately, or is NOT FAIR – do we have a problem?

If we recognize that data is important to help us make decisions then why are we NOT seeing resources aka funding set aside to ensure proper data management and governance?   I know what you’re thinking – Michelle, you work in the research world – it’s really not your problem – so stop worrying!  And that’s where I am really challenged – this problem goes beyond the research data world and I’m not getting the sense that anyone – beyond the data archivists and data managers are concerned about it!  I’ve been actively participating in national data spaces meetings that cover data beyond the research field – such as industry/producer data, and in discussions such as the What is the State of Agri-Food Sustainability in Canada? CAPI Webinars – and the need for proper data management and governance beyond the research world is really becoming clear, and as an industry we are missing something crucial!  We need to start seriously giving thought to supporting data management and governance at regional levels, at the associations, and at the producer level of the agri-food industry.  In the research world, we can develop tools, such as the Semantic Engine and soon to be released Data Request Tracker – but we need more resources to get these out into the industry!  OK let’s call that spade a spade – we need money and positions to make this a sustainable action.  We need more efforts for training and discussions across the agri-food industry around the topics of data management and governance!

Oh my!  Can you see I’m a tad passionate about this?  If we can agree that DATA helps us make decisions – then let’s find a way to work together to better manage the data!  Let’s get this data culture moving along and acknowledging the true value that data possesses.

Alrighty folks – this topic is getting hot and I love it!   Time to move out of my lane and talk a bit about producer data – I’m referring to the wealth of data collected on dairy farms, sheep operations, swine, poultry, and the list goes on.  A conversation I’ve sat in on a couple of times now during our cybersecurity events at the University of Guelph.

Let’s change my scenario from my “Elephant in the Room” blog post to a more relevant producer scenario.   In my blog post – in case you haven’t read that one – was about a list I created in Excel for books that I read and ranked.   I own the physical piece of paper that I wrote my rankings on and I can also say that I own my representation of that information that I created with my Excel spreadsheet.  I think we can all see this and can agree to this statement.  Now, remember things started to get a little fuzzy when I gave my excel spreadsheet to my friend to create an Access database that included my results along with our book club members’ results.  I suggested STRONGLY that rather than data ownership – we should talk about who has the rights when it comes to the data – how it can be used, shared, analysed, etc….

Let’s translate this to data collected on a farm.  Producer “ABC” owns the animals – they paid for them, feed them, house them, care for them, etc..  you can go out into the barn and See/Touch the animals.  Now, producer “ABC” collects information on their animals, weights, maybe feed consumed – let’s leave the milking information out of this conversation for a moment.  This information may be written down on a piece of paper or notebook, and may be transcribed into a database at a later time.   See the parallels to my book ranking scenario??   Alrighty – now producer “ABC” also milks their cows and has an agreement with company “XYZ” to gather that information through their really cool robotic milking machine.  So…  where is THAT data?  Who OWNS that data?  There is NO piece of paper or notebook – the data is automagically moved to a database in the cloud.   AND… this is where it might be easier if we talked about the rights to use, share, etc.. the data rather than who OWNS the data.  It gets murky and fast!

This week Taylor Leach, wrote an excellent article on this very topic for Dairy-Herd Management!  So rather than reading my babbles – check out “Who Really Owns Your Farm’s Data?”  They do a great job at highlighting the challenges and you’ll see my thought process is very much in line with theirs!  Enjoy!

Have a great week all!

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