Crown College in St. Bonifacius MN embraced a five-year persistence and completion project four years ago. The college’s Presidents’ Cabinet embraced persistence and completion as an improvement initiative to retain at-risk students and the school had been accepted into the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) Persistence and Completion Academy. HLC accredits colleges and universities in a […]
A Brief History of Metadata
Metadata is a small amount of data designed to provide reference information about other data. For example, in 280 BC, the Great Library of Alexandria attached a small, dangling tag to the end of each individual scroll. The tags gave the title, subject, and author, allowing library users to assume the content, without having to […]
A Brief History of Data Security
Data security describes the protection of digital data from a cyberattack or a data breach. A data breach is the unauthorized opening of data, typically to read or copy the information. Stolen data may contain confidential information, such as customer data, credit card numbers, or trade secrets. A cyberattack is much more aggressive. It is […]
2020 DATAVERSITY Top 20
With 2020 now behind us, we here at DATAVERSITY are taking a moment to look back on the hits and misses of this unprecedented year. What content did you, our readers, seek out most during challenging times? Which topics helped you succeed as a data professional, and what should we focus more on in 2021 […]
The Evolution of Data as an Asset
From an Afterthought to a Core Business Asset: The Journey of Data In recent years, the phenomenal growth of connected devices and advanced data technologies, along with the availability of affordable data storage, transfer, and processing capabilities, has enabled businesses to gain competitive intelligence on demand.Despite recognizing the strategic potential of data, many businesses face […]
Maturing Data Governance and Data Literacy to Serve Organizations Better
Maturing Data Governance means growing an organization’s conception and management of its data assets from a narrow IT project conception to the broader business. Organizations can no longer ignore this approach as they drive to digitally transform, improve business efficiency and effectiveness through digitization and human resources. Al-Ruithe, et al. hammer this point home by […]
Enterprise Data Literacy: Understanding Data Management
To truly understand data-as-an-asset requires Enterprise Data Literacy, an organizational capability to take, analyze, and use data to remain secure and competitive. But achieving a high Enterprise Data Literacy can remain daunting when business and IT interact together. All too often in the middle of a project sprint, IT gets stuck on a minor problem, […]
How Much Data Quality is Good Enough?
Ask the question “How much Data Quality is good enough?” and see some very puzzled and alarmed looks. Data Quality, comprising all activities making data fit for consumption, plays a fundamental role in trust, security, privacy, and competitiveness. Good Data Quality is critical because it fuels a surviving and thriving business. While it would be […]
Fundamentals of Cognitive Analytics
The journey of data analytics began with simple descriptive (review of past events) and diagnostic (analysis of past events) exercises and moved to the more sophisticated predictive and prescriptive genres,where advanced data models have enabled accurate future forecasts and actionable intelligence. And now cognitive computing has further strengthened the actionable predictive power of the machines […]
The Collective Data Literacy Gap
Every graph, data set, and chart has a story behind it. Knowing how to make sense of that narrative across an organization requires data literacy. Increasing the data literacy of smaller teams can be complicated, but equiping an entire organization is an even bigger task. So many teams bring in so many different skill sets […]