Chapter 4 – The Data Resource
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Chapter 4
The Data Resource
Objectives and Overview
This chapter focuses in detail on the data resource of the organization. This includes the facts and
information gathered by an organization in the course of conducting business. The source of data
may be internal to the organization or external. While many business managers acknowledge that
they are collecting a great deal of data, few truly understand the potential benefits that can be
derived by proactively managing the data resource.
Some specific objectives for this chapter are as follows:
2. To justify why data should be managed as a shared organizational resource.
4. To introduce the basic techniques involved in modeling the data resource.
5. To discuss managing data in terms similar to a discussion of managing any shared
7. To outline the data administration function, which takes responsibility for leading the data
In this chapter, the data resource is described as an organizational resource that must be managed
like other resources (e.g., capital, human, and facilities). Every manager has a responsibility for
managing data; a list of specific responsibilities is provided. Data ownership can be a difficult
political issue in organizations; such politics can make managing data as a shared resource a
complicated process. Several key concepts in managing data are outlined in this chapter. A step–
by-step data management process is described. Several tools for data management are
mentioned, although not described in detail.
Teaching Suggestions
This chapter discusses the managerial and technical issues associated with managing the data
resource. While there is not great depth in the technical discussion, there is sufficient detail for
students to build a high-level data model. For most courses, both undergraduate and graduate, we
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following are some specific activities that you can use to involve students in the material of this
chapter and some pointers to further information on this topic:
Have your students critically analyze the data management functions. Have them review
If your students have business experience, have different groups of students discuss each of
the bullets in the section Why Manage Data? Then have each group present a brief report to
class. You might have different groups develop responses to different bullets.
Ask the students to find examples of successes and failures in managing data as a resource,
Ask your students to critically discuss the scheme for levels of data that involves local,
shared, and core data. What implications for the responsibilities for data management and
standards are a result of this scheme? Be sure they consider in detail the claim in the chapter
the consequences for master data management in their discussion of data management
responsibilities.
There has been considerable attention in the general business press about data privacy as the
software involved in the Internet becomes more sophisticated, personalized, and subtle.
Personal data can be quite valuable to improve the Web experience for an individual, but the
Ask your students to go to the library or use any other resource they can find to develop a list
of public databases relevant to the business area in which they are majoring or plan to begin a
Describe several functions (perhaps registration, fund-raising/advancement, and housing at
your university) and ask different groups of students representing each function to sketch out
a high-level data model for each by describing the entities, attributions, and relationships.
Then have the student groups get together to see how similar or different their data models
Chapter 4 The Data Resource
Review Questions
1.
The data resource consists of the facts and information gathered by an organization while
conducting business, and in order to conduct business. Components of the data resource include
numeric, text, audio, video, and graphical data collected both within the organization and from
2. What is a data model? What does it contain? What are the objectives of data modeling?
3. What are metadata? Why is it important to manage metadata?
4. What are some examples of database programming languages? How do these languages
interact with other programming languages?
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5. Why do organizations often have several databases?
There are several reasons why organizations might have many databases. An organization might
have developed different databases at different times and has decided not to consolidate them
6. What are the different types of databases? How do they differ?
Although this chapter has not outlined different types of databases, this and previous chapters
have discussed several different types. First, databases could be categorized by their scope:
personal, workgroup, departmental, and enterprise. Personal databases support one user and may
be stored on a personal computer. Workgroup databases support one business activity (e.g., the
7. Describe some schemes for identifying data at different levels. Why is it important to
have such schemes?
One important scheme is core, shared, and local data. Core, or common, data are needed by all
parts of the organization, and hence are considered enterprise data. Shared data are captured by
8. Define application independence.
The term application independence refers to the concept of separating data from applications.
9. What are the differences between data capture, data transfer, and data analysis and
presentation applications?
10. Define disposable applications.
A significant result of application independence is the creation of disposable applications. In
many organizations, older systems cannot be eliminated or easily rewritten because applications
and data are so intertwined. When the presentation capabilities of an application system become
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11. Describe the issues central to ensuring the quality of the data resource.
There are several critical things that should be done to ensure the quality of the data resource. An
organization should establish processes to prevent errors by assigning employees to be
12. What is master data management? What are the benefits of MDM?
Master data management (MDM) refers to the disciplines, technologies, and methods to ensure
the currency, meaning, and quality of reference data within and across various subject areas.
13. Who is a data administrator and what does this person do?
The data administrator (or database administrator) has the overall responsibility for managing the
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14. What are the basic functions of managing the data resource?
Managing the data resource is much like managing the other assets of the corporation such as
land, labor, and capital. Planning is an important function and includes developing a blueprint for
Discussion Questions
1. This chapter differentiates among data capture, data transfer, and data analysis and
presentation systems. What are the major implications for the system developer of this
division into three types of systems?
2. What are the different kinds of data standards and why are these an essential part of
data management?
3. Do you think it is difficult to manage metadata? Why or why not?
Chapter 4 The Data Resource
Metadata is usually difficult to manage. First, data has often been distributed in organizations,
4. What are the major differences between the two approaches to data planning and
modeling outlined in this chapter enterprise modeling and view integration? Why do
these two methodologies usually yield different results? In what ways does the existence of
pre-packaged data models affect these approaches?
5. Discuss the problems or pitfalls of doing data planning and modeling. How can these be
alleviated? Discuss the advantages and uses of data modeling.
6. Explain why, given the benefits of a coordinated, integrated data architecture, some
organizations still maintain multiple databases. How does master data management assist
in the management of multiple databases?
Legacy systems often lead organizations to have multiple databases they could have been
developed at different times and simply never integrated. Integration of these older databases can
7. Identify the data that are captured about you as a student, a professional, a customer,
and so on. Discuss how the data can be an asset for the collecting organizations.
Student answers will vary, but examples include university data (name, address, etc.), student
8. Search the Web for examples of how organizations have treated their data as an asset and
the benefits they have achieved through this approach.
9. Consider an organization with which you are familiar. Give examples of local, shared,
and core data. Why do you categorize the examples you chose into these categories? Does
the organization manage data in these three categories as suggested in this chapter? Why or
why not?
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