Data Management & Information Governance

Addressing data management and information governance issues

Program contact

Professor Angie Raymond
Director, Program on Data Management and Information Governance
Professor of Business Law and Ethics
812-855–3449
angraymo@indiana.edu

The Program on Data Management and Information Governance was founded in November of 2017 to foster a collaborative, multidisciplinary, multisector, multistakeholder environment in which scholars, policymakers, and industry professionals can work together to translate research findings into effective policy.

The program seeks to address issues associated with data management and information governance through the exploration and creation of multidisciplinary structures, policies, procedures, processes, and controls implemented to manage data and information.

Current Projects

Problem In both the public and private sectors, companies and organizations lack the skills and/or the strategy to manage the large amounts of data they have collected. Their data efforts may have adequate technological support but lack strategic vision, stakeholder input, and clear goals of productivity, security, and equitable and responsible conduct. Current approaches to strategic data planning are either too narrow, too technical, or too siloed.

Solution The Data Strategy Lab at the Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University will help public institutions, companies, and organizations to create a human-centered data strategy and train future data managers in stakeholder and community engagement as an essential component of such strategy. Our mission is to promote responsible data practices that prioritize privacy, security and ownership when using data. The Lab will do this by producing and supporting projects that focus on under-resourced organizations and ensure community building, stakeholder engagement, and institutional coordination. The Lab will develop toolkits and metrics to align organizational goals and needs as well as monitor and evaluate data-related activities.

The Inner Workings of the Lab The Data Strategy Lab will be led by Indiana University faculty and staff who will train and supervise students from the Luddy, Maurer, Kelley, and Lugar Schools as they are paid to work with identified clients to develop and implement human-centered data strategies. In its initial phase, the Data Strategy Lab will serve clients drawn from government, non-profit, and private-sector organizations who are otherwise unable to secure funding to develop and implement a human-centered comprehensive data strategy.

At the most basic level, “Cooperative structures could enable the creation of open data and personal data stores for mutual benefit; they could rebalance what many perceive as asymmetric relationship between data subjects (people with personal data) and data users (people who use data to develop services and products).”

We have supported several active initiatives of note:

(1) A Practical Framework for Applying Ostrom’s Principles to Data Commons Governance. 

In this system of stewardship, how do stakeholders govern themselves? What drives their endeavor? How do they make decisions? How do they make sure conflict does not tear them apart? To answer these questions- and more- we designed a series of focused topics and questions to create a framework for others to use in design. (More information here https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/a-practical-framework-for-applying-ostroms-principles-to-data-commons-governance/)

This group continues to meet to refine the questions and to build out the framework into more granular question/decisions

(2) Working Group

Hosted (and will soon start to host again) a DATA TRUST Working Group, in which we bring together all that are interested to network, share experiences, and build cooperation. (See Working Group below)

Smart and Connected Communities continues to be a focus of the Data Governance Program.  Communities in the United States (US) and around the world are entering a new era of transformation in which residents and their surrounding environments are increasingly connected through rapidly changing intelligent technologies. This transformation offers great promise for improved wellbeing and prosperity but poses significant challenges at the complex intersection of technology and society. 

(1) Research and Networking Support: Smart and Connected Communities Working Group

This working group is not as active as it could be, as the Ostrom Data Governance Team is viewed by many at IU and more broadly as a natural leader in this area. We have been part of several NSF grant submissions in the area, are writing often in the area and are frequent contributors to conferences in the area.  (See Working Group below)

(2) Local Engagement: Smart and Connected Communities

The Data Governance Ostrom team is also working with Local governments to develop Smart City – data driven decision making- assessments and implementation plans.  These are specifically tailored to the needs of the entity- and are often tasked with building a vision, team, community voice and implementation plan in conjunction with City leaders.

This is an incredibly broad area of focus, which encompasses several initiatives:

(1) Online Dispute Resolution

Professor Raymond is the Lead U.S. Academic for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and a Strengthening Economic and Legal Infrastructure (SELI) invited experts, andd ongoing speaker and networking opportunities. (See Working Group below)

(2) Blockchain-

(a) Dispute Resolution
An international team of experts in arbitration, blockchain and technology worked to publish one of the first of its kind articles on dispute resolution in global supply blockchains. The article explores international cross border arbitration, Online dispute resolution and the blockchain design a first of its kind system of on-chain dispute resolution.[1] (See Working Group below)

(b) And, in compliance

There is an ongoing need for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) authenticated and communicated to certification programs, compliance technologies, and risk mitigation tools to (often in the form of Regenerative Authentication Credits - or RACs.)   RACs offer the tangible, auditable, immutable record of ESG achievement and to demonstrate regulatory compliance.

This will be a new working group and part of a larger initiative in the coming year (22-23)

(3) The broadest of Categories- Short phrased as “AI Ethics”

(a) Research, Networking and Engagement

Professor Raymond is widely regarded as a international expert in technology, law, ethics and governance.  There are a litany of research, writing, and conference participation- there are opportunities to become involved in various ways, and numerous speakers and speaker series occur in this area.

(b) Building Community Knowledge and Voice in a World of Innovation

In the very near future, Ostrom with a team of global partners will launch an initiative entitled: Building Community Knowledge and Voice in a World of Innovation. This Global Conversation would be supported by Workshop activities and its extensive global network of research affiliates all focused on the Ostroms’ vision of polycentric institutional arrangements--an examination of how community actors and stakeholders can self-organize to decide the functions and scope of public goods and services. In a polycentric system, these responses are often happening concurrently at different levels, or in overlapping jurisdictions. This multitude of response creates the potential for tremendous synergies of effort, but also significant information and coordination costs. Building the infrastructure to examine data collection, management, and use, in various environments and across actors, can allow for the creation of guidance, training, best practices, and support to assist communities in becoming active participants and advocates.
_________

[1]Mind the Gap: Tech-Based Dispute Resolution for Disputes in Global Supply Blockchains (with Patricia Živković, Denise McCurdy, Mimi Zou) Business Horizons (online pre-pub October 31) ISSN 0007-6813, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.10.008.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681321002020) (in print edition forthcoming 2022)