Databus Issue: 2007 3 09/17/2007
President's Message
Carl Fong PresidentData Here, Data There, Data Everywhere
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Summer¡¯s here and the theme for this issue is ¡°data management.¡±
According to Wikipedia, data management ¡°comprises
all the disciplines related to managing data as a valuable
resource.¡± However, the Data Management Association (DAMA)
defines it as follows: ¡°Data resource management is the development
and execution of architectures, polices, practices and procedures
that properly manage the full-data lifecycle needs of an enterprise¡±.
What does this all mean? It means that we as K-12 educational
organizations manage a lot of data and information. There is data
for every aspect in our environment and the requirements for providing
information keeps on changing. Yet, we just keep adding and
building more databases. But, are we effectively managing and utilizing data to its full potential?
According to a portion of DAMA¡¯s definition of data management, it is the ¡°procedures
that properly manage the full data lifecycle needs of an enterprise.¡± Keep in mind that data
management does not just mean creating and normalizing data in a database so that our users
can have easy access to information.
As your colleagues who submitted articles for this issue can attest, it is much more. Not
only is it the storage of data (data warehousing), but it is also the retention and recovery of
data (data archiving) and the mining of data (data mining from the data warehouse) as well.
Finally, my all-time favorite, the security of data.
As you read through this issue of the Databus, think about all that data that is in your databases
and what would happen if you could not recover if something should happen. But more
importantly, think about all the unknown data that our users have exported into their own spreadsheets
on their laptops and desktops. As the saying goes¡ªdata here, data there, data everywhere.
Finally, if you would like to learn more about data management, I encourage you to attend
this year¡¯s CETPA conference from October 9-12 in Indian Wells. More information can be
found at www.cetpa-k12.org. I look forward to seeing you all there. «±
