Introduction

Data is considered one of the most important strategic assets for Najran University, forming a primary foundation for supporting decision-making, enhancing operational efficiency, and promoting transparency and accountability at both the academic and administrative levels. The university works to adopt best practices and standards in data management and governance to ensure maximizing the benefit from this institutional asset and consolidating its management in an organized and sustainable manner.  In this regard, the Data Management Office prepared this policy to establish an integrated institutional framework for modeling and structuring data within the university, ensuring standardization of methodologies, aligning the design of data structures and their outputs, linking them with business needs, reports, and indicators, and in line with national trends in data governance and management.

“the policy”

  • Data Modeling:the creation of an accurate and systematic representation of the university's data within various business contexts, including describing data elements, identifying their components, and clarifying their relationships, which supports comprehensive understanding and facilitates future reuse.
  • Data Structures:a set of actions and organizational structures and standards adopted to manage data effectively, including its organization, storage, access, transfer, in accordance with best practices and standards adopted.And the University commits through this policy to lead and direct the systematic and organized modeling and structuring of data, to ensure alignment of data with its strategic objectives, and support optimal use thereof as an institutional asset that contributes to enhancing quality, efficiency, and transparency in all its operations.

    • The purpose

    This policy aims to:

    • Documentation of the University's understanding of data components and their relationships, which enables consistent applications with current and future requirements.
      • Establishing the foundations for completing major institutional initiatives, such as managing reference and primary data and governing them..
    • reducing the costs associated with data support, increasing opportunities for its reuse, which contributes to reducing the development costs of new applications.Enhancing the Strategic Utilization of Data as an Institutional Asset to Support Decision-Making and Achieve Operational Excellence..

    Scope of Work

    This policy applies to all data and applications, programs, and services belonging to Najran University, including all units, departments, and affiliated sections of the university.

    Guiding Principles

    • The data produced by the university is national assets that must be protected and managed according to best practices, while preserving intellectual property rights..
  • Enhancing the use of data to improve spending efficiency and support the sustainability of services.Guarantee of having comprehensive documents to understand the data for both business sectors and technical departments..Update data models and structures periodically to ensure continuous benefit from data as a shared asset..

    • Policy Statement

    Ngarran University is committed to managing its data accurately in accordance with best practices, aiming to document all of its components, standardize its models, and link them to the university’s operational and strategic processes. Furthermore, this policy aims to create an integrated framework for data modeling and structuring that ensures accuracy, consistency, and reusability, and enhances the utilization of data as a strategic asset to support decision-making, transparency, and institutional efficiency..  And the key commitments are summarized as follows:

    • Support and accelerate the completion of its current data structure accurately, and document all its components, to cover the current data structure with the three models:The conceptual, logical, and material models.So that:
    • The conceptual model includes the main entities in the university and data exchange relationships between them.
  • The logical model clarifies the characteristics of data and its relationships in detail, ensuring compatibility with operational processes..
  • The physical model defines the names of attributes, primary keys, and data types in databases..
  • Working to integrate big data requirements within the overall data management structure, ensuring consistency with traditional data to enhance its efficient use across all systems and institutional operations, and to ensure effective data utilization...Support for Decision Makingthrough the integration of big data into operational and strategic processes, without the need for additional or redundant independent structures.Utilize advanced technological tools to support data modeling and design structures..
  • Management of change requests related to forms and structures to ensure flexibility and continuous updates..
  • Development of monitoring records for modeling and structuring projects, including designs and reference documents.
  • Commitment to the targeted structure to ensure its compatibility with data management and personal data protection strategies..
  • Integration of the targeted structure with the university’s institutional framework..
  • Commitment to using the target framework in all technical projects to ensure standardization and sustainability..

    • Roles and Responsibilities

    The Institution

    Roles and Responsibilities

    The Supreme Council for the Management and Governance of Data

  • Approval of the Policy
  • Oversight of data governance activities and modeling as ongoing activities.Data Management Office

  • Guarantee of compliance with the terms of data modeling and structuring policy.
  • Specify the types of models to be generated.
  •  The linkage between data modeling and the university’s strategic objectives.
  • Supervision of the development of data models, structuring, and their review and approval.Tracking the implementation of updates and monitoring data quality..Digital Transformation and Knowledge Sources College

  • Create conceptual, logical, and physical models and submit them for review.
  • Providing the necessary technical infrastructure to implement the models.
  • Operation and management of data modeling tools, databases, and data management systems.
  • Integrate the models and technical structuring within operating systems.
  • Support continuous update projects for related models and systems..

    • Specific to Business Data

    • Drafting data models for review and approval.
    • Warranty of the completeness of the models and their possibility of reuse.
    • Drawing the three models: conceptual, logical, and material, as well as entering descriptive data.Data Officer

    • Implementing the physical models on databases.
    • Maintenance of data inventory and its classification, management and cataloging..Business Data Representative

      • Update the data structure details for its data ranges.
      • Define the scope and types of conceptual data models required according to business needs..Cybersecurity Administration

        • Data protection and the technical infrastructure associated with it.
        • Monitoring of Data Access and Compliance with Confidentiality Policies.Legal Department

          • Review of forms and policies to ensure compliance with regulations and laws related to data, particularly sensitive and protected data..

    Review of the Policy

    The Data Management Office will review this policy periodically and update it as needed to ensure its alignment with best practices and strategic changes.

    Commitment to the policy

    It is incumbent upon all university units to fully comply with the provisions of this policy, and the Data Management Office will monitor compliance and ensure its application in projects and daily activities.