When you hear stewardship you think (or at least I do) of financial resources. However, data stewardship is just as important for an organization when you acknowledge that data is a valuable resource. This interesting topic came to our attention from Out-Law in their blog post, “Responsible data stewardship ‘could unlock economic and social value’.”

The value of data can be preserved with the use of data governance tools. Across a range of industries, there are organizations looking to their data to bring about positive economic, social and environmental change.

Stewardship isn’t always about value, but sometimes the power of influence it contains. Focusing on the way data can tackle issues in society is one good example. It is necessary to explore new data governance models for collectives, governments and organizations that allow data to be shared for individual and public benefit in a responsible way, while managing the harms that may emerge.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.