Richard Welpton, Senior Data Manager at The Health Foundation, explores what makes a good data steward and how his experience working at the UK Data Service prepared him to undertake this role successfully.
The Open Data Institute has breathed new life into the idea of ‘data stewardship’ in a recent report, in which it re-envisages the collection, maintenance and sharing of data in a way that middle east rcs data increases access to it for public benefit. As the ODI report explains, data stewardship is about ‘looking after data’, not in the traditional data management sense of ‘controlling access’ but through preserving, documenting, and transforming data so that they can be used for good, now and in the future.
As a Senior Data Manager in the Data Analytics Team at the Health Foundation, the report prompted me to reflect on why there has never been a more important time for people and organisations that use data to evaluate and accelerate health service improvements to grasp this idea. In particular, it got me thinking about the skills needed to be an effective data steward and the current absence of clear career pathways for our profession.
What makes a good data steward?
So how and where does one come to be a good data steward? I have the UK Data Service to thank for setting me up to take on this role and for giving me the experience and skills I needed to carve out a really interesting career in this area.