Organisations have become more reliant on their data and reporting capabilities. However, knowing what information needs to be reported and where that information is stored is difficult to answer. Trying to find an answer to a simple question can be quite a lengthy & difficult process if the data is not organised, manageable or easily accessible. Due to this, staff can often spend an enormous amount of time defining what data means, figuring out how to access it and then repeating the process because there is no easy way to record what they have already decided or learned. Diagram 1 outlines a list of identified issues & problems with data management.
In order to help resolve these issues, an enterprise data dictionary could be the solution. Having a formal, collated & centralised data terminology & report definitions repository would allow an organisation to better manage their data across the enterprise.
For this evaluation, The Data Cookbook tool will be reviewed to determine how well it works as a data governance / data dictionary tool for the University of Birmingham (UoB) and the possible impact it could have on the organisation.