O

10 Steps to
Achieving Marine
Data Management
Success

A guide to achieving marine data management best practice

Poor data management can put your business a
Here’s our quick 10-step guide to success

1 Prepare Your Vision 4 Perform a Data Audit

A vision is an aspirational description of what an organisation A data audit refers to new or existing data and is undertaken to
would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term assess its quality or utility for the specific purpose within the
future and serves as a clear guide for choosing current and future organisation and its onward use.
courses of action. It will help you communicate your organisation’s
Auditing data, unlike finances, involves looking at key metrics,
ambitions to employees and management in a single sentence or
other than quantity, to create conclusions about the properties of a
short paragraph.
particular data set. During a data audit, the origin, creation or format of
In the case of data management, you can express the declaration of data may be reviewed to assess its value and utility.
your intent to develop Data Management “best practice” in a manner
A data audit is dependent on a registry, which is a storage space for
that is understood and is seen as attainable.
data assets and should involve identifying the registry or repository,
often in a specific business department or organisation. In academia,
2 Write a Data Policy the idea of auditing research data has become an important work
component as scientific information is now increasingly published as
A Data Policy is a crucial guide to support a corporate decision data or in a database format.
to achieve desired outcomes in the way data is managed. It sets the
ground rules that your organisation must follow in managing the data
you hold. It details your commitment to the long-term management 5 Develop Your Metadata
of the data and also outlines the roles and responsibilities of all those
Metadata is ‘data about data’ and is an essential element for
involved in collecting and managing such data.
any future data publishing or exchange. It provides important
Central to the policy should be a statement outlining how the data is additional information about a (data) resource, to enable the resource
accessed, shared, published and preserved for the longer term and any to be better accessed, understood and used. Metadata is applied to
terms and conditions associated with these activities. “raw” (unrefined) and processed data as well as to data products and
services. There are a range of uses for metadata but the two most
common ones are:
3 Appoint a Data Manager • Discovery (describes the existence and overview of a data resource)
The Data Manager should not be confused with that of the Database • Evaluation (describes how that data resource can be used in more
Manager which is a traditional IT role. technical detail)

The job of a Data Manager is to make your organisation aware of Almost every product or service we purchase and use has metadata.
the corporate risks associated with marine data and its use and For example; a tin of baked beans has a label containing information
to help them manage those risks. about the product such as its contents, weight, additives, etc. whereas
a bathymetric survey contains information such as its geographic
The Data Manager is responsible for design, development, and location, ship name, surveyor name, survey instrument, date, time etc.
modification of the data management infrastructure that allows data
analysis and reporting. He/she will implement the data policy and
guidelines for management plans, operating instructions, procedures 6 Create a Master Data Register
for data handling and archiving as well as providing guidance on
Creating a Master Data Register (MDR) is a good way of getting to
data matters.
know all about the data resources you hold as it will contain data
This role does involve working with the Database Manager in structures and lists of codes used in electronic information recording
the selection, implementation and support of database design, and exchanges among data producers, publishers and stakeholders.
functionality and changes.
A MDR provides the infrastructure and mechanisms required
The Data Manager is also responsible for the organisation’s internal to manage and maintain any data resource and may typically
Master Data Register (MDR) which identifies ownership, location, include the feature concept, means of portraying the information
status, rights and use of data through its life-cycle. and metadata, which in effect are managed lists or dictionaries of
items. The product specifications register is a list describing meta-
information about the content, purpose, version, location and
availability of those product specifications.

A data registry allows for data to be used to agreed data standards

such as those developed by bodies such as the Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC), the International Standards Organisation (ISO)
or the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO).
at risk

7 Invest in a Data Management System 9 Consider Content and Document Management

Creating a Master Data Management (MDM) system enables an As the volume of information grows in an organisation, the need
organisation to link all of its critical data to one file. This file is for a formal management system for organisational documents and
referred to as the Master Data Register or master file (see step 6). MDM content becomes ever more important.
streamlines the process of data sharing among people, departments
Document Management Systems (DMS) are computer systems
and potentially other organisations and involves a number of
focusing primarily on the storage, retrieval and tracking of
technology solutions, including data integration, data quality, and
data and/or images of paper documents and is designed to help
Business Process Management (BPM).
organisations manage the creation and flow of documents through
It delivers a single view of the data from disparate, duplicate, and a centralised repository. The workflow of the DMS encapsulates
potentially conflicting information. Business rules allow you to identify business rules and metadata.
the relationships among the data so you can combine data more
A DMS has some overlap with the concept of content management
easily. It will also provide a complete view of all interactions that have
systems and is often viewed as a component of an Enterprise Content
occurred with that data, product, customer, channel partner, or other
Management (ECM) system for digital asset management, document
data element giving you a complete view of that particular customer.
imaging, workflow systems and records management systems.
A good MDM should allow flexibility, scalability and data variability However, as most organisations still have to deal with paper and
in order to handle multiple data types and to understand the electronic files, a well-designed DMS should make finding and sharing
relationships between different data. information easier.

It does this via sophisticated search tools and the adding of

8 Develop a Data Quality Management System classification schemes (or taxonomies) to the document information
being stored.
It is possible to have a data quality initiative without MDM, but every
MDM project must have a Data Quality Management (DQM) element.
We are all familiar with examples of the poor data quality that we are 10 Strengthen Your Existing Data
exposed to every day. For example; how many misspelt versions of
Finally, let’s consider the data you hold prior to embarking
your name appear on letters and bills sent to you?
on Steps 1 to 9 above.
Data quality management entails the establishment and
Your data may require additional structure applied for future
deployment of roles, responsibilities, policies, and procedures
management and use. Such activities might include:
concerning the acquisition, maintenance, dissemination, and
a) Capturing paper records in an electronic format
disposition of data. For this to succeed, a partnership between the
business and technology groups is needed. b) Data cleansing
c) Providing and / or improving metadata
The business areas are responsible for establishing the business rules
d) Creating defined conventions for filenames and older/
that govern the data and are ultimately responsible for verifying the
file structures
data quality. The Information Technology (IT) team is responsible
e) Defining Licensing, Corporate IP and Copyright Policies
for establishing and managing the overall environment such as
architecture, technical facilities, systems, and databases, that acquire, f) Creating a business model of the Data to be managed in
manage, disseminate, and dispose of the electronic data of the future (a prelude to Step 1)
organisation, with decisions made based on the data they have at
their disposal.

The viability of the business decisions is contingent on good data,

and good data is contingent on an effective approach to data quality
management. This ultimately leads to providing data of a given
quality to customers (both internal and external) as well as collecting
quality data about the customer.
So what can you do now?
Enjoy the confidence of working with marine data experts

By now you’ll realise that data is an extremely valuable asset to your OceanWise are marine data experts and support organisations and/or
business and you will take the necessary steps towards managing individuals with a wide range of marine data management challenges.
this asset in a ‘best practice’ manner. We provide guidance, training and consultancy services at any stage
By following our Data Management 10-steps to success, you can of your journey.
make the most of your data holdings. Contact us for more information:
+44 (0)1420 768 262
info@oceanwise.eu
www.oceanwise.eu

PREPARE
YOUR
STRENGTHEN VISION WRITE A
YOUR DATA
EXISTING POLICY
DATA

CONSIDER 1
CONTENT AND 10 2 APPOINT A
DOCUMENT DATA
MANAGEMENT MANAGER
9 10 STEPS TO 3
MARINE DATA
MANAGEMENT
8 4
DEVELOP A SUCCESS
DATA QUALITY PERFORM A
MANAGEMENT DATA
7 5 AUDIT
SYSTEM
6

INVEST IN DEVELOP
A DATA YOUR
MANAGEMENT METADATA
SYSTEM CREATE A
MASTER DATA
REGISTER

+44 (0)1420 768 262 info@oceanwise.eu www.oceanwise.eu