RESULT: comp.data.administration passes 259:17

RESULT unmoderated group comp.data.administration passes 259:17 There were 259 YES votes and 17 NO votes, for a total of 276 valid votes. There were 9 invalid ballots. For a group to pass, YES votes must be at least 2/3 of all valid (YES and NO) votes. There must also be at least 100 more YES votes than NO votes. A five day discussion period follows this announcement. If no serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups will create the group shortly thereafter. Newsgroups line: comp.data.administration Manage data as a corporate asset: stds & methds. Voting closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 4 Oct 1996. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about this proposal should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Diana Stobart <dstobart@shore.net> Votetaker: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com> RATIONALE: comp.data.administration Considering the volume of data that companies collect to conduct business, data resource management is an essential contributor to success in the Information Age. It is so important because data is the material from which information is formulated and decisions and knowledge result, Data Management is currently in the process of shifting between two eras. More and more companies acknowledge the fact that data has become a company asset and, therefore, should be stewarded as such. As data is recognized by more organizations as an asset, the attitude toward the management of data has shifter from minimization of an expense to investment in an asset. Data modeling will always be done at two levels. At the project level, such factors as time-to-market and budget and schedule are the primary driving forces. At the enterprise level, such factors as re-usability, stability and minimization of long-term costs are some of the driving forces. These motives may often be in conflict yet they are not completely incompatible in an organization that has carefully planned its management of data at all levels. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to adequately coordinate these levels of data management, with the project level taking precedence. The result is that a good set of corporate data management policies is developed but disregarded under short term project pressures. As the discrepancies between data management efforts at the departmental level multiply, the task of the administrator of the enterprise wide model becomes more difficult. Data Management can be divided into two parts: Data Administration and Data Base Administration. Database Administration deals with the technical solutions to problems of gaining access to the data and especially the efficiency of the physical database design. Data Administration is concerned with documenting the structure of the business by focusing first on the data that it uses and second, on the business rules and processes that collect the data and formulate the information required to drive the business. Data Administrators use data modeling techniques developed to help technical specialists communicate with business specialists. In many organizations there is a fine line between data administration and data base administration. Often the same organization or even the same person is responsible for both. For this reason, there remains ambiguity as to the role of the data administrator and the position of the data administration team in the overall organization. The goal of Data Administration is to support an integrated view of the organization by ensuring that business users share data and reuse data. By developing and enforcing data standards, data redundancy can be avoided. Data Administrators work closely with developers, who can re-use design components, and data base administrators, who are responsible for ensuring that end-users can find the information they need in a timely manner. Diana Stobart represents the International Data Administration Management Association (DAMA) as Vice President of the Boston, MA (USA) Chapter. DAMA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the growth of the data administration as a profession. DAMA already has a forum on CompuServe and is supporting the effort to facilitate the sharing of information on the subject through the internet. Preliminary surveys in all data related newsgroups, and inquiries elsewhere have revealed support for the establishment of a specific newsgroup to discuss issues related to data administration. There are currently 400 news readers on a private list created through this survey process. Discussions related to data administration can be found scattered throughout the product focused data base newsgroups and the database theory newsgroup. There exists a need to focus these discussions and provide a forum where ideas can be explored in context. Creation of a newsgroup would provide a focus for discussion and attract the interest of those who currently do not have a forum. Search by newcomers leads to frustration because there is no central point for discussions on the Usenet. It is not easy to find out information about data administration, or even to know where to look for such information. CHARTER: comp.data.administration The principal focus for a data administration newsgroup would be a forum to discuss data administration issues such as internal marketing of the data administration function, difficulties with maintaining business user commitment, creating a data architecture and standardizing data, and administration methods. It would also give readers the opportunity to discuss their experiences with CASE tools, repositories and data warehousing. This newsgroup would also provide a much needed vehicle for announcements of data administration conferences and would help to inform readers about the latest innovations in data administration. Examples of issues that could be discussed: * Relationship of Data Administration to architectural efforts like RM-ODP, etc. * Data Administration on the Enterprise vs the Divisional level. * The influence of continuously changing business demands on data administration. * The waning of discipline by some organizations to stick to the principles of data administration in the face of pressure to produce for the short term without concern for the long term effect. * The influence of globalization and inter-company data exhcange on data administration. * The 3rd normal vs 4th normal form modeling in the logical data model * Data related training requirements for business users involved in large information engineering projects * Development of data administration standards * How to run Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions for data modeling * Data administration's role in business re-engineering * The effect of distributed databases on data administration. * Data administration's role in data conversion from legacy systems * Data administration's relationship to workflow analysis * Data architecture This newsgroup should be of interest to business users involved in data administration projects, data base administrators and, o