Data Strategy Lab at the Ostrom Workshop

The Problem: In both the public and private sectors, companies and organizations lack the skills and/or the strategy to manage the large amounts of data they have collected. Their data efforts may have adequate technological support but lack strategic vision, stakeholder input, and clear goals of productivity, security, and equitable and responsible conduct. Current approaches to strategic data planning are either too narrow, too technical, or too siloed. The Solution: The Data Strategy Lab at the Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University will help public institutions, companies, and organizations to create a human-centered data strategy and train future data managers in stakeholder and community engagement as an essential component of such strategy. Our mission is to promote responsible data practices that prioritize privacy, security and ownership when using data. The Lab will do this by producing and supporting projects that focus on under-resourced organizations and ensure community building, stakeholder engagement, and institutional coordination. The Lab will develop toolkits and metrics to align organizational goals and needs as well as monitor and evaluate data-related activities. The Inner Workings of the Lab: The Data Strategy Lab will be led by Indiana University faculty and staff who will train and supervise students from the Luddy, Maurer, Kelley, and Lugar Schools as they are paid to work with identified clients to develop and implement human-centered data strategies. In its initial phase, the Data Strategy Lab will serve clients drawn from government, non-profit, and private-sector organizations who are otherwise unable to secure funding to develop and implement a human-centered comprehensive data strategy.