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Equity and Inclusion Office

Data Stewardship Committee – Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference:

  • Review requests from data owners to provide guidance on weaving equity, diversity and inclusion, with respect to the collection, analysis and interpretation of the information they have compiled (or gathered) within the McMaster community.
  • Review the data analytics and provide feedback on contents, presentation, and interpretation with respect to the type and number of consultations performed by the Equity & Inclusion Office (EIO) staff, and the number of educational and training sessions delivered by EIO staff and the Associate Vice-President (AVP) which comprises the basis for the annual EIO report.
  • To identify gaps in data collection e.g. the need for disaggregated in the employment equity census which may show inequities across different measures such as ancestry, race, ethnic origin etc. This will help us measure the impact of the inclusive excellence strategy.
  • Identify gaps in data collection regarding matters of community engagement, for example, collect information on the number of and impact of community-oriented collaborative educational offerings, trainings, or strategic planning (i.e. Faculties, Security Services, Residence Life, Sexual Assault Centre Hamilton and Area (SACHA) etc.), which can assist in identifying where collaborative education, training, or programming can be strengthened, further supported, or initiated.

The Equity and Inclusion Office (EIO) Data Stewardship Committee

The EIO data stewardship committee will review requests from Data Owners for guidance on data usage from groups and organizations on campus to provide insight using an equity and inclusion lens. This advisory group provides advice and will serve as a central point of contact to add an equitable approach to the increasingly complex and growing data collected within McMaster University.

This may include providing a perspective on the intended and possible unintended consequences of data use, and suggestions on maximizing the sharing of information and minimizing risk with respect to breaching confidentiality agreements and stigmatization.

A specific role of the Data Stewardship committee will be to review the data analytics with respect to the type and number of consultations performed by the EIO staff, the number of educational and training sessions delivered by EIO staff and the AVP and review the summary evaluations of these sessions.

The committee will also identify gaps in the institutional metrics that are required to measure the impact of the inclusive excellence strategy.

 

The EIO Data Stewardship committee will be Chaired by AVP EIO and composed of EIO key members, including the Director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office and Anti-Oppression Programs (SVPRO) or their designate, the Director of Human Rights & Accessibility or their designate, the Director of EDI or their designate, and the EIO Data Analytics associate representative.

This EIO committee works in a participatory and consultative manner and will invite additional perspectives on an issue by issue basis to provide input from  (e.g. from Human Resources, Vice-President Research (VPR) office, Privacy Office, Ethics Specialist, Indigenous Faculty members, and student representatives from McMaster Student Union (MSU)).

The committee is advisory to the AVP of the EIO, and its recommendations and cautions provided to organizational functional groups (i.e., Faculties, Departments) are not binding, and may be used at the discretion of the group seeking advice. It does not replace the need for research ethics board approval if the data analysis is deemed to be research, or privacy consultation.

 

Date Steward: A data steward often provides guidance on data usage considering intent, privacy, and security issues. The data steward can act as a liaison between the Information Technology (IT) department and the administrative side of an organization.

Date Owner: A data owner is the group who sets out to collect data from a community or organization, and decides who and how the data is used. The data owner is accountable for how the data are used. A data owner may seek the guidance of a data steward to help ensure the use of their data does not result in any negative consequences for the community from which it was collected.

Deciding what is data analytics versus research: Information used that does not constitute research as per TCPS-2 2018 Canada as stated in Article 2.5 includes quality assurance and quality improvement studies, program evaluation activities, and performance reviews, or testing within normal educational requirements when used exclusively for assessment, management, or improvement purposes, and do not fall within the scope of research ethics board (REB) review.

Application Article 2.5 refers to assessments of the performance of an organization or its employees or students, within the mandate of the organization, or according to the terms and conditions of employment or training. Those activities are normally administered in the ordinary course of the operation of an organization where participation is required, for example, as a condition of employment in the case of staff performance reviews, or an evaluation in the course of academic or professional training. Other examples include student course evaluations, or data collection for internal or external organizational reports. Such activities do not normally follow the consent procedures outlined in this Policy. If data are collected for the purposes of such activities but later proposed for research purposes, it would be considered secondary use of information not originally intended for research. At that time, it may require REB review in accordance with this Policy.