What is a Data Dictionary

The Data Dictionary is an authoritative dictionary of glossary and information assets defined by the UC San Diego Data Definition Committees. It is a tool enabling creation, management, and sharing of vocabulary, business terms and related data attributes within a centralized catalog. The Data Dictionary supports the understanding of data asset business definitions and allows users to shop for data by searching for information that is meaningful to their department or area. Users can establish collections of assets and run lineage reports to examine data flow between assets.

BIA makes the Data Dictionary available via the Activity Hub Field List Report for fields found in any Activity Hub.

Data Dictionary information from our previous tool (IBM Information Governance Catalog) will be made available shortly.

Access

The Activity Hub Field List Report is automatically available to all active employees (AD Group = Active Employee), ITS students and ITS consultants.  If your department's student workers, consultants or contracts would like access to the Activity Hub File List Report, please email busintel@ucsd.edu with the name of the appropriate Active Directory (AD) group that will need access.

How to Use the Activity Hub Field List Report

Report Details

Fields include the following:

• Activity Hub = Abbreviation of the Activity Hub the field is found in.

• View = Final Curated View (FCV) the field is found in.

• View Type = Indicates if the View is available to Core report developers or requires additional access approval as the view is restricted.

• Field Name = this is the field name see in the Activity Hubs

• P Level Access = UCOP Protection Level Classification as set by the Data Steward.

• Column Definition =  Business definition approved by the data definition committee.

• Data Type = Indicates the type of data within the field.

• Field Length = Maximum length of the value in the field.

• Can Be Null = Indicates if the field value can be null.

Report Use Tips

• Search for a partial field name

• Change the Activity Hub or View selections to focus the results

Data Dictionary Update Process

1) Request

Requests or modifications can be emailed to busintel@ucsd.edu with the following information.  New data being added to an Activity Hub are automatically added to the list of terms to be added to the data dictionary.

• Field Name

• Column Definition

• Example

2) Define

Each Activity Hub has a Data Definitions Committee or equivalent work group that meet to discuss Term Field Names and Definitions.  Subject matter experts from across UCSD are invited as needed or as regular member in order to provide feedback.

EAH Data Definitions Committee

FacAH Data Definitions Committee

FINAH Data Definition Committee

SAH Data Definitions Committee

4) Upload

Approved definitions are uploaded to the Data Dictionary as part of the BIA monthly release cycle.