The state Department of Information Systems is contracting with a University of Arkansas at Little Rock institute to fill a newly created position, chief data officer.
UALR’s Institute for Chief Data Officers — led by its executive director, Richard Wang, and its graduate students — will perform the functions of the state’s chief data officer and conduct other tasks under the contract, signed last week by the Department of Information Systems and UALR officials. The contract is for up to $106,863.20 in fiscal 2018, which began July 1.
Wang also is director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Program. He served as the deputy chief data officer and chief data quality officer for the U.S. Army from 2009-11.
A growing trend among companies and governments in recent years is to create positions of chief data officers to manage an organization’s information and oversee the use of it. According to its website, UALR’s Institute for Chief Data Officers was established to collaborate with other universities and organizations to conduct research and develop training to meet the need for people to fill these positions.
The state’s chief data officer position was created by Act 912 of 2017, sponsored by Rep. Austin McCollum, R-Bentonville.
The act says the chief data officer provides “master data management” between systems and state agencies by facilitating standardization, sharing and integration of critical data. The office also will take a role in eliminating duplication.
Act 912 requires the director of the state Department of Information Systems to select a person to serve as chief data officer. The act also creates the 18-member Data and Transparency Panel chaired by the chief data officer.
Asked why the Department of Information Systems is contracting with UALR rather than hiring an employee, department spokesman Janet Clark said Monday that the department is receiving the benefit of the institute’s resources and leadership by Wang, an acknowledged expert in the field.
Wang is a full-time professor at UALR with an annual salary of $100,000, university spokesman Judy Williams said Monday.
Clark said state officials of unaware of similar contracts between universities and other states.
Two department employees have been designated as deputy chief data officers, and neither are receiving additional compensation for the added duties, Clark said. They are database administrator lead Adita Karkera, whose salary is $103,966 a year, and data warehouse lead Robert McGough, whose salary is $89,541, she said.
In a news release, Wang said, “We have to make different data from different systems talk to each other.”
He said he wants to create a state chief data officer forum in his first 100 days to “begin the discussion and exchange of ideas to achieve project outcomes beneficial to the people of Arkansas.”
Wang said he also wants to explore public and private partnerships under which Arkansas can become a national example of an “effective data-driven government to better address public priority needs,” and to create greater value for taxpayers through better allocation of existing data to meet the needs of Arkansans.
Under the contract, the UALR Institute for Chief Data Officers also will complete a draft analysis of the needs of select departments, and perform a feasibility and cost study on the development of a statewide data warehouse program.
Act 912 also requires the Department of Information Systems director to select a person to serve as chief privacy officer. Clark said the role of chief privacy officer hasn’t been filled yet.