Yale Cross Campus

Data Fluency at Yale

Building a shared culture of data stewardship — for every member of the Yale community.

Data Fluency at Yale

Introduction

Every day, we all work with Yale data — whether we’re entering it, reviewing it, sharing it, or making decisions based on it. Data Fluency at Yale is a new training designed to help everyone understand a simple idea: Yale’s data doesn’t belong to any individual person or department. It belongs to the university, and we all share responsibility for caring for it.

This self-paced course introduces the concepts, vocabulary, and habits behind good data stewardship, so that no matter your role, you can use, protect, and share data with confidence.

What you’ll learn

By the end of this training, you’ll be able to:

  • Explain what Yale institutional data is, and why it’s a shared asset

  • Identify Yale’s major data domains and understand the role of Data Stewards

  • Recognize Yale’s three data risk classifications and apply them to everyday situations

  • Choose secure, approved systems for storing, accessing, and transmitting data (“making your match”)

  • Describe what good data caretaking looks like: responsible use, protection, and quality

  • Recognize when data is sensitive, even if it isn’t formally regulated

  • Follow best practices for sharing data, including agreements and deletion steps

Course Details

  • Time

    About 30 minutes

  • Format

    Self-paced, in Workday Learning

  • Audience

    All staff, regardless of role or experience with data

Class

How to access the course

You can start the course directly in Workday Learning:

Data Fluency at Yale

A shared effort

This training is a collaborative initiative, co-led by Information Technology Services and the University Data Office (UDO), in partnership with the Poorvu Center and Human Resources, with input from colleagues across the university.

Why take it

This course isn’t required, but it introduces a shared way of thinking about, using, and caring for Yale’s data. Through clear, relatable examples and practical guidance, you’ll build the mindset and habits of good data stewardship, including how to use, protect, and share data responsibly.

Doing this well helps everyone: it supports better collaboration, reduces risk, and leads to more informed decisions across the university. Whether you’re new to Yale or have been here for decades, this training will help you get more value from the data in your work, and contribute to a stronger data culture at Yale.

Key concepts at a glance

It’s not owned by any single person or unit — everyone who works with it is a caretaker, not an owner.

Examples include Human Resources, Student, Financial, Space and Facilities, Alumni, and Research Administration. Each domain has a Data Steward who manages access and answers questions.

 Appointed by the Data Governance Council, stewards understand their domain’s data, manage access, define appropriate uses, and ensure compliance.

Yale uses three classification levels: Low, Moderate, and High. The classification determines where data can be stored, how it can be shared, and what protections apply. (“Making your match” means putting data only in systems approved for its risk level.)

Things like race or ethnicity, health information, immigration status, or location data may be sensitive depending on context. When in doubt, apply the principle of “minimum necessary” — only collect and share what’s truly needed.

Printables

Download and keep these at your desk, or share with your team:

Related trainings

Additional Resources

Questions?

If you’re not sure how to access, classify, store, or share a dataset, reach out to your Data Steward or contact the University Data Office

Contact us!