CSDE’s UW Data Collaborative Receives 2nd Endorsement from UW Office of Information Security
Posted: 11/29/2023 ()
CSDE’s UW Data Collaborative is a unique, secure data enclave for researchers collaborating on highly sensitive or proprietary data. In November 2023, the UW Office of Information Security renewed its endorsement of the UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) after a reviewing its infrastructure, updated security protocols and practices safeguarding highly-sensitive, restricted-use data stored within its computing systems. The UWDC first received this endorsement from the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer and Associate Vice President of Infrastructure at UW-IT in 2020. If you would like to learn more about the UWDC, contact Sofia Ayala sgayala@uw.edu UWDC Director or visit their website.
In the endorsement letter, Mark Nardone, Associate Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer at UW Office of Information Security, writes:
“The UW Office of Information Security enthusiastically supports the UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) mission. OIS recognizes UWDC’s dedication to ensuring the security and integrity of its systems, data, and processes to provide essential high-powered analytic computing services to the University’s research community. … The security model and infrastructure employed by the UWDC are robust and follow contemporary best practices, allowing for the broad use and safe handling of sensitive data within a tightly controlled and hardened environment.”
The UWDC welcomes this endorsement from UW’s information security leadership in recognition of our continuous efforts to provide an up-to-date secure research environment that meets all physical and information security requirements for storage of, access to, and research with sensitive and confidential restricted-use data from research community partners such as State of Washington agencies.
The UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) provides the infrastructure to harness innovative, but hard-to-access data for the development of novel, high-quality research and evidence-driven policy making. Central to the UWDC is a state-of-the art computing cluster that provides access to restricted data in a secure and computationally sophisticated environment. A key objective of the UWDC is to foster collaborative relationships between UW researchers and community partners, including government organizations, non-profits, and other service providers, interested in better utilizing their data for cross-cutting research, program evaluation, and policy development.