datamallista

Datamallista is a term describing a professional who curates datasets within a data mall, a centralized platform that aggregates data assets from multiple sources to enable discovery and reuse. A data mall refers to a marketplace-like environment designed for cross-domain data access, rather than a single organization’s internal data store. The datamallista emphasizes metadata quality, interoperability, and licensing to keep datasets searchable and usable.

Core responsibilities include onboarding new datasets, assigning metadata and taxonomies, applying quality checks, managing provenance and versioning, and coordinating licensing and access restrictions. They work with data stewards, engineers, and researchers to align datasets with common schemas, provide APIs or bulk downloads, and document transformations and limitations. They also monitor privacy and security, flag sensitive content, and maintain documentation to support reproducible research.

Datamallistas operate in data marketplaces, government or academic open-data portals, and corporate data marketplaces. The role overlaps with data catalogers, curators, and governance professionals, but emphasizes a federated or multi-source mall environment rather than a single organizational data store.

Key skills include familiarity with metadata standards such as DCAT or schema.org, experience with data catalogs (CKAN, DataHub, or equivalents), data profiling, and basic data transformation. Knowledge of licensing, provenance, and privacy considerations is important, as are abilities in search design, tagging, and user-facing documentation. Tools commonly used include metadata editors, cataloging platforms, ETL pipelines, and data lineage visualization.

Origin and usage: Datamallista is a neologism used in some data governance and open-data communities to describe this curation role. While not universally standardized, the term helps describe a discipline focused on making diverse data assets accessible and usable in a shared data mall.