Original title: Data infrastructure literacy
Data literacy usually means being able to understand numbers, statistics, and datasets. This article says it should also include understanding the systems that create, store, and analyse data. People should be able to question and take part in changing those systems, not just use them. The authors call this broader ability “data infrastructureThe connected systems and arrangements through which data is created, stored, and analysed. literacy” and illustrate it with examples from work on open data, online platforms, journalism, and activism.
Imagine a shared kitchen where everyone uses the food, but only a few people decide what gets bought and where it is stored. It is hard to make a good meal if you cannot see or influence those choices. In this paper, reading a dataset is like using the food, while data infrastructure literacy means being able to understand and help change the systems that supply and organise it.
People affected by data systems need more than the skills to read charts or use software. This article argues that they should also be able to question how data is created and stored, and take part in changing the systems that shape its use.
The abstract presents a concept and illustrates it with examples from previous and ongoing research; it does not report evidence that particular educational programmes using this idea are effective. It also does not specify how the proposed literacy should be taught or assessed.
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Data infrastructure literacy — Jonathan Gray, Carolin Gerlitz, Liliana Bounegru — Big Data & Society — doi:10.1177/2053951718786316
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.