Blog Posts

The session is full. If you want to participate, please email us at wprdc@pitt.edu and we'll let you know if a space becomes available. WHAT IS DATA LITERACY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? We will be holding our second round of Data Literacy for Data Stewards training workshops this spring. This series emphasizes the importance of thinking critically about creating, applying, and managing data and tec...

The goal of our January 27 workshop on data governance was geared to getting participants familiar with what data governance is, and comfortable and confident making the case for data governance. This was the final workshop in our initial cohort. Special thanks to everyone who participated and were generous of their time to provide feedback on the individual activities and design of the series. I...

The goal of our January 20 workshop on procurement was geared to getting participants comfortable and confident in developing questions and guidelines that could be used when purchasing data and technology. There is an increased focus on improving processes used to buy data and technology within government, and people view the process as an important place for preventing harm, and a tool for injec...

The goal of our January 13 workshop on data management plans was geared to getting participants comfortable and confident in asking up-front questions about how data would be created, collected, used, documented, organized, stored, shared, and archived. Data management plans have been a requirement for federal research grants, and academic libraries have developed tools and expertise in documentin...

On Friday, January 6, we held the ninth workshop in the Data Literacy for Data Stewards series.   Our objectives for this workshop included helping participants understand risks and benefits that can come from the use of public algorithms and data collection devices. We also wanted them to get practice asking critical questions about public algorithms, and learn more about the Pittsburgh Task For...

Special thanks to Adena Bowden for her support in delivering this series and co-authorship of this blog post. Last Friday, December 16, 2022, we hosted the eighth meeting of our workshop series, “Data Literacy for Data Stewards,” where we discussed practices for protecting privacy when sharing data with the public. The outcomes for our discussion included (1) understanding the risks and benefits ...

Note - special thanks to Adena Bowden for co-authoring this post. On Friday, December 9, 2022, we met for the seventh installment of our virtual “Data Literacy for Data Stewards” workshop series to build empathy into our data visualization practices.   Before the workshop, we asked participants to create and re-make a data visualization after reading the “Do No Harm Guide: Applying Equity Awaren...

Special thanks to Adena Bowden for co-authoring this blog post.  We’re halfway through the first cohort of our twelve-week virtual data literacy series, “Data Literacy for Data Stewards.” Over the past six workshops, we’ve discussed different topics including missing data, stigmatization, context, and data classification systems. This past Friday, December 2nd, we discussed data dashboards.   Da...

Friday, November 18 was week five of twelve of our virtual data literacy series, “Data Literacy for Data Stewards.” During our workshop, we explored the different classification systems we use for data and the values, assumptions, and power hierarchies that are embedded within them. We worked together to explore how we can maximize value and minimize harm from the use of classification systems in ...

Special thanks to Adena Bowden for co-authoring this post. On Friday, November 4, 2022, we met for the fourth installment of our twelve-week virtual data literacy series, “Data Literacy for Data Stewards,” where we talked about the importance of having contextual information about the data that we work with.  Without context, it can be difficult to know who is creating data and how data is create...