8 Data Literacy: Definition, Importance and scope

Anubhuti Yadav

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Structure of Module

1 Introduction

2 Definition of Data Literacy

3 Importance of Data Literacy

4 How to access data/ Finding data 4.1 over view of data.gov.in

4.1.1 How to search data data.gov.in

4.1.2 How to create Visualisation/infographics on data.gov.in

4.2 About dataportal.org

4.3 Data Hub

4.4 Tricks for data search

5 Summary

 

1. INTRODUCTION

 

Data has always been a key concern for researchers, educationists, journalists, marketing professionals, scientists and to all those who are involved in research across all professions. To study any phenomenon, collection of data is central. In any research whether it is academic or applied most of the resources during research are allocated for data collection. Since the sharing till few years back was not very prevalent in the absence of the right medium, there used to be lot of duplication even in data collection. Data collected for one study was limited to that study and if in case someone wanted to conduct research on the similar topics the data collection had to be done afresh. This no doubt led to the wastage of resources and time. Also data collected for one particular study could have been used for number of studies and based on the data in hand researchers could have conceived some new projects that could have been possible with the analysis of the same data. With the emergence of internet especially with the open data movement, data now is available for the people to use reuse remix and redistribute. The online space is inundated with lot of data. This offers another challenge that is how to sift the relevant, accurate and authentic data. Keeping this in view a new concept has emerged called data literacy. Many countries have introduced data literacy in their curriculum both in school as well as higher education level. Also this can be integrated with other subjects to make it more relevant and contextual.

 

2. DEFINITION

 

The UNESCO MIL Curriculum and Competency Framework combines two distinct areas- media literacy and information Literacy- under one umbrella term; Media and Information Literacy.

The Data Literacy is subsumed under information Literacy as it deals with Defining and articulating information needs, Locate and Access information, Access information, organize information, make ethical use of information , communicate information, use ICT skills for information processing. According to UNESCO MIL Curriculum Information is data that have been collected, processed and interpreted so that they can be presented in a useable form.‘Information is data that have been processed into a form that is meaningful to the recipient and is of real or perceived value in current or prospective actions or decisions’ (Davis and Olsen, 1984)

 

Since data is a piece of information according to Oxford Dictionary, it becomes a part of Information Literacy. So the data is Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis ( Oxford dictionary) and after the invent of computers its is The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded onmagnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media.

 

According to NSB 2005 data can be defined as “any information that can be stored in digital form, including text numbers, images video or movies , audio software algorithm equations animation, models simulations. This way every factual information is data. Data also originates from works of art and literature, as well as from artifacts of cultural heritage ( Nielson & Hjorland 2012). The data also emerges from the score cards of students and promotion list of teachers. Research data is the output from any systematic investigation that involves a process of observation, experiment or testing the hypothesis ( Pyor , 2012).

 

Coming on to data literacy it is the ability to consume for knowledge, produce coherently and think critically about data. Data literacy includes statistical literacy but also understands how to work with large data sets, how they are produced, how to connect various data sets and hoe to interpret them. (http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/understanding_data_1.html) and data literacy skills include how to identify, collect, organize, analyze, summarize and orioritise data. Developing hypothesis, identifying problems, interpreting data and determining, planning, implementing as well as monitoring courses of action also pertain to the required abilities ( mandinach & Gummer, 2013)

 

Though researchers have always been playing with data but the big data that is enabled by the capacity of computers to search, aggregate and cross reference large data sets has made this field more popular and relevant to wide variety of professions. Big data is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional dataprocessing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data

 

3 Importance of Data Literacy

 

“We use data every day—to choose medications or health practices, to decide on a place to live, or to make judgments about education policy and practice. The newspapers and TV news are full of data about nutrition, side effects of popular drugs, and polls for current elections. Surely there is valuable information here, but how do you judge the reliability of what you read, see, or hear? This is no trivial skill—and we are not preparing students to make these critical and subtle distinctions.” – Andee Rubin, 2005

 

Since there is a huge amount of data available in books, research studies and online platform, it would be a good idea to use that data to develop new insights. Following are the importance of data literacy:

 

1.    Utilization of already available data sets for developing new insights

2.    Initiating new research studies based on the data already available.

3.    Looking at data from different subject perspective.

4.    Inculcating interest amongst students and teachers for data which is otherwise considered as mind-numbing.

5.    Encouraging students to ask and answer data-based questions

6.    Data Literacy will help students to use use appropriate data, and data representations in their work.

7.    Accessing relevant data and analysing the same

8.    Developing interest in creating stories based on data.

 

4. How to Access data/ Finding data

 

The first and foremost task while working with data is where to find it. With so much of information available reaching the desired data is very difficult. Though with open data movement there are number of open data websites, but other than these open data repositories there are number of other platforms from where data can be accessed.

 

But before we get into how to access let us first understand what exactly is open data.

 

Open in open data means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose ( subject, at most to requirements that preserve provenance and openness ( opendefinition.org) which means open data and content can be freely used, modified and shared by anyone for any purpose.

 

If we take example of India and the data sets which are openly available for the researchers, teachers and students etc, data.gov.in is the platform one needs to visit.

 

4.1 Overview of data.gov.in

The data.gov.in is the result of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) which was notified by Government of India in March 2012 to promote a culture of data sharing and data utility for larger socio-economic goal. Adhering to the norms laid out by this policy, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has set up Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India – (http://data.gov.in) which is a state of the art dynamic data sharing platform espousing the principle of Open Government Data. The portal has many rich features to support this policy such as:

  • ‘Search & Discovery’ mechanism for instant access to various datasets of great importance
  • Community engagements around published datasets for innovative applications on open data with an ability to provide customized citizen services. Tools/Apps/Visualization so developed by using this platform has played a pivotal role in increasing the level of transparency and citizens’ participation in the governance process.

The portal is intended to be used by Government of India Ministries/ Departments their organizations to publish datasets, documents, services, tools and applications collected by them for public use. It allows people to use data and create visualisations and infographics. Following visual gives a glimpse of resources available on data. Gov.in portal (retrieved on 26-8-2015)

 

4.1.1     How to search data on data.gov.in

 

One can find thousands of data sets on data.gov.in released by the various departments and ministries. Since these data sets are contributed by government sources hence it has more authenticity. Searching data sets is very easy on this portal. There are number of ways through which one can access data. Following are the ways through which data can be accessed:

 

By search query: One can type in a query to search the data from vast resources available on the portal.

 

These catalogs can be filtered by:

  • Ministry department
  • State department
  • Sector
  • Resource category Frequency
  • Asset jurisdiction File format

 

Search by Visualisation

 

Any data can be understood better if it is visualized. Visualization of data not only makes it easier for the people to understand but also create interest in the topic or issue. There are number of visualizations available on the portal. These visualizations can also be filtered by ministry and departments.

4.1.2 How to create Visualisation/infographics on data.gov.in

The portal also allows registered users to create their own visualizations. This can be done with the data sets which are already available on the portal or one can get data from other sources as well.

 

4.2 About Data Portals.org

 

DataPortals.org is the most comprehensive list of open data portals in the world. It is curated by a group of leading open data experts from around the world – including representatives from local, regional and national governments, international organisations such as the World Bank, and numerous NGOs.The alpha version of DataPortals.org was launched at OKCon 2011 in Berlin.

 

4.3 The Data Hub

There are number of other sources through which one can retrieve data. Some of them are as follows:

4.4 Tricks for data search

 

Finding data on web can be very tiresome, if not done properly. There is always a chance of being deviated and lost in the process of finding a data. There are some tricks and strategies identified in the book datajournalismhandbook.org. The same is being reproduced here with the credit to the authors Brian Boyer (Chicago Tribune), John Keefe (WNYC), Friedrich Lindenberg (Open Knowledge Foundation), Jane Park (Creative Commons), Chrys Wu (Hacks/Hackers)

 

Search tricks

 

While they may not always be easy to find, many databases on the web are indexed by search engines, whether the publisher intended this or not. Here are a few tips:

  • When searching for data, make sure that you include both search terms relating to the content of the data you’re trying to find as well as some information on the format or source that you would expect it to be in. Google and other search engines allow you to search by file type. For example, you can look only for spreadsheets (by appending your search with ‘filetype:XLS filetype:CSV’), geodata (‘filetype:shp’), or database extracts (‘filetype:MDB, filetype:SQL, filetype:DB’). If you’re so inclined, you can even look for PDFs (‘filetype:pdf’).
  • You can also search by part of a URL. Googling for ‘inurl:downloads filetype:xls’ will try to find all Excel files that have “downloads” in their web address (if you find a single download, it’s often worth just checking what other results exist for the same folder on the web server). You can also limit your search to only those results on a single domain name, by searching for, e.g. ‘site:agency.gov’.
  • Another popular trick is not to search for content directly, but for places where bulk data may be available. For example, ‘site:agency.gov Directory Listing’ may give you some listings generated by the web server with easy access to raw files, while ‘site:agency.gov Database Download’ will look for intentionally created listings.
  1. Summary

Data is the foundation for every piece of information. It can be in the forms of text, numbers or visuals but any communication based on data has more credibility. Because of apprehensiveness amongst many for numbers, data is considered to be something which is of importance to only researchers whereas it has a great role to play in all professions and for all professionals. Working without data in any profession is like searching something in dark, whereas working with data provides professional with light that can make their task easier, faster and more accurate. With so much of open data already available on the web, researchers are provided with an opportunity to focus more on analysis than to collect data.

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References