5th Post_It’s ‘Open’ Data, but how do I use it? & Midterm self-evaluation
I have always been an end-user regarding digital products like Google Maps, Amazon, email, Wi-Fi, and the Internet. Not surprisingly, I have never paid careful attention to data before. Even though I understand that my pattern of using those services will turn my data into the corporation’s profit, I have been thinking that there were no other options and that I call myself an average customer. Data has been a metaphysical entity outside my daily life, and I have viewed digital tools as a magic wand.
However, since I joined the DH program, I have been trying to reposition myself from a user to an observer. Through the introductory data class, Working with Data: Fundamentals, last semester, I was introduced to many open data resources and the use of Python to deal with them, but I am still facing difficulties and asking the same questions: (1) How can I deal with data? And (2) which tools should I apply to data to understand and see through its meaning and implications for the community?
The first question is closely related to the capacity of individuals, communities, and even governments. Those big city governments offer innovative approaches to open data resources, enhancing their governance and civil services. For example, NYC provides ‘Open Data’ (https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/) and virtual classes for the public to use the data; moreover, the city government established pretty intuitive mapping tools(https://equity.nyc.gov/mapping-equity) through which anyone outside city government can navigate different categories, such as housing, health, education, and economic security. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure that other small city governments, agencies, communities, and individuals that are short of resources and funding keep being excluded and falling behind. DH should intervene in this unequal discrepancy, and the second question regarding tools matters here.
As witnessed in Pedagogies of Race: Digital Humanities in the Age of Ferguson, the historically formed racial separation leads to today’s technological separation. To make things worse, this separation problem is multilayer and pervasive in many other areas as well, such as socio-economic injustice, gender gap, language barriers, Indigenous people, and immigrants. In this respect, DH can and should make tools more accessible and strengthen grassroots recovery. For instance, minimal computing could be the first step for marginalized groups to carry forward their projects using data sources that have been hidden from them; moreover, the more critical engagement from the communities will disclose the invisible problems, i.e., systemic discrimination and alienation, in the digital world. The DH community can function as a hub for communication among those separated individuals and communities. Also, by developing and promoting open resources, creating user-friendly tools, and fostering community engagement, DH can empower underrepresented groups to participate more effectively in digital spaces. Most of all, to make more inclusive and transparent data, the DH community should always consider this: “Who could be ruled out?” Because it could be any of us anytime soon.
(Midterm Self-evaluation)
I have already handed in the self-evaluation for the class facilitator and DH project/lighting talk assignments, so I want to share my short impression of the class.
Through this class, I am learning much from my colleague students about the landscape of U.S. politics and social issues. I still don’t see myself as an active participant in US politics, but now I have a broad understanding of the contexts regarding socio-political issues in the US.
If possible, I would also like to learn more about DH projects related to ongoing issues, such as asylum seekers, Gaza refugees, a contest for supremacy in global politics (US vs. China), and AI/technology influence in those socio-political problems.
3 Comments
Nelson Jarrin (He/El)
Great post Michael! I love your transition from being an ‘user’ to an ‘observer’ upon joining the DH program. I also feel that I’m critically examining how governments, corporations, and individuals leverage their data. This week’s articles made me realize that, as a society, we have the tools and knowledge to promote transparency and participation. However, there are no strong incentives to prioritize this in our work.
Reflecting on your second question, I wonder what tools are available for the common user to address societal needs. Even after some semesters in DH, I only recently learned about OGD and how repositories like Data.Gov are implementing LOGD to promote community sharing. I initially felt that I needed to be part of the data science community to have access, but I realize that’s not true. I think DH should emphasize the extensive amount of accessible data out there.
Amanda Dunker (She/Her)
“Nevertheless, I am pretty sure that other small city governments, agencies, communities, and individuals that are short of resources and funding keep being excluded and falling behind. DH should intervene in this unequal discrepancy, and the second question regarding tools matters here.”
Did you (or anyone else) get to take the Public Interest Technology class? I pasted the description below. I was really disappointed I couldn’t take it, I’m dying to see the syllabus! It probably had a lot of material about this question.
DATA 78000 – Special Topics: “Public Interest Technology” (53156)
On the eve before its launch in 2013, HealthCare.gov, the health care insurance exchange website at the center of the Affordable Care Act, crashed and continued to crash over the following months. It was hampered by technical glitches, inflated costs, inefficiencies, user frustration, and an inadequate capacity to meet demand. Intended to be the Obama Administration’s crowning achievement and a demonstration of the potential modern technologies held for improving public services, HealthCare.gov confirmed public attitudes about government inefficiencies and its inability to solve large-scale social challenges.
This course will take up the question: What does technology designed, deployed, and sustained in the public interest look like? We will explore a wide range of technological situations from design practices to public policy, research, data privacy, social justice, platform development, data visualization, and artificial intelligence and consider what it means to develop technological innovations that center the communities they are designed to serve. The term Public Interest Technology (PIT) is most notably associated with New America’s financial investments in the field; therefore, we will consider the tensions between public and private funding, and their influence in developing technologies for the common good.
We will assemble a theoretical and historical framework in which to situate PIT, explore the legal, ethical, and practical challenges to public data privacy, management, and sustainability, and identify existing PIT projects with an eye toward their design, implementation, and funding. Readings will include selections from such works as Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter (2019) by Charlton McIlwain, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need (2020) by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Automating Inequality: How High Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (2018) by Virginia Eubanks, Artificial Unintelligence (2016) and More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (2023) by Meredith Broussard, Race After Technology (2019) by Ruha Benjamin, and Discriminating Data: Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition (2021) by Wendy Hui Kong Chun. These readings will be supplemented with articles, white papers, and project reports on the economics and politics of public infrastructures and funding (e.g. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (2015) by Wendy Brown, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) by Garrett Hardin, and The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom by Erik Nordman). By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the ethical, political, bureaucratic, public policy, social justice, economic, and design challenges faced by PIT technologists, as well as career and project opportunities in the field.
Michael C. Lee
I couldn’t take the PIT class either. It was already full!
I took the “Knowledge Infrastructure” class, which was also great and insightful, last semester instead! (They were in the same time slot.)
I hope I can take the PIT class next fall semester.