[IS / MDIA 590] Community Data - S2019
iSchool and ICR, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign – Spring 2019
Wednesdays, 7-8:50P, 336 Gregory Hall and NCSA 2107 (2107 screen casting instructions here)
Syllabus
Readings/Schedule
Announcements
Community Data Glossary
- data \ da·ta | \ ˈdā-tə, ˈda- also ˈdä- \ noun, plural in form but singular or plural in construction, often attributive. 1: factual information (such as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation. 2: information in digital form that can be transmitted or processed. 3: information output by a sensing device or organ that includes both useful and irrelevant or redundant information and must be processed to be meaningful
This lab-based seminar and class will explore current practices in participatory design, civic data research, and community data application and outreach. During the semester, we will engage new methods in blending qualitative and quantitative data collection, assessment and visualization, to study and experimentally prototype how diversified data collections can inform civic decision making, public policy, community engagement, and the design of infrastructures for public participation. We will engage collaborations with the City of Urbana, local government offices, community groups, civic associations, and local civic stakeholders to build skills in collecting, assessing, evaluating and communicating insights drawn from diverse forms of data. Key to the course will be a consideration of emergent experiments in collaborative data analysis by local and global citizen labs, and lay science networks.
We’ll draw from inter-disciplinary literatures to examine mixed methods in data analysis and communication, and collaborative data practices, drawing from feminist theory, critical information studies, science and technology studies, communications and media studies, environmental studies, political anthropology, globalization studies, social theory, and the digital humanities. Over the course of the semester, we’ll Civic IT researchers, practitioners, and educators to join us to reflect on their research, methods and interdisciplinary uses of data. (Spring 2019 invitees will include participants of the Technocultures Lab at UIUC.) * Please note: As a new course, some minor adjustments to the below might be made.
