Data Literacy : Definition, Importance and scope

Content Writer: Dr. Anubhuti Yadav

Subject Name: Library and Information Science

Paper Name : Media and Information Literacy

ModuleTitle: Data literacy: the concept, importance and finding data

Module Id: LIS/MIL

Objectives:

To understand the concept of data Literacy and how it is relevant link in Media and

Information Literacy

To appreciate the importance of Data Literacy in the lives of students and teachers

To explore how to access data

Keywords: Data Literacy, Data driven stories, data intensive research

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.

Figure 1 Source UNESCO MIL curriculum

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.

Search by catalogs

Type search keyword

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.

4.3The Data Hub

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

The Data Hub

www.thedatahub.org

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.

5. 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.

References

www.datajournalism.org

Media and Communication." Open Access Journals Search Engine (OAJSE). Accessed

May 17, 2015. http://www.oajse.com/subjects/media_and_communication.html.

"State of the Commons — Creative Commons." State of the Commons. Accessed

May 16, 2015.

https://stateof.creativecommons.org/?utm_campaign=2014fund&utm_source=carousel&utm_m

edium=web.

UNESCO MIL Curriculum and Competency Framework

Data Literacy, User’s Guide by David L. Herzog, sage Publications