[Spotlight] Building Capability for Better Use of Data
“Communities outlive funding programmes and experts.”
By Paul Stone & Flor Serale
Build capacity and share technical expertise and experience with other governments and international organizations around the world, ensuring that everyone can reap the benefits of open data — Open Data Charter, Principle 6, “For Inclusive Development and Innovation”.
Bearing this in mind, our Implementation Working Group’s March meeting was focussed on ways to build data capability, as a way to share with our global community the diverse efforts that are being made to help governments, businesses and our communities to use data effectively.
Many thanks to Cathie Woteki, Gizem Korkmaz, and Aaron Schroeder from the University of Virginia for sharing about their Data Science for the Public Good programme, and Cedric Lombion from the School of Data who shared about learnings from their 8 years of operation.
Data Science for the Public Good
Virginia State University’s Data Science for the Public Good Program, now running in 3 cities, takes a unique approach in partnering with local and federal government agencies to use public sector datasets and analytics to provide evidence-based information that can address public issues. Interdisciplinary groups: graduate student; postdoc; faculty and undergraduate students (that might not come from a computer science background) all work with staff from the government agencies to define a problem and then work on solving it with data.
The first step of the program consists of providing data science skills to start working with the datasets provided by the agencies involved and after this course, each group focuses on working closely with the institutions in providing a grounded data analysis on the problem they are trying to solve.
The students learn all the phases of a data project as well as research skills, and through this programme they can apply all this knowledge to real-world issues. On completion, they present their project in a symposium and can network for job opportunities. This is also a unique opportunity to receive feedback from agencies and sponsors.
The great thing about this programme is how it not only gives practical experience for students, but it also builds awareness in the government agencies about what data science can do and builds a network of people with diverse skills, generating a community of practice that strengthens local data-driven capacity that can inform policy decisions.
School of Data
The School of Data was started by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) back in 2012 and initially focussed on data literacy around open data. Over the years the programme has broadened in scope and now incorporates algorithm literacy. They believe building a community is at the core of the programme’s success that began with a MOOC -Massive Open Online Courses- and now supports many countries and organisations in developing data skills.
Over the past eight years of experience working with international NGOs and partners at the local level (academy, governments, organizations, among others), OKF has built a network of practitioners and partners worldwide that support local autonomous communities. As a result of this experience, they have developed a framework for data capability building activities over the short, medium and long terms called the Data Literacy Activity Matrix (below).
The main focus of this strategy is going beyond the pedagogical approach and focus on the design of data-driven projects and hands-on activities that will create incentives for continuous training and long term impact.
The aim is to build community and to reach out to partners at the local level to address data literacy issues and to implement well-grounded data projects that can strengthen the network. The hardest challenge is achieving sustainability through creating opportunities and space to implement knowledge, creating incentives and generating spaces and resources. “Communities outlive funding programmes and experts”, Cedric says.
(Cedric’s full slide deck available here)
Summing up
A theme shining through from both presenters is the importance of building community or networks and combining people with different skills. Data is not necessarily a solution in itself but augments our capability to respond to problems. It is often a means to better understanding the problems we’re trying to solve, and a way to draw people of different perspectives and experiences together to solve the problem.
Even for those who are not data-savvy, understanding the phases of a data project can help us appreciate that data doesn’t just provide answers through magic and that we all can play a part in being more data ready and working to achieve lasting change.
Paul Stone is IWG’s Chair and Open Government Data Programme Leader in New Zealand’s National government.
Flor Serale is IWG’s Co-Chair and an open data and digital government expert on Latin America, working at the IADB Digital Cluster in the Innovation for Citizen Services Division.
