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In this seminar, University of Helsinki professor Petri Ylikoski will present how th have conceptualized the idea of data literacy in the project Data Literacy for Responsible Decision-Making. While data literacy is often conceived – roughly – as everyman’s ability to use Excel, the project’s conception has two distinctive features. First, data literacy is taken to also include social, legal, and ethical dimensions of data. In a modern world, these are crucial elements of responsible use of data, but ignorance of them is also a major source of failure for many attempts to expand the use of data. Another novelty is to focus on positional demands for data literacy. The demands for data literacy are quite different for policy-makers, experts, or decision- makers than for ordinary citizens, and this should be taken into account when thinking about the responsible use of data. Finally, we consider an important social dimension of data that decision-makers often miss: the invisible data work needed to generate and curate data the organization uses.

Petri Ylikoski is a professor of Sociology (Science and Technology Studies) at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include theories of explanation and evidence, science studies, and social theory. His current research focuses on the foundations of mechanism-based social science, institutional epistemology, and the social consequences of artificial intelligence.

Moderator: Joonatan Nõgisto, Junior Reserach Fellow on Political Science and Governance, Tallinn University