Insights from Data Literacy at Scale Event by Harvard Data Science Initiative and Northeastern's Institute for Experiential AI

"Data Literacy at Scale" workshop participants and facilitators from Northeastern University gathered for the inaugural event hosted by The Harvard Data Science Initiative and Northeastern's Institute for Experiential AI.

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The Harvard Data Science Initiative and Northeastern's Institute for Experiential AI jointly hosted "Data Literacy at Scale," a two-day event aimed at providing a discussion platform for advancing data literacy across academia, schools, government and the workplace.

The event held December 5-6 at Harvard University and Northeastern University united academicians, industry practitioners, and government and NGO representatives with the shared goal of enhancing data literacy in their respective fields.

Speaking in the opening session about the applied research and projects Northeastern University conducts with government, organizations and partner companies, Executive Director Usama Fayyad of The Institute for Experiential AI says, “One thing I can tell you for sure is that every one of these AI projects immediately turns into a data project.

“Data is absolutely essential, and it’s not just any data. Just recording stuff somewhere doesn’t mean that you actually have usable data,” Fayyad adds. “One of the secrets is: No data, no AI. The other secret is, human intervention is absolutely necessary to make the technology work and to capture that feedback with data.”

Slideshow - Click to enlarge

Hamit Hamutcu, Senior Advisor, Strategy and Marketing, The Institute for Experiential AI, opens the conference sessions to 40+ participants December 6.

Xiao-Li Meng, Harvard Data Science Review Editor-in-Chief, welcomes guests to the dinner at the Harvard Museum of Natural History December 5.

Speaking on “Bringing Data Literacy to Industry” are panelists Kishore Aradhya, Northeastern University Adjunct Faculty/Startup Advisor; Stephen Gatchell, BigID Director of Data Advisory; Caitlin Porter, HarbourVest Partners Data Fluency Program Manager; Valerie Logan, The Data Lodge CEO & Founder; with facilitator Dan Koloski, Northeastern University Roux Institute Professor of the Practice and Head of Learning.

Workshop participants begin collaborating on five Data Literacy topics: Write the Syllabus for an Undergraduate Data Literacy Course, Write the Proposal for a Data Literacy Initiative in a Company, What Data LIteracy Resources could be useful for K-12 Educators, Enabling Data Literacy in Government, Building a Community around Data Literacy.

Workshop participants discuss “Write the Proposal for a Data Literacy Initiative in a Company.”

Chad Dorsey, The Concord Consortium President & CEO, presents the plan for continued efforts around “What Data Literacy Resources could be useful for K-12 Educators?”

“Enabling Data Literacy in Government” framework is shared with the group by Layne Morrison, Data Literacy Program Lead, Office of the CDO at the U.S. Department of Education.

During the group read-out session, Veronica Vilski summarizes their discussion and outlines next steps for research about “Building a Community around Data Literacy.”

Susan Gracia, Veronica Vilski, Layne Morrison, Valerie Logan, who are members of The Data Lodge Community, meet in person for the first time.

Sharing from his session “Data Citizens: A Knowledge and Skills Framework for Data Literacy,” event organizer Hamit Hamutcu, The Institute for Experiential AI Senior Advisor, Strategy and Marketing, says: “We found that data literacy was mostly defined at an organizational level; talking about a company’s data literacy level… but unless it’s done at the individual level, it’s really difficult to drive any kind of data-related transformation. What do the individuals actually do on a day-to-day basis which collectively make up what the company does on a day-to-day basis to use data?”

Wake Forest University Associate Teaching Professor Paula Payton, a panel speaker on “Teaching Data Literacy in a world of ChatGPT,” highlights the rapid immersion of GPT and AI tools in daily life: “The issue is how do we know how to make the relationship positive? How do we use the tool to perhaps not only help us make better decisions but also prevent us from making poor decisions? It (generative AI) is compelling and it’s provocative, so I feel a keen focus on making sure that we know how to use it and use it properly. What is it good for? What is it exactly not good for – and how to stay away from it?”

Valerie Logan, CEO and Founder of The Data Lodge and panel speaker on “Bringing Data Literacy to Industry,” shares: "While data literacy is not a new topic, scaling data literacy certainly is! This consortium of academia, commercial, public, not-for-profit, and private sectors is critical to collaborating across all corners of this societal movement. It also signals the importance of aligning on foundations to scale, as there continues to be great fragmentation in definitions and resources in this area.”

Logan continues, “We look forward to continuing to pioneer this work together across the growing ecosystem - and bringing the experience of our growing Community of over 60 Data Literacy Program Leads at The Data Lodge to the cause!"

According to Layne Morrison, Data Literacy Program Lead, Office of the CDO at the U.S. Department of Education, “This is a pivotal moment, where data literacy is more critical than ever for students and workplaces. Data literacy empowers the workforce to harness AI equitably and ethically. We hope to build on the momentum of the conference, envisioning ways to scale data literacy curriculum at every level.”

“Data literacy, including AI literacy, is an imperative for us at the U.S. Department of Education as we deliver on our mission for the Nation’s learners. Data Literacy at Scale helped connect the dots between K-12 data literacy and the future of work, including the federal workplace,” Morrison adds.

For Susan Gracia, Senior Associate Director of Data Literacy at Northeastern University, one of the best parts of the Data Literacy at Scale event was the opportunity to meet data literacy program leads and practitioners from various fields and organizations. “I was struck by the commonality of our goals and challenges and took away with me several strategies that I would like to implement in my setting,” says Gracia.

Reflecting on the event, Hamutcu closed by saying, “We were extremely impressed by the collective experience and expertise that we had at the workshop and very encouraged to follow up with other data literacy-focused activities that focus on specific audiences.”

Based on this inaugural event and follow-up activities, a series of findings are planned to be published in Fall 2024 by Harvard Data Science Review.