DEUTERO: Who and how are those in this context thinking and worrying about the kinds of qualitative data infrastructure, work and capacity called for currently and in the future?

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Angela Okune's picture
January 4, 2021

The conclusion to this article raises important points that I think may help to steer the Research Data KE working group forward in terms of the kinds of capacities we would like to cultivate (both in ourselves and in others) and activities we therefore decide to do. The article calls for greater expansion of the kinds of expertises expected in what they call "critical data design" (see figure 6 on page 10) that go beyond what is often taught as ‘data analytics’. They note that although the interpretive dimension of knowledge production is often talked about as ‘subjective’ or a matter of inspiration or even creativity, interpretation is a skill that can be cultivated, validated, and evaluated, drawing on a rich history and body of work in the humanities. This interpretive (or hermeneutic) capacity is the ability to "understand what things mean to differently situated actors, why, and with what effect on what will follow." (pg 11)

Angela Okune's picture
November 28, 2019

AO: The last panel seemed to be most worried about privacy and the capitalist profit made off of individual’s data; the system forces you to consent and there are not options for opting out (e.g. biometrics, leaving ID at entrance of building). However these worries seem at tension with the need to put in place legislation to protect common spaces and promote local ownership of knowledge infrastructures. Digital humanities (second panel) seemed particularly concerned with issue of data repatriation. What is the relationship of people to their data and how do they feel when it gets taken from them and kept elsewhere (esp. material culture). Academics and academic librarians (panel 1) have been also concerned with piracy and copyright issues. Worry of others stealing ideas; plagiarizing. But perhaps because we didn’t have the tech developers in the room (but there are few tech developers working on open access solutions for researchers?), we did not have people really talking about how we might build new platforms and spaces ourselves. I think everyone gathered was interested in qual data infra - archivists; librarians - government, private, academic; researchers. The publisher seemed least interested in research data when I spoke with him previously but I wonder his thoughts now after this event...

November 27, 2019

TM: Qualitative data infrastructure was touched heavily on the capacity side, for example, the readiness of institutions like university to work with qualitative data, how they deal with issues of copyright and ensuring that the data they retain does not end up in the wrong hands either through students' work ending up in publications or government data stored in foreign data servers and thus accessed by the foreign government.

November 27, 2019

PC: Most everyone seemed interested… One question that I thought was especially provocative (that went somewhat unaddressed) was the question of data formatting for storage. Already, CDs, audio tapes, etc are difficult formats to retrieve data from simply because the tools to read them are less and less available. If we are thinking of long-term data storage, what are our options?