User:ArturkGomes/sandbox

Data Walks

Lead
Data Walks is a intriquite method to tackle some of the challenges that the computational turn has presented academic research, these challenges include the invisibility, decontextualization and (lack of) accessibility of data and its infrastructures as objects of study.

Article body
Data Walks or Data Walkshops’ is a process of exploring and defining data at a base level, this is done through looking at big data and data politics by consulting different perspectives from groups of citizens. The original purpose of Data Walks was a means of conveying research findings with stakeholders. These participants walk, observe and record the connections between data, this can be accomplished even if the community hasn't engaged with the material from the beginning. After the walk, participants have open discussions which allows for defining and understanding the data. To help guide the discussion participants are given roles either to observe or document the data. These individuals are tasked with observing places and spaces that they interpret to be ‘data calm’ and ‘data rich’ and where they may observe ‘data activations’. This is essentially where we look at how the data intersects with the real world. At the end of the data walk participants document a storyline of their experience through a form of visualizing data.

The purpose of this exercise, data walks, is to hopefully create new ways of knowing about data in everyday life. Data walks have been key in solving issues of trade, concerns about citizenship, proposals from a commons transformation, and reflections about ethics. Netherlands have already begun using data walks for civic engagement and has been brought up twice for being an innovative educational practice. This system of evaluating data follows a bottom up approach as a new way of surfacing ideas involving people with similar interest with different experiences. The key objectives surrounding Data Walks are to share key data and findings with community residents. A effective example consists of teaching civic technologies to generations out of touch with contemporary media. Using data walks to bridge the gap between non-tech-savvy individuals and modern technology. Data walks can be used to enhance ones knowledge surrounding topics in which the individual has no prior knowledge.