What is data literacy?
Data Literacy is the ability to read, work with, analyze, and communicate with data. Being data literate helps a person to make informed, evidence-based decisions. Data literacy includes:
- understanding data origins
- applying critical thinking
- interpreting visualizations
What does it include?
- Reading data: understanding data sources and structures
- Working with data: collecting, cleaning, and managing data throughout its lifecycle
- Communicating data: storytelling with data to convey insights and drive action
- Ethical handling: ensuring data privacy, security, and consent
What are the benefits?
- Evidence-based decisions: making decisions on concrete evidence instead of intuition
- Enhanced productivity: working smarter by quickly interpreting relevant information
- Effective communication: understanding and creating effective data visualizations for projects and presentations
Interested in learning more?
Check out these resources:
- Data Literacy Guide - coming soon!
- Metadata Guide
- Finding Data and Statistics Guide
- Research Data Managment & Sharing Guide
- AI Literacy in Research Guide
- POLIS
- Regenstrief Institute
Look into a training:
- SAVI Data Literacy Training
- SAVI Training is a hands-on curriculum focused on data literacy from end to end. They have four groups of modules that teach you to ask the right questions, find the right data, find meaning in the data, and then use the data to make and communicate decisions.
- Regenstrief Training
- Regenstrief offers a variety of trainings in healthcare research. Check out their website for more information on trainings and services offered.
- The Carpentries
- Teaches foundational coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide. They exist because the skills needed to do computational, data-intensive research are often not included as a part of basic research training in many disciplines.
- ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods
- In person and online courses offered through the Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR). With options from introductory to advanced training in statistics, data analysis, and quantitative research methods.
- Codecademy
- An online learning platform offering interactive courses in coding and technology-related topics. The platform provides both free and paid tiers, including Codecademy Pro, which offers additional content, projects, and career paths.
Reach out to your Data Services Librarian:
Corey Barber (she/her), barberc@iu.edu