Presentation on Data Literacy and insights gained from teaching Open Data to students and journalist. Given at 2nd Open Data Dialog, November 19, 2013. Event organized by Fraunhofer FOKUS

1. Teaching Open Data
Practical Observations
Michael Hörz - hoerz@michael-hoerz.de - @teachingdata

2. About me
● Data Journalist
● Open Data Specialist
○ Open Data Barometer (Web Foundation):
Lead Researcher for several countries
○ Lecturer at Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Technik
(HTW) Berlin
● Trainer for Journalists
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

3. Data Literacy
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Understanding basic impacts of data
Find & acquire data
Read, interpret & compare data
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Open and process formats such as CSV
Basic visualizing
Open Practices (Mozilla Web Literacy Standard)
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Licenses, open formats, open source projects
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

4. Status Quo: Offerings
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Professional Courses
University Level Courses
Open Courses
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

5. Status Quo: Countries
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UK
Germany
Switzerland
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

6. What’s offered?
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Basic Courses on Data & Visualization
Special Trainings by OKFN + Open Data Institute
Meetups, Hackdays (strong country variations)
School of Data (OKFN)
Open Spending (OKFN)
Data Journalism Handbook (OKFN)
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

7. University Syllabi
Very little - Open Data mostly a research subject yet
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Britain: To some extent due to Open Data Institute /
University of Southampton; Oxford Internet Institute
Germany: Nearly nothing found in early 2013
Switzerland & Austria: nothing
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

8. On Students taught
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No technical challenges
Low understanding of administrative structures
Entire semester very helpful
Creative approaches, solid projects
Mostly not aware of data used in media
Not thoroughly aware of impacts
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

9. On Journalists trained
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Very low data awareness
Rather high skepticism
Low understanding of Open Data
Certain pride in “being bad at maths”
Tools can be challenges, not to mention coding
Highly aware of impacts
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

10. Expectation
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Network of Data Courses for Professionals
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For data providers
For data users
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In every bigger city
A data-savy journalist in every newsroom
Data Courses at every University
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

11. Outlook
Project by OKFN Germany - as of Jan 2014
● Introductory Course (1 day)
● Courses for Journalists (2-5 days)
● Courses for Company & Gov Managers (2-5 days)
● Courses for Data Providers (5 days)
● Courses for NGOs (2-5 days)
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013

12. Thank you!
http://www.michael-hoerz.de
http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2013/odb
http://census.okfn.org/country/
https://webmaker.org/en-US/standard
http://www.michael-hoerz.de/open-data-htw
Michael Hörz: Teaching Data - ODD 2013 - 19/11/2013