Community Indicator Data Dashboards as Infrastructures for Data Literacy

Community indicator data dashboards are a class of websites that make community data freely accessible to communities so they can engage with issues of common concern. But this vision of data access and engagement is hindered by numerous barriers. A lack of data literacy is one such barrier that prevents some communities from telling their stories with data. My research is concerned with taking an infrastructural approach to reveal the various socio-technical factors that are critical to the creation, conceptualization and use of data, so I can operationalize a data infrastructure literacy program for such communities. Such a data literacy, which includes not only numeracy, but also knowledge of the human and non-human elements that are implicated in the creation of data infrastructures will, I hope, lead to more critically informed and empowered use of the data for advocacy and civic engagement.