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Democratizing Data: Discovering Data Use and Value for Research and Policy

  • Event date From May 21, 2024 to May 22, 2024

Zoom

May 21 and May 22, 2024 | 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST

The Harvard Data Science Review has published a special issue, “Democratizing Data: Discovering Data Use for Research and Policy,” presenting cutting-edge ideas on using robust AI tools to support evidence building in public policy and science. Across the globe, researchers and government agencies are working to build collaborative communities to help solve some of society’s most pressing problems, and these new tools are a valuable addition to these important efforts. The authors featured in the special issue address how best to increase access to a broader community of users and democratize data, providing both practical insights and a vision for how bottom up collaborations and communities of practice can help shape the future.

You are invited to an upcoming webinar to hear these authors explain directly their ideas and the work that is already underway in the U.S. and abroad. They will discuss critical topics, such as how the tools can be deployed to search and discover data, capturing the value of data, and how data and data usage information can best inform the building of evidence. The webinar is in two parts, with an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about AI tools that are already available or under development. Different authors will be presenting on each of the scheduled days, and you are encouraged to attend both days. 

If you are part of the open science and evidence building community, whether you are a data producer, a data user, a policy maker, or a community builder, you will want to hear these authors share their knowledge, experience, and practical ideas on how technology can help build a new and sustainable data ecosystem.

Event Recordings

Schedule

Expand to view full agendas.

Day 1 Sessions | May 21, 2024

From the Editors

12:00 PM – 12:10 PM | A Panoramic View of the Special Issue

  • Xiao-Li Meng, Department of Statistics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Harvard Data Science Review, Harvard Data Science Initiative, Harvard University

12:10 PM – 12:20 PM | The Vision of Democratizing Data

The New Importance of Data for Evidence Building

12:20 PM – 12:35 PM | The View From Four Statistical Agencies

  • Spiro Stefanou, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • Joe Parsons, National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

12:35 PM – 12:50 PM | The Importance of Philanthropic Foundations in Democratizing Data

  • Jonathan Sotsky, Overdeck Family Foundation
  • Daniel Goroff, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  • Stu Feldman, Schmidt Sciences

The Value of Data

12:50 PM – 1:05 PM | An Invisible Hand for Creating Value From Data

  • Julia Lane, New York University
  • Alfred Spector, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1:05 PM – 1:20 PM | A Mapping Lens for Estimating Data Value

  • Abhishek Nagaraj, University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research

1:20 PM – 1:30 PM | Scale, Publishing, and Open Data

Search Methods

1:30 PM – 1:45 PM | Discovering Data Sets Through Machine Learning: An Ensemble Approach to Uncovering the Prevalence of Government-Funded Data Sets

  • Ryan Hausen, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

1:45 PM – 2:00 PM | Discovering Datasets on the Web Scale: Challenges and Recommendations for Google Dataset Search

Day 2 Sessions | May 22, 2024

Discovery Methods

12:00 PM – 12:15 PM | Discovering Data Sets in Unstructured Corpora: Discovering Use and Identifying New Opportunities

  • Nick Pallotta, National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • Adel Alaeddini, School of Data Science, The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA)

12:15 PM – 12:30 PM | Searching for How Data Have Been Used: Intuitive Labels for Data Search and Discovery

  • Emilda Rivers, National Science Foundation

Practical Implementation

12:30 PM – 12:45 PM | Turning Visions Into Reality: Lessons Learned From Building a Search and Discovery Platform

12:45 PM – 1:00 PM | A Practical Use Case: Lesson Learned From Social Science Research Data Centers

1:00 PM – 1:15 PM | Creating Engagements: Bringing the User Into Data Democratization

  • Lauren Chenarides, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University

Building Collaborative Communities

1:15 PM – 1:25 PM | On Democratizing Data: Diminishing Disparity and Increasing Scientific Productivity

  • Ophir Frieder, Georgetown University Medical Center, Georgetown University

1:25 PM – 1:35 PM | The Future of Data in Research Publishing: From Nice to Have to Need to Have?

1:35 PM – 1:45 PM | Building Trust: Data Metrics as a Focal Point for Responsible Data Stewardship

1:45 PM – 1:55 PM | Enabling Responsible Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Through the Democratization of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure

  • Manish Parashar, Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, University of Utah

1:55 PM – 2:00 PM | Closing Comments

This event is co-sponsored by InnovateUS and the Association of Public Data Users.

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