Module 5: Responsible and Ethical Data

Collect Data Responsibly and Ethically

Ensuring that data is collected responsibly and ethically

There are good ways to collect data and bad ways to collect data! Some of that we are learning about in the book we are reading. What we will do in this topic is read about the ways in which people have not always done this well recently and efforts to address this. Then we will work on case studies and discuss those in class. This will all be paired with readings from the Data Feminism book.

Assignment 1

For this assignment, your job is to look through the news and find examples of ways in which data has been collected ethically and responsibly or NOT (more likely to find the NOT in the news). I have three examples below, which you should read.

Example of how NOT to collect image data: Largest Dataset Powering AI Images Removed After Discovery of Child Sexual Abuse Material
Another example (you can just read the abstract here) of poor choices in collection leading to issues: Easily Accessible Text-to-Image Generation Amplifies Demographic Stereotypes at Large Scale
This one is an example of how to do better! Guidelines on the use of Indigenous data from UNESCO: Leveraging UNESCO Normative Instruments for an Ethical Generative AI Use of Indigenous Data

Post whatever article you find to the #general channel and we can discuss them in class!

Assignment 2

For the rest of the assignments in this topic, we are going to read case studies from GISEthics.org. The full case study list is here. For this assignment, go to the linked page and read the case studies for the following two studies.

“Cutting Corners on Redistricting”
“Environmental Justice Web Map”

Assignment 3

We will continue with case studies from GISEthics.org. For this assignment, go to the linked page and read the case studies for the following two studies.

“Flood Insurance Mapping “
“Mapping Muslim Neighborhoods”

Assignment 4