Data as a System

Jentery Sayers | Unlearning the Internet | Week 4
DHum 150 | UVic English | 28 January 2019
Slides Online: jentery.github.io/150/slides/week4m

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This survey is not intended to be exhauastive.

"Raw" Data

What does that term mean to you?

Data Is Cooked

Not taken or given but produced
Is structured
May follow a standard
Has a date
May be produced by or for certain software
May imply a perspective
Is proceseed and expressed
Relies on absence (what's not measured or collected)

Jer Thorp

An over-simplified and dangerously reductive diagram of a data system might look like this:

Collection → Computation → Representation

Whenever you look at data — as a spreadsheet or database view or a
visualization, you are looking at an artifact of such a system.

See Jer Thorp, "You Say Data, I Say System"

Mimi Onuoha

See "Missing Data Sets" on Vimeo

Exercise for Today

Visit Onuoha's repo for The Library of Missing Datasets:
github.com/MimiOnuoha/missing-datasets

Use 50-150 words to:
Argue for a dataset (not on her list) that could or should exist.
Name the missing dataset.
Describe data types (integer, Boolean, character, date, time, or location).
Identify intended audience. (Be specific.)
State intended form of expression (graph, map, chart, table, or sculpture).
Explain the primary purpose. (Be specific.)

Feel free to sketch or diagram these components (as images in your log), and to note where applicable any obstacles to your missing dataset’s existence. Also, feel free to start with an idea and then reverse-engineer it.

Return to the course website.