Subject Guides: Data Guide: Data Ethics

Data Ethics

Ethical issues in data analytics and science relate to:

Data (including generation, recording, curation, processing, dissemination, sharing, and use)
Algorithms (including artificial intelligence/machine learning, artificial agents, and robots)
Corresponding practices (including responsible innovation, programming, hacking, and professional codes)

See Luciano Floridi and Mariarosaria Taddeo, “What is Data Ethics?,” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 374 (2016): 3.

Faculty recommended starting points for learning about data:

Foundations of Information Ethics by John T. F. Burgess; Emily Knox
Call Number: Online Title
ISBN: 9780838917220
Publication Date: 2019-03-01
Covers all areas of data. Chapter 8: Data Ethics is particularly recommended

Become a Data Analyst: online course content
LinkedIn Learning Path course about becoming a Data Analyst (Data analysts examine information using data analysis tools and help their teams develop insights and business strategies. You’ll need skills in math, statistics, communications, and working with tools designed to do data analytics and data visualization.)
What Is Data Ethics?: journal articles
this theme issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A introduces readers to data ethics, a new branch of ethics, that studies and evaluates moral problems around data.
Privacy. In The Fourth Revolution: book chapter
An important philosophical discussion of data as identity (as opposed to viewing data as property).
The Last Archive - episode 5: podcast
Jill Lapore (Harvard History Professor) hosts. A history of political data and broadcasting. Includes: using UNIVAC, Cronkite and Collingswood from CBS.
Critique and Contribute: A Practice-Based Framework for Improving Critical Data Studies and Data Science: journal article
This article argues for scholars to bridge the conversations that seek to critique data science and those that seek to advance data science practice to identify and create the social and organizational arrangements necessary for a more ethical data science.
Defining Digital Theology: journal article
Open Theology that seeks to find a definition for Digital Theology.