Data Wise: Data Science in Society

Data, and particularly ‘big data’, play an increasing role in society. Scientists, journalists, politicians, policy makers, and governmental institutions all make use of big data to understand our society and to improve our daily lives. But how do these practices influence our lives, positively and negatively, and shape society? And what is ‘big data’ actually? How can researchers, businesses and governments collect, analyze, and report on this potentially enormous source of information to do their work responsibly? These questions and many more will be addressed in the course of a minor currently under development at the University of Groningen: Data Wise.

The initiative to develop Data Wise was launched earlier this year by Ronald Stolk at the Center for Information Technology (CIT, UG). Dr. Anne Beaulieu (Campus Fryslan and FSE) acts as project developer of the minor. She has joined forces with Gert Stulp and Gijs Huitsing of the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, which will host the minor programme. Together with other staff from the  faculties of Arts, Philosophy and Law, they aim to launch this exciting initiative in September 2019. The multidisciplinary university minor will be open to students from all faculties.

The development of the minor will be supported by a grant from the fund Studievoorschotmiddelen. The minor will be based on principles of active learning through project-based learning. Projects will come from parties in the Northern Netherlands and elsewhere and will therefore provide real-world learning experiences.  Students will work intensively on all the aspects that are associated with big data--technical, economic, social, legal, cultural-- to prepare them optimally for their later careers.