Materials
Website
Ethical Thinking in Data Science
Institution
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Course
MATH 229 Statistics for Data Science
Course Details and Student Population
Average Class Size = 30, First Generation Students
Description
Ethics generally works on the principles of do no harm. Although research protocols to protect human beings have been in place for a while now, the pervasiveness of multiple types of data and their use make it less clear where the impact on human beings is in the data life cycle. Thus, harm is not only direct based on exposing identifiable data for individuals, but also indirect resulting from the reuse of easily available data and combining multiple datasets.
In particular for data science there is a need to develop ethical critical thinking while analyzing the data. Throughout the entire lifecycle of the data in the knowledge discovery process there are many opportunities for ethical decision making that a data scientist can evaluate to do no harm.
The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets from a variety of disciplines. It delves into social issues surrounding data analysis such as privacy and design.
References
- Vandana P. Janeja, Maria Sanchez, “Rethinking Data Science Pedagogy with Embedded Ethical Considerations,” EDULEARN 2022, https://doi.org/10.21125/edulearn.2022.1964
- A. Goldstein, M. Alodadi, V. Janeja, Opportunities for ethical decision making: a case study in k-nn, 17th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference Valencia (Spain) - 6th, 7th and 8th of March, 2023.