Data Literacy

Well, Wikipedia defines Data Literacy as, “the ability to read, understand, create, and communicate data as information.” Just as literacy means being able to derive meaning and information from words, data literacy means being able to derive meaning and information from data. Throughout the 2010’s data literacy (some say data savvy), has been seen by more and more people as a required skill for the coming years.

Reading is being able to look at a graph or chart and see what information its creator wants to convey as well as how well that person actually conveyed the information. It means knowing how to read a research article and pull out the relevant data from the abstract, methods, and/or discussion sections. Understanding is knowing enough about statistics to evaluate the data gathering techniques as well as the methodologies chosen to present the data. Creating data means knowing enough about data gathering techniques to produce quality data, knowing enough about analytics to create meaningful correlations, and knowing enough about data management to be able to store and locate the data in the future.

Of course you don’t need to be an expert in any of these – but understanding the basics can open opportunities in your current or future jobs. After all, this is the era of Big Data!