Evaluation Managers and Supervisors
Joseph Travers, n/a
Lead
Travers Data
East York, Ontario, Canada
Location: Room 102
Abstract Information: We don’t need people to be data literate. We need data to be people-literate. It’s not only possible, it’s easier and cheaper to do.
How many times have you heard “we need to improve the data literacy of everyone in our organization/department/team to leverage our data better”?
According to Statistics Canada, data literacy includes “the abilities to select, clean, analyze, visualize, critique and interpret data, as well as to communicate stories from data and to use data as part of a design process.
Think about the state of your data and the people that need to use it. Is it feasible or realistic to expect everyone at your organization to be able to select, clean, analyze, critique and interpret data?
No, it probably isn’t.
In reality, training everyone at your organization to be data literate is a sisyphean task. Your employees are always changing. Your data is always changing. Your organizational goals and Key Performance Indicators are always changing.
There’s a better way.
Relevance Statement: This presentation hinges on the reality that although every organization tries to pursue "data literacy" to enable the use of data to improve programs and initiatives, very very few actually succeed at this. Data knowledge is not something that everyone has an affinity for, and attempting to "upskill" everyone in data is a losing proposition.
This presentation offers an alternative to making people (program staff, stakeholders, whomever) data literate and that's making data "people-literate". An evaluation stakeholder doesn't NEED to be an absolute expert in everything data to understand the progress or results of an evaluation... the evaluation data needs to be presented and reported in a way that is easy for anyone to understand, and to answer questions that different audiences may have.
This presentation most closely aligns with Principle E - Common Good and Equity (E4. Promote transparency and active sharing of data and findings with the goal of equitable access to information in forms that respect people and honor promises of confidentiality) and also C - Integrity (C5. Accurately and transparently represent evaluation procedures, data, and findings.)