Data ethics in the context of data literacy – an analysis of educational approaches for higher education

Abstract

The worldwide technological revolution with mass adoption of automation and AI has been transforming the role of data in modern-day life and end-users find themselves riddled by the dilemma between convenience and privacy. In this context, data literacy proves to be important more than ever. As literacy paves the way to human knowledge, data literacy opens the door to a world with humanbeneficial technology. This research utilized the grounded theory approach to perform an inductive analysis on different materials on data ethics of varying lengths and formats. It aims to point out one or more common themes in existing educational approaches on data ethics in the context of data literacy training. The analysis of nine sources resulted in the identification of a central theme of training on data ethics which is stakeholders’ ethical role in education, society, and technology. Stakeholders in education comprise roles such as educators, researchers, students. Stakeholders in society are every individual, including people with high social status such as policymakers, judges, and politicians whose actions have a direct impact on humankind. Stakeholders in technology are not necessarily individuals such as users or developers; they could also be professional societies, philanthropic organizations, and corporations. The findings show that current educational approaches for data ethics in higher education emphasize the awareness of learners and their active role in shaping the world regardless of their disciplines. In the long run, the findings of this research could serve as a starting point for further scientific research on the teaching of data ethics. Teaching approaches need not be stakeholder-centric; however, as proven during the analysis, it is notable to consider the stakeholder’s roles and responsibilities.