Cultivating a Data Literate Workforce: Considerations for Librarians

IF 0.8 4区 管理学 Q3 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE
Wendy Pothier, Patricia Condon
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Projections by Forrester Consulting, a global market research company, suggest that nearly 70 percent of the workforce would be expected to use data heavily in their work by 2025.3 Decision-makers understand that data literacy skills are a requirement for their employees, with 82 percent stating that they expect basic data literacy skills from all workers in their departments.4 However, Rasheed Sabar, the chief executive officer of Correlation One, notes that companies struggle to strengthen data literacy within their organizations5 and that the data literacy skills gap continues to expand.6 As companies increasingly adopt automation and artificial intelligence to tackle the growing volume of data, it is essential for data literacy to be demonstrated at all levels throughout the organization.7 Librarians have expressed interest in teaching data literacy but hope for partnership instead of taking on the work alone.8 Interest in the development of data literacy skills is [End Page 629] far ranging and includes both individuals and organizations. Higher education institutions, research organizations, libraries, industries, businesses, and governments all have a stake in the development of data literacy skills in the modern workforce. Individual students, alumni, faculty, campus administrators, managers, executives, employees, and, of course, librarians are some of the roles identified with particular interest. With a broad and varied range of relevant groups and individuals, it is important to understand their respective roles, perspectives, and the value they place on data literacy as an essential workplace skill. It is also valuable to examine the interactions between the relevant groups to understand tensions that may surround the conversations on data literacy. Understanding the current state of data literacy education and workforce training can guide and inspire librarianship’s response, with the aim of helping students develop needed data literacy skills for their career success. Data Literacy Education and Training Since most employees deal with data in some form in their work, development of data literacy skills will require attention from academic institutions and business organizations alike. Tension surrounds, however, the question of who is responsible for providing data literacy education and training—higher education, companies, or individual employees. 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Cultivating a Data Literate Workforce: Considerations for Librarians Wendy Pothier (bio) and Patricia Condon (bio) Introduction An estimated 1.7 megabytes of data are generated per second per person on earth.1 Given the rapid growth of data creation, increasing automation, and expanding daily interactions with data, our collective need to become more data literate is imperative. As Sara Brown points out, “The tasks humans do often require judgment, which is improved by data literacy.”2 Academic librarians have long engaged with information literacy to help students prepare for success in both personal and professional pursuits. While librarians have not always found alignment with how the term information literacy is understood outside our profession, data literacy presents a different opportunity. The term data literacy has already been widely adopted in corporate and industry workplaces, as showcased through articles in many top business news and magazine venues. Data literacy is a rapidly evolving qualification in the workplace and, more generally, a broad organizational need. Companies have an obvious stake in fostering a data literate workforce as it creates a competitive advantage in doing business—the better a company can utilize data, the more power it can wield. Projections by Forrester Consulting, a global market research company, suggest that nearly 70 percent of the workforce would be expected to use data heavily in their work by 2025.3 Decision-makers understand that data literacy skills are a requirement for their employees, with 82 percent stating that they expect basic data literacy skills from all workers in their departments.4 However, Rasheed Sabar, the chief executive officer of Correlation One, notes that companies struggle to strengthen data literacy within their organizations5 and that the data literacy skills gap continues to expand.6 As companies increasingly adopt automation and artificial intelligence to tackle the growing volume of data, it is essential for data literacy to be demonstrated at all levels throughout the organization.7 Librarians have expressed interest in teaching data literacy but hope for partnership instead of taking on the work alone.8 Interest in the development of data literacy skills is [End Page 629] far ranging and includes both individuals and organizations. Higher education institutions, research organizations, libraries, industries, businesses, and governments all have a stake in the development of data literacy skills in the modern workforce. Individual students, alumni, faculty, campus administrators, managers, executives, employees, and, of course, librarians are some of the roles identified with particular interest. With a broad and varied range of relevant groups and individuals, it is important to understand their respective roles, perspectives, and the value they place on data literacy as an essential workplace skill. It is also valuable to examine the interactions between the relevant groups to understand tensions that may surround the conversations on data literacy. Understanding the current state of data literacy education and workforce training can guide and inspire librarianship’s response, with the aim of helping students develop needed data literacy skills for their career success. Data Literacy Education and Training Since most employees deal with data in some form in their work, development of data literacy skills will require attention from academic institutions and business organizations alike. Tension surrounds, however, the question of who is responsible for providing data literacy education and training—higher education, companies, or individual employees. Some note that higher education has not been responsive in this area.9 As reported in a 2021 study, higher education literature fails to address data literacy in business and workplace settings despite large-scale studies by market research firms such as Gartner and Accenture that express the strong need for these skills.10 A Harvard Business Review article notes that the slow response by higher education forces the organizations to take the lead for employee education and training.11 When students and alumni lack needed data literacy skills, they face challenges that will affect their personal and professional lives. A 2020 report by the consulting group Accenture found that only 25 percent of employees surveyed felt fully prepared to use data effectively when entering their current role.12 Additionally, the report found that 74 percent admit feeling overwhelmed or unhappy when working with data.13 Employees can...
培养具有数据素养的员工队伍:图书馆员的考虑
培养具有数据素养的员工队伍:对图书馆员的考虑Wendy Pothier(生物)和Patricia Condon(生物)引言据估计,地球上每人每秒产生1.7兆字节的数据鉴于数据创造的快速增长,自动化程度的提高,以及与数据的日常互动的扩大,我们集体需要变得更加具有数据素养是势在必行的。正如萨拉•布朗所指出的,“人类所做的任务往往需要判断力,而数据素养可以提高判断力。”学术图书馆员长期致力于培养信息素养,帮助学生为个人和职业追求的成功做好准备。虽然图书馆员并不总是发现信息素养一词在我们职业之外的理解是一致的,但数据素养提供了一个不同的机会。正如许多顶级商业新闻和杂志上的文章所展示的那样,数据素养这个术语已经在企业和行业工作场所被广泛采用。数据素养在工作场所是一种快速发展的资格,更广泛地说,是一种广泛的组织需求。培养具有数据素养的员工队伍显然与公司利益攸关,因为它在经营中创造了竞争优势——公司能更好地利用数据,它就能发挥更大的作用。全球市场研究公司弗雷斯特咨询公司(Forrester Consulting)的预测表明,到2025年,近70%的劳动力将在工作中大量使用数据。决策者明白,数据素养技能是对员工的要求,82%的人表示,他们希望部门内所有员工都具备基本的数据素养技能然而,Correlation One的首席执行官拉希德·萨巴尔(Rasheed Sabar)指出,公司在加强组织内部的数据素养方面存在困难,数据素养技能的差距在继续扩大随着公司越来越多地采用自动化和人工智能来处理不断增长的数据量,在整个组织的各个层面展示数据素养是至关重要的图书馆员对教授数据素养很感兴趣,但他们希望合作,而不是独自承担这项工作对数据素养技能发展的兴趣是广泛的,包括个人和组织。高等教育机构、研究机构、图书馆、行业、企业和政府都与现代劳动力数据素养技能的发展息息相关。个别学生、校友、教师、校园管理员、经理、行政人员、雇员,当然还有图书管理员,都是一些特别感兴趣的角色。由于相关团体和个人的范围广泛而多样,了解他们各自的角色、观点以及他们将数据素养作为一项基本工作技能的价值是很重要的。研究相关群体之间的相互作用,以了解围绕数据素养对话可能产生的紧张关系,也很有价值。了解数据素养教育和劳动力培训的现状可以指导和激励图书馆事业的反应,目的是帮助学生培养他们职业成功所需的数据素养技能。由于大多数员工在工作中都会以某种形式处理数据,因此数据素养技能的培养需要学术机构和商业组织的关注。然而,谁应该负责提供数据素养教育和培训——高等教育、公司还是员工个人——这个问题引发了紧张。有些人指出,高等教育在这方面没有作出反应根据2021年的一项研究,尽管高德纳(Gartner)和埃森哲(Accenture)等市场研究公司进行了大规模研究,表达了对这些技能的强烈需求,但高等教育文献未能解决商业和工作场所环境中的数据素养问题《哈佛商业评论》的一篇文章指出,高等教育的缓慢反应迫使组织带头进行员工教育和培训当学生和校友缺乏必要的数据素养技能时,他们面临的挑战将影响他们的个人生活和职业生涯。埃森哲咨询集团2020年的一份报告发现,在接受调查的员工中,只有25%的人在进入目前的职位时感到充分准备好有效地使用数据此外,该报告发现,74%的人承认在处理数据时感到不知所措或不开心员工可以…
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来源期刊
Portal-Libraries and the Academy
Portal-Libraries and the Academy INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE-
CiteScore
1.80
自引率
8.30%
发文量
53
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