Big Data Literacy

Abstract

The chapter addresses the problems of digital divide in the light of learning from data in the era of accumulated, available, and accessible Big Data. The phenomenon of Big Data arose in the last years and offered new dimensions of digital divide: the challenge that the human society faces since the appearance of computer technology. Objectives of this chapter are to highlight problems and barriers in learning from Big Data and to initiate discussion on the ways to overcome those new challenges. The chapter tries to define the “Big Data Phenomenon,” to identify the phases and activities in the process of learning from data, and to relate them to learning from Big Data. As a result, a paradigm of competences and barriers for acquiring Big Data literacy are proposed as a new dimension of literacy in dividing the human society.

Challenges in Designing Curriculum for Trans-Disciplinary Education: On Cases of Designing Concentration on Informing Science and Master Program on Data Science

“…The majority of institutions stress the active side of communication, literally efficient writing and presenting, undermining its passive aspects -listening and hearing. Working in a transdiscipline team, the passive role (Christozov & Toleva-Stoimenova, 2015) of communication is essential. The ability to hear and understand the ideas expressed by different members of the team, with different backgrounds, using different jargon, different logic, and emphasizing different reasons, is becoming the key success factor.…”

“…In order to gain knowledge from the accumulated complex and complicated data, a special class of computer applications are developing. This, in turn, limits the number of people who possess the necessary expertise to take advantage of the available data resources (Christozov & Rasheva-Yordanova, 2017;Christozov & Toleva-Stoimenova, 2015;Christozov, Toleva-Stoimenova, Rasheva-Yordanova, & Vukarski, 2016). Thus, the Big Data phenomenon imposes a new social divide between those capable of benefiting from Big Data (members of the so-called "Big Data Elite") and those relying on intermediaries in order to "study" from data.…”

“…Thus, the Big Data phenomenon imposes a new social divide between those capable of benefiting from Big Data (members of the so-called "Big Data Elite") and those relying on intermediaries in order to "study" from data. This new divide adds new aspects to the already existing digital divide in society (Christozov & Toleva-Stoimenova, 2015). To benefit in full with exploring Big Data requires combining and applying multidisciplinary expertise and diverse competences.…”