CHS:MEDIUM: Understanding Public Uses of Data and Dashboards

正如数据密集型技术在商业领域的普及一样，它们也越来越多地被包括市、州和地方政府在内的公共机构所采用。许多公共服务机构目前正在扩大其创建和使用数据的能力，方法是投资于基础设施，聘请合格的专家，如数据科学家或数据工程师，并重组其组织，将数据收集和数据分析纳入关键流程。这些努力的核心是“数据仪表盘”的生产和流通。仪表板是汇总和整理来自多个来源的数据的动态可视化复合体，它们是向利益相关者和公众传达数据工作的主要站点。仪表板使用图形约定来简化和呈现它们所代表的底层数据，提供来自不同数据流的公民活动的快照。通过查阅数据、发布仪表板并向内部和外部群体宣传这项工作，公共组织希望实现更有效的决策、相对于其他组织的竞争优势、更有效地分配资源，并更好地了解他们希望接触到的受众。但公共部门组织在许多重要方面与私营部门的类似组织不同，到目前为止，研究尚未完全探索公共机构渴望使自己成为数据驱动者时到底意味着什么，以及这对公共服务和结果的影响。这个项目总体上将公共服务数据工作，特别是仪表板视为解释和辩论的场所，作为体现公共利益论点的人工制品。该项目团队使用人种学方法来研究公共管理部门的人是如何将数据应用于工作的。该项目组特别研究了数据仪表板所起的作用，包括如何开发数据仪表板，以及如何利用数据仪表板与公众进行沟通。本研究聚焦于四个相关问题：1)仪表板和可视化如何融入组织的审议、沟通和决策过程？2)仪表板如何在具有公共服务使命的组织内和组织之间流通？3)领域专家如何与旨在为他们的工作提供信息的仪表板互动？4)公众如何与旨在解释组织活动的仪表板互动？这个项目将通过关注仪表板产生的条件和地点，数据专业人员和其他设计、编码和实施它们的人，使它们成为可能的平台，以及遇到完成的可视化并与之互动的受众来深入了解仪表板的构建。该项目使用了两个重要的公共工作场所：市政府和公共教育。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Just as data-intensive technologies have spread in the business sector, so too have they increasingly been deployed by public institutions, including city, state, and local governments. Many public-serving institutions are currently expanding their capacity to create and use data by investing in infrastructure, hiring qualified experts such as data scientists or data engineers, and retooling their organizations to incorporate data gathering and data analysis into key processes. Central to these efforts are the production and circulation of "data dashboards". Dashboards are dynamic visual composites that summarize and collate data from multiple sources, and they serve as a primary site of the communication of data work to stakeholders and the public. Dashboards use graphical conventions to simplify and present the underlying data they represent, providing snapshots of civic activity derived from diverse data streams. By consulting data, publishing dashboards, and promoting this work to internal and external constituencies, public organizations hope to achieve more effective decision-making, competitive advantage over other organizations, more efficient allocation of resources, and greater understanding of the audiences they wish to reach. But public sector organizations differ from their private sector analogues in many vital ways and research to date has yet to fully explore exactly what public institutions mean when they aspire to make themselves data-driven, and the effects this has on public services and outcomes.This project looks at public-serving data work in general and dashboards in particular as sites of interpretation and contestation, as artefacts that embody arguments about the public interest. The project team uses ethnographic approaches to study how people in public administration put data to work. In particular, the project team examines the role played by data dashboards, including how they are developed and how they are used to communicate with the public. This research focuses on four related questions: 1) How are dashboards and visualizations incorporated into organizational processes of deliberation, communication, and decision-making? 2) How do dashboards circulate within and amongst organizations with a public service mission? 3) How do domain experts interact with dashboards meant to inform their work? 4) How does the public interact with dashboards meant to explain organizational activity? This project will give insight into the construction of dashboards by focusing on the conditions and sites where they are produced, on the the data professionals and other who design, code, and implement them, on the platforms that make them possible, and on the audiences who encounter and interact with finished visualizations. This project uses two sites of important public work: city government and public education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.