I-Corps: Workforce development program to complete data wrangling and data labeling tasks

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a replicable system for more accessible and appropriate digital tools that forms the basis of a service that employs people with little computing education in entry-level technical work. Data collection and use has become ubiquitous in smart communities, but the access to affordable and ethical data workforce is limited. In this I-Corps project, the goal is to investigate customer-centered business models for providing affordable and ethical data services. This potential service will broaden participation in computing by providing work that helps individuals from underrepresented groups develop technical skills. By focusing on data work, participation includes not only engagement with computing but also workforce development to fill a gap for local data expertise. The proposed service also will serve a need in civic and non-profit sectors, providing low cost and ethical data cleaning and preparation for these organizations. This may enable organizations that are serving communities to leverage data in decision making. The plan is to explore client needs, business models, and opportunities to franchise this business model to communities across the United States. There is potential for to serve communities in both rural and urban areas – providing jobs, opportunities for computing careers, and data services to civically engaged organizations. This I-Corps project is based on the development of computational digital tools, including guidelines that are accessible and appropriate for people with little computing experience, to create replicable data work service programs. Through the design and deployment of different data learning pathways, learning in the context of work may be purposefully structured to move underrepresented youth from entry level participation with data science and civic engagement to fuller participation in both data science and civic domains. The proposed tools and design guidelines will involve workers in the development to help ensure more appropriate digital tools for entry-level data work. Importantly, this is accomplished in ways relevant to the target communities as well as to the larger context of digital civics to identify needs for computational data tools that further digital and civic literacy. Existing data tools will be analyzed and an indexed and searchable catalog of data work tools will be developed. Based on this analysis, gaps in tools that are needed may be identified. Prototypes of these data tools will be tested to iteratively improve the design to meet the needs of underserved communities.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.