On May 1st I started a new edX course entitled “Data Science Ethics” which I have studied alongside The Analytics Edge. The Data Science Ethics course…
…focuses on ethics specifically related to data science and will provide you with the framework to analyze these concerns. This framework is based on ethics, which are shared values that help differentiate right from wrong. Ethics are not law, but they are usually the basis for laws. Through this course you will learn who owns data, how we value different aspects of privacy, how we get informed consent, and what it means to be fair.
The course runs for 4 weeks and covers material beginning from the very basics, including a discussion of what we are investigating when we engage in ethical studies. Building on this foundation the course goes on to cover data ownership, privacy, algorithmic fairness and other topics which will be reviewed in more detail in coming weeks. Each week’s material is split into modules and each module ends with a short quiz. A peer graded assignment is conducted at the end the course.
The introduction of the course states the following:
The question that we should be thinking about, is should we do everything that’s possible [with data]?
As this is a shorter MOOC, I will review it in its totality once it has ended, instead of every two weeks as I am doing for The Analytics Edge. I am looking forward to the material being engaging and novel, as it concerns a lot of the softer issues around the data revolution taking place at the moment.
