Creating Connections in Complexity: discussions at the intersection of big data & learning (abstract and bibliography)
Theresa Anderson @uts_mdsi and Simon Buckingham Shum

“Data is explosive, evolving and infinite” – connecting the dots is important but happens at the expense of things that aren’t connected. Ubiquitous technologies often grab the spotlight, but the ‘invisible hand’ of big data and analytics is important. “datapoints in a graph are tiny portholes onto a rich human world” (Buckingham Shum 2015)

Risk of assumptions and values getting baked into data. Tools don’t just provide access to reality but can shape reality. [Yet] “Raw data is both an oxymoron and a bad idea” (Bowker 2015)

[Flipped classroom presentation – here we start playing with picture cards and post-its to brainstorm and discuss:]

• where is the ‘human’ in analytics?
• what human/machine partnerships can/should we enable in computationally intensive work?
• can the analytics of curation help us support creativity and learning?

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