The plan’s goals include for a majority of students — more than 90% — to reach a foundational level of data literacy, as well as goals for subsets of students engaged in data-intensive academic programs and experiences to reach advanced levels of data competency. The success of our data competency QEP is attainable through:

a) the creation of targeted and specific learning outcomes (SLO’s) that can be implemented into our ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ curriculum alongside

b) a commitment to connect and elevate programs and centers that focus on data and its relative competencies while also

c) providing new resources and opportunities to all ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ students to develop data competency skills.

A data competent individual will be able to proficiently:

  • Access data – identify, locate, or collect data relevant to a context or issue while considering the quality, trustworthiness, and ethical treatment of data;
  • Prepare data – store, organize, clean, and appropriately manipulate data to support analysis and representations;
  • Analyze data – explore, visualize, and model data to gain information that is pertinent to the context or issue;
  • Interpret findings – make claims and propose actions based on the information gained through analysis, while identifying and addressing uncertainty, limitations, potential biases, and ethical ramifications; and
  • Communicate findings – create audience-targeted multi-media explanations that give a complete and honest delivery of findings.

These steps are not necessarily linear; the order of actions may vary according to field, dataset, and context, and can also be iterative.