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Datum Fieldnotes: easing the data work burden on civic and non-profit organizations

Abstract:

We present a Google Sheets add-on, Datum Fieldnotes, to enhance and formalize civic and non-profit (CNP) data workers’ rich dataset annotation and contextualization practices. Unlike the massive, poorly-contextualized datasets typically used to train AI system—which result in unexpected and harmful downstream system behavior—CNP datasets are usually crafted with an intimate understanding of the subject matter by the data workers creating and contributing to them, whether professionals, volunteers, or CNP clients. As part of a larger project, in this paper we report on the development of the Datum Fieldnotes tool and the results of user testing sessions with twelve CNP data workers. Our experience demonstrates how tools to facilitate data contextualization practices can be developed and supported. Following the user testing, we share a key revision to the tool: namely, the creation of a suite of training materials to not only ease tool onboarding for CNP data workers, but also to give them to the tools to interrogate and analyze the resultant paradata themselves, as a record of their own expertise and data labor contributed. This second contribution is critical to the development of CNP data work tools that are actually usable by practitioners in the long term.