Public Health Dashboards in Overdose Prevention: The Rhode Island Approach to Public Health Data Literacy, Partnerships, and Action.

As the field of public health rises to the demands of real-time surveillance and rapid data-sharing needs in a postpandemic world, it is time to examine our approaches to the dissemination and accessibility of such data. Distinct challenges exist when working to develop a shared public health language and narratives based on data. It requires that we assess our understanding of public health data literacy, revisit our approach to communication and engagement, and continuously evaluate our impact and relevance. Key stakeholders and cocreators are critical to this process and include people with lived experience, community organizations, governmental partners, and research institutions. In this viewpoint paper, we offer an instructive approach to the tools we used, assessed, and adapted across 3 unique overdose data dashboard projects in Rhode Island, United States. We are calling this model the "Rhode Island Approach to Public Health Data Literacy, Partnerships, and Action." This approach reflects the iterative lessons learned about the improvement of data dashboards through collaboration and strong partnerships across community members, state agencies, and an academic research team. We will highlight key tools and approaches that are accessible and engaging and allow developers and stakeholders to self-assess their goals for their data dashboards and evaluate engagement with these tools by their desired audiences and users.

Dark Data in Real-World Evidence: Challenges, Implications, and the Imperative of Data Literacy in Medical Research.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and real-world evidence (RWE) studies are crucial and complementary in generating clinical evidence. RCTs provide controlled settings to validate the clinical effect of specific drugs or medical devices, while RWE integrates extrinsic factors, encompassing external influences affecting real-world scenarios, thus challenging RCT results in practical applications. In this study, we explore the impact of extrinsic factors on RWE outcomes, focusing on "dark data," which refers to data collected but not used or excluded from the analyses. Dark data can arise in many ways during research process, from selecting study samples to data collection and analysis. However, even unused or unanalyzed dark data hold potential insights, providing a comprehensive view of clinical contexts. Extrinsic factors lead to divergent RWE outcomes that could differ from RCTs beyond statistical correction's scope. Two main types of dark data exist: "known-unknown" and "unknown-unknown." The distinction between these dark data types highlights RWE's complexity. The transformation of unknown into known depends on data literacy-powerful utilization capabilities that can be interpreted based on medical expertise. Shifting the focus to excluded subjects or unused data in real-world contexts reveals unexplored potential. Understanding the significance of dark data is vital in reflecting the complexity of clinical settings. Connecting RCTs and RWEs requires medical data literacy, enabling clinicians to decipher meaningful insights. In the big data and artificial intelligence era, medical staff must navigate data complexities while promoting the core role of medicine. Prepared clinicians will lead this transformative journey, ensuring data value shapes the medical landscape.

Teachers' data literacy for learning analytics: a central predictor for digital data use in upper secondary schools.

Since schools increasingly use digital platforms that provide educational data in digital formats, teacher data use, and data literacy have become a focus of educational research. One main challenge is whether teachers use digital data for pedagogical purposes, such as informing their teaching. We conducted a survey study with N = 1059 teachers in upper secondary schools in Switzerland to investigate teacher digital data use and related factors such as the available technologies in schools. Descriptive analysis of the survey responses indicated that although more than half of Swiss upper-secondary teachers agreed with having data technologies at their disposal, only one-third showed a clear tendency to use these technologies, and only one-quarter felt positively confident in improving teaching in this way. An in-depth multilevel modeling showed that teachers' use of digital data could be predicted by differences between schools, teachers' positive beliefs towards digital technologies (will), self-assessed data literacy (skill), and access to data technologies (tool) as well as by general factors such as frequency of using digital devices in lessons by students. Teacher characteristics, such as age and teaching experience, were minor predictors. These results show that the provision of data technologies needs to be supplemented with efforts to strengthen teacher data literacy and use in schools.

Does teacher's data literacy and digital teaching competence influence empowering students in the classroom? Evidence from China.

With the digital transformation of education, data and digital technologies are regarded as the driving forces for teaching innovation. Teachers' data literacy and digital teaching competence are becoming increasingly important for empowering students' digital capacity, ethically technology usage, and collaboration or communication skills in the classroom. Therefore, whether teachers' data literacy and digital teaching competence can empower students in the classroom needs to be explored. This study aims to reveal the relationship between teacher's information communication technology (ICT) attitude, ICT skills, data literacy, digital teaching competence and empowering students. The data were collected from an online self-assessment scale which included a total of 629 K-9 teachers who participated in this study. Using SPSS and AMOS, a model was built by using Structural Equation Models to explain and predict the relationships. The results indicated that: (a) ICT attitude had no significant impact on digital teaching competence, and ICT skills significantly predicted digital teaching competence, but neither ICT attitude nor skills had a significant direct impact on empowering students; (b) data literacy significantly predicted digital teaching competence and had a significant direct impact on empowering students; (c) digital teaching competence, as dominant mediator in ICT attitude, ICT skills and data literacy, strongly predicted empowering students. The findings provided valuable evidence for teachers, policymakers, administrators, teacher educators, and teachers to better reimagine the teachers' digital teaching competence. In the future, the teachers' digital teaching competence should become the top priority in teacher ICT training, which was the most direct influencing factor for empowering students.

Investigating the potential of the semantic web for education: Exploring Wikidata as a learning platform.

Wikidata is a free, multilingual, open knowledge-base that stores structured, linked data. It has grown rapidly and as of December 2022 contains over 100 million items and millions of statements, making it the largest semantic knowledge-base in existence. Changing the interaction between people and knowledge, Wikidata offers various learning opportunities, leading to new applications in sciences, technology and cultures. These learning opportunities stem in part from the ability to query this data and ask questions that were difficult to answer in the past. They also stem from the ability to visualize query results, for example on a timeline or a map, which, in turn, helps users make sense of the data and draw additional insights from it. Research on the semantic web as learning platform and on Wikidata in the context of education is almost non-existent, and we are just beginning to understand how to utilize it for educational purposes. This research investigates the Semantic Web as a learning platform, focusing on Wikidata as a prime example. To that end, a methodology of multiple case studies was adopted, demonstrating Wikidata uses by early adopters. Seven semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted, out of which 10 distinct projects were extracted. A thematic analysis approach was deployed, revealing eight main uses, as well as benefits and challenges to engaging with the platform. The results shed light on Wikidata's potential as a lifelong learning process, enabling opportunities for improved Data Literacy and a worldwide social impact.

Designing and assessing a data literacy internship program for graduate health sciences students.

This case study presents the results of a data internship and workshop series on data analysis in qualitative biomedical systematic reviews. In a newly developed librarian-led internship program, an intern was trained on data literacy concepts and data analysis tools and, in turn, helped recruit and train other graduate health sciences students. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a flipped classroom model was applied to develop a completely virtual learning experience for both the intern and workshop attendees. Both the data intern and workshop participants reported improved confidence in data literacy competence at the end of the project. Assessment results suggest that while the workshop series improved participants' data literacy skills, participants might still benefit from additional data literacy instruction. This case also presents a model for student-led instruction that could be particularly useful for informing professional development opportunities for library interns, fellows, and student assistants.

Informatics in Transit: Review of Columns - 2019-2022.

This column reviews publications in this column from 2019 through 2022. It identifies key themes and provides resources for informatics instructors.

[How to impart scientific knowledge and writing skills? Digital education during the COVID-19 pandemic using the example of otorhinolaryngology]. / Wie kann wissenschaftliches Arbeiten in der Medizin vermittelt werden? Digitale Lehre in Zeiten der COVID-Pandemie am Beispiel der HNO-Heilkunde.

INTRODUCTION: To make a virtue out of necessity by establishing a digital teaching curriculum in otorhinolaryngology (ORL) during the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors created the concept of a new digital scientific seminar. Digital competence forms the basis for data literacy in medical and scientific education. In this study, the students' evaluation of the seminar focusing on digital and scientific skill acquisition is presented. METHODS: Included in this prospective monocentric questionnaire study were 265 students. The seminar started with an introduction on the criteria of a good publication, followed by the individual task of understanding the publication on a main ORL topic and writing its abstract. After the seminar, students completed the evaluation questionnaire. RESULTS: Overall, results showed that students rated the seminar well. Free-text comments added that although live teaching was preferred, students found their digital and scientific competence increased through the task of writing a publication abstract on their own. CONCLUSION: Digital education was not only rated well, but improved the students' subjective scientific competence, satisfied the students' wish for digital transformation, and likewise fulfilled the national goals of competence-based education.

Integrating Service Learning into a Neuropsychopharmacology Course.

Incorporating service learning (SL) experiences into undergraduate courses can be a meaningful way to engage students and connect course content to the real world. Neuropsychopharmacology courses are often popular amongst undergraduate students, but it can be a challenge to find ways to connect the theoretical issues discussed in the classroom to the real world, and convey the complexities of research on substance use. This article describes a partnership between a 300-level "Drugs & Behavior" laboratory course and a local not-for-profit anti-drug coalition focused on drug education and prevention. A series of semester-long service-learning projects were developed that met instructional objectives and coalition goals. Briefly, students applied critical thinking and analytical skills to survey data on substance use, collected from local 6-12th grade students, that would inform coalition programming. By the end of the semester, students had produced scientific reports of the data, developed informational summaries for community distribution, and wrote a mock grant proposal incorporating proposed improvements to the study. During the semester, students reflected on the SL experience and took surveys on SL outcomes. Findings suggested that this SL opportunity helped students make connections between course content and the real world, enhanced skills or awareness in ways that added value to the course, challenged them to understand a problem and generate solutions, and expanded their thinking regarding their ability to help tackle substance use-related issues in the community. Suggestions for implementation and refinement of this experience are offered.

Data Literacy and Data Science Literacy for Nurses: State of the Art Literature Review.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of modern healthcare, nurses must proficiently navigate data utilization and grasp the principles of data science. Despite this urgency, nursing stakeholders currently do not fully understand the extent of data literacy or data science literacy they need to acquire. This paper aims to elucidate the distinctions between data literacy and data science literacy, offering insights into strategies for nurturing these competencies within nursing education, research, and practice. Through a state-of-the-art review of 22 articles and six healthcare industry resources, we identified a notable absence of comprehensive frameworks and assessment tools, highlighting key areas for future development.

Community engagement in the development of health-related data visualizations: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to address a gap in the literature on community engagement in developing data visualizations intended to improve population health. The review objectives are to: (1) synthesize literature on the types of community engagement activities conducted by researchers working with community partners and (2) characterize instances of "creative data literacy" within data visualizations developed in community-researcher partnerships. METHODS: Using the 2018 PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines, the review focuses on peer-reviewed journal articles from 2010 to 2022 in PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. A community engagement tool was applied to the studies by independent reviewers to classify levels of community engagement, social determinants, and vulnerable populations. RESULTS: Twenty-seven articles were included in the scoping review. Twelve articles worked with vulnerable populations. Four articles attempted to alleviate barriers to representation in their respective studies, with addressing language barriers being the most prevalent approach. Thirteen articles considered social determinants of health. Sixteen studies engaged in iterative approaches with intended users when developing the visualization or tool. DISCUSSION: Only a few significant examples of creative data literacy are incorporated in the studies. We recommend a specific focus on engaging intended users at every step of the development process, addressing language and cultural differences, and empowering intended users as data storytellers. CONCLUSIONS: There is room for deeper and more meaningful community involvement in the development of health-related data visualizations geared towards them.

Information in Healthcare - From Data to Knowledge: Improving Data Literacy Competencies.

Digitalization in healthcare and the increasing availability of data demand data literacy competences of nurses and other healthcare professionals including technical, ethical and communication skills. The international Spring School 2023 "Information in Healthcare - From Date to Knowledge" aimed at these competences covering interoperability, data protection and security, data analytics and ethical issues. These topics were embedded in the overall case of data-driven quality improvement for diabetes patients in a region. The curriculum includes an online preparation-phase and a five-days attendance week, incorporating problem-based and group work approaches. According to the studentt's evaluation, the awareness of the importance of the topics was raised and theoretical as well as practical application skills were improved. The Spring School enhanced data literacy competences, critical thinking, problem-solving, interprofessional und intercultural skills among healthcare professionals. Such course offering can contribute to meeting the increasing challenges of digitalization in healthcare.

A Call for a Health Data-Informed Workforce Among Clinicians.

Unlabelled: A momentous amount of health data has been and is being collected. Across all levels of health care, data are driving decision-making and impacting patient care. A new field of knowledge and role for those in health care is emerging-the need for a health data-informed workforce. In this viewpoint, we describe the approaches needed to build a health data-informed workforce, a new and critical skill for the health care ecosystem.

Attitude towards consent-free research use of personal medical data in the general German population.

Background: The design of appropriate consent procedures for the secondary use of personal health data is a key concern of current medical research. In Germany, the concept of 'data donation' has recently come into focus, defined as a legal entitlement to the research use of personal medical data without prior consent, combined with an easy-to-exercise right of the data subjects to opt-out. Methods: Standardized online interviews of 3,013 individuals, representative of the German online population, were conducted in August 2022 to determine their attitude towards data donation for medical research. Results: A majority of participants supported a consent-free data donation regulation, both for publicly funded (85.1%) and for private medical research (66.4%). Major predictors of a positive attitude towards data donation included (i) sufficient appreciation of the respective kind of research (i.e. public or private), (ii) a reciprocity attitude that patients who benefit from research have a duty to support research, and (iii) sufficient trust in data protection and data control. Conclusion: People's attitude towards data donation to medical research is generally positive in Germany and depends upon factors that can be curbed by legislation and internal rules of procedure. Worthy of note, designing data donation in the form of an opt-out regulation does not necessarily mean that the paradigm of informedness has to be abandoned. Rather the process of information provision must be shifted towards the creation of basic knowledge in the general population about the risks and benefits of data-intensive medical research ('health data literacy').

How to Elucidate Consent-Free Research Use of Medical Data: A Case for "Health Data Literacy".

Unlabelled: The extensive utilization of personal health data is one of the key success factors of modern medical research. Obtaining consent to the use of such data during clinical care, however, bears the risk of low and unequal approval rates and risk of consequent methodological problems in the scientific use of the data. In view of these shortcomings, and of the proven willingness of people to contribute to medical research by sharing personal health data, the paradigm of informed consent needs to be reconsidered. The European General Data Protection Regulation gives the European member states considerable leeway with regard to permitting the research use of health data without consent. Following this approach would however require alternative offers of information that compensate for the lack of direct communication with experts during medical care. We therefore introduce the concept of "health data literacy," defined as the capacity to find, understand, and evaluate information about the risks and benefits of the research use of personal health data and to act accordingly. Specifically, health data literacy includes basic knowledge about the goals and methods of data-rich medical research and about the possibilities and limits of data protection. Although the responsibility for developing the necessary resources lies primarily with those directly involved in data-rich medical research, improving health data literacy should ultimately be of concern to everyone interested in the success of this type of research.

NeuroLab 2.0: An Alternative Storyline Design Approach for Translating a Research-Based Summer Experience into an Advanced STEM+M Curriculum Unit that Supports Three-Dimensional Teaching and Learning in the Classroom.

In this case study, we describe an alternative storyline design approach that we adopted to translate an informal, out-of-school summer science experience with a strong emphasis on developmental neuroscience and data literacy into a more inclusive, replicable, and scalable experience for formal high school science instruction. Combining elements of problem- and project-based learning, a storyline is a curriculum model that engages students in the application of investigative science and engineering practices to incrementally build conceptual models that explain an observable (anchoring) phenomenon. Published reports on the storyline design process describe procedures and tools that are well suited to the creation of novel instructional units. However, these design methods are difficult to apply to projects aimed at translating pre-existing science experiences and resources into classroom storyline units. In this descriptive case study, we discuss a series of alternative design procedures that we utilized to achieve this adaptation. Our overarching project goal was to create the resources necessary to engage high school students in the construction of a multidimensional explanatory model for an unusual movement disorder that assimilates converging lines of behavioral, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, molecular genetic, developmental, and cellular data. The methods described in this case study establish a design template for other biomedical scientists who are interested in adopting a storyline approach to bring aspects of their work or educational projects into science classrooms and into closer alignment with a new vision for science teaching and learning articulated in the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Reframing data ethics in research methods education: a pathway to critical data literacy.

This paper presents an ethical framework designed to support the development of critical data literacy for research methods courses and data training programmes in higher education. The framework we present draws upon our reviews of literature, course syllabi and existing frameworks on data ethics. For this research we reviewed 250 research methods syllabi from across the disciplines, as well as 80 syllabi from data science programmes to understand how or if data ethics was taught. We also reviewed 12 data ethics frameworks drawn from different sectors. Finally, we reviewed an extensive and diverse body of literature about data practices, research ethics, data ethics and critical data literacy, in order to develop a transversal model that can be adopted across higher education. To promote and support ethical approaches to the collection and use of data, ethics training must go beyond securing informed consent to enable a critical understanding of the techno-centric environment and the intersecting hierarchies of power embedded in technology and data. By fostering ethics as a method, educators can enable research that protects vulnerable groups and empower communities.

Data literacy in genome research.

With an ever increasing amount of research data available, it becomes constantly more important to possess data literacy skills to benefit from this valuable resource. An integrative course was developed to teach students the fundamentals of data literacy through an engaging genome sequencing project. Each cohort of students performed planning of the experiment, DNA extraction, nanopore sequencing, genome sequence assembly, prediction of genes in the assembled sequence, and assignment of functional annotation terms to predicted genes. Students learned how to communicate science through writing a protocol in the form of a scientific paper, providing comments during a peer-review process, and presenting their findings as part of an international symposium. Many students enjoyed the opportunity to own a project and to work towards a meaningful objective.

Teaching Health Literacy and Digital Literacy Together at University Level: The FLOURISH Module.

Many universities have wellness programs to promote overall health and well-being. Using students' own personal data as part of improving their own wellness would seem to be a natural fit given that most university students are already data and information literate. In this work, we aim to show how the interplay between health literacy and data literacy can be used and taught together. The method we use is the development and delivery of the FLOURISH module, an accredited, online-only but extra-curricular course that delivers practical tips in the areas that impact students' everyday wellness including sleep, nutrition, work habits, procrastination, relationships with others, physical activity, positive psychology, critical thinking, and more. For most of these topics, students gather personal data related to the topic and submit an analysis of their data for assessment thus demonstrating how students can use their personal data for their benefit. More than 350 students have taken the module and an analysis of the use of online resources, as well as feedback on the module experience, are presented. The contributions of this article are to further endorse the need for health literacy and digital literacy for students, and we demonstrate that these can be taught together making each literacy more appealing to the digital natives of Generation Z who make up the majority of students. The implications for public health research and practice are that two student literacies, health and digital, are not independent and for our students, they should be taught together.

Scaffolding STEM Literacy Assignments To Build Greater Competence in Microbiology Courses.

Different approaches can be used to impart science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) literacy among undergraduates and thus can be modified to support various scientific concepts and course objectives. In comparable microbiology-related courses, scaffolded assignments to improve STEM literacy through data, information, and communication analysis skills were developed using the ASM Curriculum Guidelines and the Microbiology Course Inventory (MCI) to structure the course and assignments. Examples of such assignments included a meta-analysis using literature and bioinformatics, as well as a public data presentation and an epidemiological model based on current events. To evaluate the effectiveness of such approaches, assignment components were aligned to determine whether the activities reinforced the MCI concepts. Comparison of pre- and postcourse data indicated relative strengths (and weaknesses) addressed by scaffolded STEM literacy pedagogy. These efforts also contribute to a department-wide initiative to enhance career readiness and implementation of course assessments. Future goals are to broaden the integration of assignment components to other microbiology-related courses and have longitudinal assessment.