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How to run a Data Ethics & Society Reading Group session
As with much of this repository, the below borrows heavily from Data Ethics Club.
Typically we have a brief introduction to the material, split everyone into breakout rooms to talk about the discussion questions, and then come back together to share thoughts before closing the session.
Meeting Structure
Meetings are typically 1 hour.
It helps to have an event chair, organiser and support so that one person can chair the meeting and the other two can handle everything behind the scenes. The organiser sets up the event meeting and sends out invitations to tickets holders.
At 0–5 minutes
🟢 Allow people to trickle in and say hi.
At 5–10 minutes
👋 Welcome everyone to the meeting.
chair:
- Once everyone has arrived, invite a 3 minute summary of the content for discussion (not everyone will have had a chance to read it). If no one volunteers you may need to do this yourself!
- If there are new people, you can ask people to use the “put hand up” feature to answer how much they managed to read of the material. This is an opportunity to check if people can use the feature and a reminder to make space for people to talk.
support:
- Post sli.do link for the ice-breaker.
- Post a link to the Code of Conduct.
organiser:
- Allocate people randomly into breakout rooms, with 5-6 people in each group.
At 10–40 minutes
💬 Everyone chats in their breakout rooms.
organiser:
- Keep an eye on the main room for any latecomers who need to be assigned to a breakout room.
- Send 10 minute, 5 minute and 1 minute announcements to breakout rooms.
- Monitoring proton mail inbox for any issues related to event access or breakout room code of conduct issues and resolve.
At 40–55 minutes
💬💬💬 Everyone comes back to the main room
organiser:
chair:
- Invite summaries from each group. Hopefully this will provoke some discussion (we usually find we run out of time because of it!).
support:
- Post sli.do link for collecting thoughts.
At 55–60 minutes
Next steps, either:
📊 Vote on what to read next time (NOTE: we are not doing this in 2025 and will revisit in future)
chair:
- Introduce the slido and explain the deadline for votes for next week’s content (if using)
support:
- Post sli.do link for book suggestion and voting.
chair:
- Inform attendees on future events and changes.
Post event
After the event we send an email to attendees thanking them for attending and asking for any feedback.