data-ethics-and-society-reading-group

How we organise the Data Ethics & Society Reading Group

As with much of this repository, the below borrows heavily from Data Ethics Club.

We’ve described how a typical meeting would run in the ‘Facilitating’ document, and so this document is more about how people can contribute to the repository, and how we operate more generally.

Deciding on material to read

The reading list is organised into different sections - some are philosophical, some are technical. Our previously discussed pieces are available in our Sessions Overview. We like to check off things we have discussed in the reading list.

The whole group votes on what to read for the following meeting at the end of every session. A slido is pre-populated with items already on our reading list, and attendees are invited to vote for items, as well as add anything they want to read for others to upvote.

Administrative tasks

Before the meeting

• Determine the material to discuss from the item with most votes on the slido from the previous meeting
• Decide date of next meeting
• Create a meeting information file in the Sessions/ folder
• Update the meeting overview file with a link to the new meeting information page
• Create a sign-up form to manage attendees (we currently use the Ticket Tailor platform for this, but are open to other suggestions)
• Produce a newsletter post promoting the event
• Promote the event via the following channels:
  • #ethics channel of the Cross-Government Data Science Slack Workspace
  • AnalystX
  • The following cross-government newsletters
    • Data Science Community of Interest
    • Analysis Function
    • Government Statistical Service
    • Government Operational Research Service
    • CDDO X-Gov Bulletin
• Send a six-week reminder to attendees to get a copy of the reading material
• Decide on three questions around the piece to discuss.
• Set up a calendar event (we currently use Microsoft Teams for this)
• Send a four-week reminder to attendees with the event invite and the discussion questions
• Set up slido with items pre-populated from the Reading List
• Prepare slides if required
• Send a one-week reminder to attendees with a link to the introductory video
• Send a one-day reminder to attendees with quick links to the online meeting

After the meeting

• Upload attendee numbers
• Update GitHub session pages (e.g. remove session sign-up links, change icon on reading list)
• Send thank you email and reminder to vote on slido

Contributing

How can I contribute to the reading list?

Since we organise around a GitHub repository people can submit issues using our issue template. People can also submit pull requests, or simply send us an email and we can upload your suggestions on to the repository - we know not everyone is comfortable using GitHub!

How do we acknowledge contributions?

Contributions can be lots of different things, and so we use the emoji key on our front page. This has been adapted from that used by Data Ethics Club. If you think you should be listed as a contributor but can’t see your GitHub handle listed, please get in touch.

How can I get involved in organising?

We welcome any administrative and organisational help you can offer! Please get in touch via email. We’d especially like to hear from people who are new to the Civil Service and from groups usually under-represented in data science.

I’d like to lead a session on a particular topic

Brilliant! Please reach out to us via email and we can set this up with you.

Communicating

We primarily use our newsletter to communicate with interested Data Science practitioners across government. Sign up to hear about upcoming events.

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