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Data literacy training partnership with GNB: One year later

At NB-IRDT, we believe data is the way of the future. One year ago, we put this belief into practice by partnering with the Government of New Brunswick to develop a data literacy training program for public servants.

In April 2020, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council awarded NB-IRDT and GNB a four-year $200,000 Partnership Development Grant. Since then, we’ve been working hard on five initiatives to promote data literacy:

• Data Bites: a guided talk intended to engage public servants across NB to discuss how research and data literacy can improve their everyday practices. We completed a pilot of Data Bites with a group of GNB employees and will be working with GNB to host monthly sessions starting in September 2021.

• Data Matters: an e-learning course with five modules designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to using administrative data. Modules 1-3 are currently in development.

• Data Day: an interactive session during which participants from GNB and NB-IRDT will collaboratively use the research process to address a case study on a policy-relevant problem in New Brunswick. Postponed due to COVID-19.

• Data Fellowship: a professional development opportunity open to GNB employees to undertake an interdisciplinary research project with the mentorship of NB-IRDT researchers. Our training team is in the process of developing our Data Fellowship framework. We plan to pilot this in Spring 2022.

• Data Connect: an inventory of policy-relevant project ideas connecting research focused university students across New Brunswick with GNB departments to undertake research at NB-IRDT. We have decided that the best people to help create the Data Connect framework are those who will be using it the most: students. This summer, we are launching ConnectNB, a new research stream in our Pathways to Professions summer student research program, and have hired a team of UNB students to assist us in developing Data Connect.

For more information please contact nb-irdttraining@unb.ca.