Designing, teaching, and testing a novel course on the data life cycle to enhance data literacy

CLI fellows Samare Huls and Frederick Thielen initiated an interdisciplinary data literacy course to provide a comprehensive understanding of the data life cycle. The course targeted master students, PhD candidates, and academic professionals, teaching them about data acquisition, usage, and management. Hosted online via Quarto Pub, the course integrated R and Python programming and employed various teaching methods, including videos, micro-lectures, and group projects. It introduced the YODAL-Q (Your Own Data Literacy Questionnaire), a tool designed to assess and enhance data literacy among participants. As this fellowship comes to an end, they are happy to elaborate on the course and share their learning journey. 

Speakers

Samare Huls, PhD, works as a lead data scientist at the Dutch National government. She is motivated by understanding, analysing and communicating the implications of human behaviour in a data-driven way. She works on projects with societal relevance where she gets to understand the unknown and share knowledge in the team. Samare contributes to developing and improving data literacy education through a fellowship from the Community for Learning & Innovation at Erasmus University Rotterdam. 

Frederick Thielen, PhD, is a distinguished researcher and educator in the field of health economics and outcomes research. Currently, he serves as an Assistant Professor at the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management (ESHPM) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In addition, he holds a teaching and research fellowship from the Community for Learning & Innovation at the same university. Frederick also contributes his expertise as a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Trimbos Institute in Utrecht, and as Research Advisor at the Erasmus Medical Centre Pharmacy.