TY - CONF

T1 - Designing data trusts as knowledge commons

AU - Sacks, Justin

AU - Jacobs, Naomi

PY - 2021/6/10

Y1 - 2021/6/10

N2 - The opportunities to use data for collective action continue to expand in scope and importance. Formal and informal collaborations are exploring data institutions to manage data, including an emergent institution called the data trust. The name data trust is derived from land trusts, which are formal legal institutions that share many features with commons. A typical community land trust, for example, can be a type of commons where members, who are usually residents, collectively govern the trust to ensure housing affordability across generations. The UK Open Data Institute describes a data trust as an entity that “provides independent, fiduciary stewardship of data.” Fiduciary responsibility binds the trustees of a trust to make decisions that benefit the identified beneficiaries. People creating a data trust must therefore answer similar questions as people creating a commons, such as: who are the beneficiaries, who determines the evaluative criteria for successful stewardship, and how do members resolve conflicts? This webinar panel will start with the experience of design researchers engaged in three data governance projects where data from multiple sources is used to solve collective action problems: sensor data for an ebike system, maintenance data for a social housing estate, and ingredient data for a food supply chain. What can data trusts learn from knowledge commons? Conversely, how might those working in the commons field engage with data trusts as they take shape? We will explore two different layers of the knowledge commons: first, the contours of the data trust as an emergent form of knowledge commons; and second, the role of design in supporting stakeholders to interrogate and construct a new form of knowledge commons.

AB - The opportunities to use data for collective action continue to expand in scope and importance. Formal and informal collaborations are exploring data institutions to manage data, including an emergent institution called the data trust. The name data trust is derived from land trusts, which are formal legal institutions that share many features with commons. A typical community land trust, for example, can be a type of commons where members, who are usually residents, collectively govern the trust to ensure housing affordability across generations. The UK Open Data Institute describes a data trust as an entity that “provides independent, fiduciary stewardship of data.” Fiduciary responsibility binds the trustees of a trust to make decisions that benefit the identified beneficiaries. People creating a data trust must therefore answer similar questions as people creating a commons, such as: who are the beneficiaries, who determines the evaluative criteria for successful stewardship, and how do members resolve conflicts? This webinar panel will start with the experience of design researchers engaged in three data governance projects where data from multiple sources is used to solve collective action problems: sensor data for an ebike system, maintenance data for a social housing estate, and ingredient data for a food supply chain. What can data trusts learn from knowledge commons? Conversely, how might those working in the commons field engage with data trusts as they take shape? We will explore two different layers of the knowledge commons: first, the contours of the data trust as an emergent form of knowledge commons; and second, the role of design in supporting stakeholders to interrogate and construct a new form of knowledge commons.

KW - commons

KW - data trust

M3 - Abstract

T2 - IASC 2021 Knowledge Commons Virtual Conference

Y2 - 9 June 2021 through 11 June 2021

ER -