Two subprojects of the DATAFIED team presented insights at the international three-country conference DACH21, which took place from April 7th to April 9th 2021 on the topic „#Kommunikation #(R)Evolution. Zum Wandel der Kommunikation in der digitalen Gesellschaft“ (#Communication #(R)Evolution. On the Transformation of communication in digital society) held at the University of Zurich. In the methods panel, Jasmin Troeger, Annekatrin Bock and Felicitas Macgilchrist (SP3) presented the walkthrough method with the paper „Der walkthrough – ein methodischer Zugang für kommunikationswissenschaftliche App (User) Studies“ (The walkthrough – a methodological approach for communication science app (user) studies). Following this, Irina Zakharova (SP2) and Annekatrin Bock spoke on the topic of “Researching (in)visible data”. In the method paper, Troeger, Bock, and Macgilchrist used browser-based learning software to illustrate how the walkthrough approach can be used to capture individual aspects of software such as core functions, individual system components, and interaction scenarios, thus enabling the analysis of their interrelationships and the formulation of insights into the data model and software architecture. Finally, possible implications for questions in communication science …

For the multi-year research project DATAFIED, another important milestone was reached: The ifib subproject, which deals with the changes in school administration through datafication and focuses specifically on school administration systems, was able to conduct the last scheduled qualitative interviews in April. During the long and extensive survey phase, numerous interviews could be conducted with various stakeholders in schools and public authorities in several federal states. Despite the corona-related break last year, the remaining interviews could be conducted as digital video interviews without major problems. This even had the advantage of being able to respond more flexibly to interview partners, since there was no need to travel to and from the interviews, so that even short-term appointments could be made. Now, after the interviews have been anonymized and processed, they must be analyzed and the findings published. This will probably take place in a large project publication, but also in further conference contributions and specialist publications.

From March 23-25, 2021, the international conference “New Materialist Informatics” took place virtually at the University of Kassel. Despite the virtual format, the organizers created different spaces for formal and informal exchange for the participants. For example, in addition to the usual video conference rooms, an entire digital venue with a reception, several conference rooms, a library and many other spaces was created via the gather.town platform. This allowed all participants to enjoy spontaneous exchanges and have productive discussions with each other across great distances and different continents. From SP2 of the DATAFIED project, Dr. Juliane Jarke and Irina Zakharova participated in the conference. Their contribution, entitled “Educational technologies as matters of care”, highlighted the role of educational technologies in schools from the perspective of feminist ethics of care. Such ethics already have a longer tradition in educational research. However, educational technologies, data, and other non-human actors are rarely problematized. The contribution of Irina Zakharova and Dr. Juliane Jarke was intended to fill this gap. The discussion following the presentation showed that non-human actors should …

What does it take to make data literacy more widespread among teachers? This question was addressed by the DATAFIED team in its workshop “Shifting data practices – Building data literacy” at the conference “Building Data Literacy with the Teaching Profession at Global Scale”. The conference was organized by Sam Sellar (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Sigrid Hartong (Helmut-Schmidt University Hamburg). With the guests, we discussed initial findings on the decline of pedagogical instruction and the advance of data-driven instructional design. We explored the question to what extent teachers need support in selecting software for their lessons and what role data literacy building can play for this. The presentation slides of the workshop can be accessed here.

Next week from 09-10.03.2021 the virtual BMBF Educational Research Conference 2021 will take place under the motto “Educational Worlds of the Future”. The DATAFIED project will be there.In Forum 3.1. “Challenges and Perspectives of Teacher Education in a Digitally Shaped World”, there will be an exchange about aspirations and reality in all three phases of teacher education regarding the professionalization of teachers in a digitally shaped world. Exemplary formats for cooperation between teacher education and research will be presented and discussed. Our contribution by Felicitas Macgilchrist on “Datafication and (Critical) Data Literacy” can be found here: The project is also represented in the virtual marketplace. Feel free to drop by – we look forward to seeing you! Tue, 03/09 11:45-13:15am and 16:30-17:30pm.Wed, 10.03. 12:15-12:45h and 15:00-14:30h Further information can be found here:Datafied Poster (german)

The DATAFIED book is now taking shape. We were happy to use our first collaborative meeting this year to hammer out the book structure and metanarrative. Tracing data practices in and around schools, our collaborative publication unfolds themes around the datafication of school and makes the findings of the four subprojects available to anyone interested in data. As soon as further details are available, we will inform you here.

In November 2020 and February 2021, Dr. Juliane Jarke and Irina Zakharova presented the first results from TP2 of the DATAFIED research project. They reflected first at the Colloquium Social Research of the University of Lucerne and then at the Research Colloquium of the Center for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) on the methodological approaches to researching data flows in educational organizations. At the heart of these methodological reflections is the further development of the approach of “data journeys” – data journeys already used in the sociology of science and the natural sciences (Bates et al., 2016; Leonelli 2014, 2020). For example, data journeys are used to track the movement of climate data from a meteorological sensor to global financial market institutions (Bates et al., 2016). The DATAFIED research team is examining the data that moves within schools and between schools and departments of education. The focus is on school management systems. In doing so, the concept of a data journey presents how data changes along the way, how paths of data open and close …

We are slowly developing a routine in the virtual execution of our joint meeting. Unfortunately, due to corona, we were again unable to meet in person. Nonetheless the mood was still good. On Wednesday, 11.11.2020, we first met to discuss the current status of the four subprojects. Additionally each subproject had brought something to the discussion. From a basic text on “Changes in School Management and Supervision” to “Methods of Walktrough for the Analysis of learning Software” and the examination of individual transcript extracts from classroom observations, everything was included. Once again, the interdisciplinary nature of the project team proved to be a strength: the different professional perspectives gave rise to exciting discussions and further bi- and trilateral meetings were arranged for further in-depth study. The second day of the joint meeting on Thursday, 12.11.2020, was dedicated to the question “What is the future of DATAFIED in 2021?”. In particular the numerous school closures and the still tense situation in the schools pose great problems for our data collection. Together, various strategies were discussed and …

On October 21st, Andreas Breiter as head of the DATAFIED project took part in an international panel discussion on the future of digital education. It was organized by the German Embassy in Washington, the German Consulate General in San Francisco and the German Center for Research and Innovation and Innovation (DWIH) New York. He discussed current developments in both countries as well as chances and risks with four other experts: Barbara Holzapfel (VP Microsoft Education), Maureen McLaughlin (Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Director of International Affairs, U.S. Department of Education) Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel (CEO and Scientific Director, Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering (HPI)). His main statement was a déja-vu. 20 years ago, he collected data for his PhD research project in U.S. states (CA, MA, IL) and districts as well as in schools. This was compared to the German school system. The first result was the different speed of ICT and media integration in classroom practices and school management, as well as in educational policies (Breiter 2000). The “connector” between school development, district decisions and state policy …

Yesterday (22.09.2020) Juliane Jarke from SP2 and Vtio Dabisch (SP1) jointly presented first results of the two subprojects at this year’s congress of the German Sociological Association. Her presentation was the first of four papers presented by an ad hoc group on the digitization of education. Vito Dabisch’s presentation focused on the increasing production and usage of data for school management by school supervision. He noted that there is an increasing expansion and compression of data and data practices. In this context, the simultaneous data criticism and data orientation of the interviewed actors was striking: School councils are partly (very) skeptical about how helpful data-based control is, but on the other hand more and more data is used in institutionalized discussions. Schools are encouraged to “see” themselves through “their” data and to work with this data.Juliane Jarke’s presentation concentrated on how school as an organization is changing through digitization and datafication and how this change can be researched.She presented various research artifacts from TP2 that allow to analyze data flows and show how schools (re)position …