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Understanding Data Literacy in the Digital Age

Discover how Chief Data Officers play an important role in making employees understand data literacy in this digital age

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Evolution of Data Literacy in the Technological Era
2. Establishing a Data Literacy Program
Wrapping Up

Introduction

As we have entered the digital era, data and analytics strategies (D&A) have become important, as these technologies can transform any business during a massive data spike. According to global research, it was observed that around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced by IT companies every day; therefore, to understand the importance of data, every employee must be data literate.

For a better understanding of data, the Chief Data Officers (CDOs) play an important role in making every employee data literate, i.e., able to understand, share, and have meaningful insight into data.  

With this mindset, organizations can seamlessly adopt emerging and existing technologies and transform their business outcomes across all departments while fostering quality decision-making, innovation, and a better customer experience. The CDOs 

In this exclusive AI TechPark article, we will discuss the evolution of data literacy and how it can transform any organization into a data-literate one.

Read more about The Value of the Chief Data Officer in the Data Governance Framework 

1. The Evolution of Data Literacy in the Technological Era

In the past few decades, data literacy has experienced a significant transformation with the introduction of new technologies and the explosion of data. This shift has ignited from traditional data analysis to a modern era of big data that has redefined the way organizations can make data-driven decisions. 

To analyze data, data scientists and analysts were confined to basic statistics and simple datasets. Even to analyze the data, data professionals needed more tools, narrow, small-scale datasets, and internal data sources. However, in the late 20th century, there were a lot of technological advancements, such as the introduction of data storage, big data, and cloud computing. This helped data scientists collect and process massive amounts of data from complex, unstructured datasets that could be further analyzed for deeper insight.

Read more about Navigating the Future With the Integration of Deep Learning in Big Data Analytics 

As a result of these technological advancements, the power of data has become a center point for developing strategic planning and seamlessly operating business efficiency in the IT industry. Thus, data literacy becomes equally important to developing a data-literate workforce and ensuring that professionals harness the full potential of data for competitive advantage in the data-driven landscape.

2. Establishing a Data Literacy Program

To achieve the goal of robust D&A strategies, the CDOs need to address the existing skill gaps among each employee by rolling out data literacy training programs. These programs can help every employee who is handling data daily by developing D&A skills and acquiring knowledge on data literacy as a part of organizational culture.

Before initiating the programs, CDOs should look for speakers who are data analysts, data stewards, and architects, as they can be the right people to speak about data naturally and effortlessly. 

Secondly, CDOs must interact with the employees to understand communication barriers and conduct data literacy assessments to identify the gaps and encourage employees to work on them. 

Employees who are not aware of the subject matter often find it tedious to understand; therefore, it is essential to develop an open environment of fun and games to teach about data.

Finally, CDOs must arrange a data literacy proof-of-concept workshop where participants can describe real-life common use cases, which can be a lesson for every employee to raise awareness and understand the data literacy gaps. The data teams can also hold biweekly meetings and discussions with the participants and provide them with the KPIs they need to work on. 

With this approach, CDOs can eliminate the data literacy gap and generate better methods of data analysis without being biased. 

Read more about Modernizing Data Management with Data Fabric Architecture 

Wrapping Up

Data is necessary, empowering at both individual and organizational levels by creating a pathway to harness real-world data-driven decision-making and data-driven organizational strategy. 

In an era where artificial intelligence, data analysis, machine learning, and big data are driving critical business decisions and the ability to steer through complex datasets and extract business insights, data literacy is the epitome of enhancing employability, making informed business decisions, driving innovation, and gaining a competitive edge.

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