TYE: We touched on data provenance earlier, but I want to come back to it from the perspective of quantitative data

TYE: We touched on data provenance earlier, but I want to come back to it from the perspective of quantitative data. In particular, I think it is critical to keep in mind that the systems that generate quantitative data are necessarily embedded in socio-technical systems. The technological elements of those systems (electronic sensors, software-based telemetry, etc.) are designed, manufactured, and maintained by sociocultural factors. So, a data scientist who is diligently trying to understand where their data comes from in order to interpret it, will sooner or later need to understand sociocultural phenomena that produced data, even if that understanding is more meta-data than data. It would make sense to co-develop rubrics for assessing the quality of data generated by socio-technical systems. Shining a bright light on the deepest lineage of data that impacts business or design decisions is important for everyone involved. Such assessments could lead to more cautious ways of using data, or be used in efforts to improve the explainability of technical systems. — https://www.epicpeople.org/data-science-and-ethnography/