Talk Title: Making Data Strange in Nonprofit Organizations

Speaker: Dr. Amy Voida, Associate professor and founding faculty in the Department of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Location: HBK 2105 and Zoom

Abstract: “This is a talk with an alter ego. As a research talk, I explore the myriad ways in which the use of data in nonprofit organizations disrupts our expectations of what it means to design organizational information systems — defamiliarizing data or… making data strange. From needing to address the coerciveness of the nonprofit database’s primary key to requiring new approaches for identifying the manipulative uses of data by ideologically polarized nonprofits, research about this sector serves as a critical case study of information systems at a state of enormous precarity and politicization. The research talk’s alter ego is a teaching talk in which I introduce defamiliarization, a construct that transcends subdisciplines and extends from one end of the design process to the other. Despite this impressive resume, defamiliarization is rarely taught in our curriculum, so I also take this opportunity to share seven strategies for using defamiliarization in your own work. I conclude by offering a glimpse of a new course I have designed to put defamiliarization center stage.”

Bio: “Dr. Amy Voida is an associate professor and founding faculty in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She conducts empirical and design research in human–computer interaction and computer supported cooperative work, with a focus on philanthropic informatics—an interdisciplinary domain she pioneered exploring the role of information and communication technologies in supporting nonprofit and other work for the public good. Dr. Voida earned her Ph.D. in Human–Centered Computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also holds an M.S. in Human–Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech and a B.A.E. in Elementary Education from Arizona State University. “