Community Data Workshop Readings + Schedule

Readings and Schedule

Week 0: Pre-Introduction

Week 1 –  Geneologias, Archivos, y los Pasados que Hablan / Geneaologies, Archives, and the Pasts that Speak

In Class:


Week 2 — Infrastructuras y Processando los Pasados/los Futuros // Infrastructures and Processing the Past/Future

Week 3 — Infrastructuras Alternativas / Infrastrucutres Otherwise

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TO BE CONTINUED:
Week 4: Seeing AI Labs

Week 5: AI Histories

Week 6: Surveillance Capitalism

Week 7: AI Engines: Big Data Labs


Optional:

Week 8: AI + Labor

Syllabus

Requirements:
Over the next 3 weeks, students are responsible for completing the assigned weekly readings. Weekly readings will be posted to our class site. A weekly reaction (1-2 pages) to the reading/s should also be posted to your own Scalar site (starting next week), with the link sent to me, by 8P the night before class. We’ll start our own Scalar sites on the first or second week of class.

Part 1 of your Reaction should deal with the assigned readings: and  should identify arguments, common themes, oppositions, and issues worthy of further discussion, and should articulate at least Three Key Questions that extend insights and tensions that emerge from the texts (you can aim for about 1 question per text). Use of visuals are terrific, but should not be used as filler or in place of analysis. 
For Part 2 of your Reaction, you’ll also be asked to either complete an activity involving data collection designed by the BiblioRed team, or will be asked to pick an everyday AI-driven technology or case study, that involves a platform, product or artifact that has been the subject of civic or public controversy or collective organizing. This can be an object chosen from a list of suggested objects/case studies that appears at the end of this syllabus, or it might be another object, subject to the instructor’s approval. Over the next 3 weeks, your weekly reactions will also offer a space to explore it, and consider it in relationship to the perspectives and methods being covered in our readings. These include:

  1. Mythical / Narrative / Historical dimensions
  2. Professional/Epistemological dimensions
  3. You can also consider Economic dimensions, Technological dimensions, Labor dimensions, Political dimension, Bodily/organic/affective dimensions, Material dimensions, Context and situatedness dimensions, Educational dimensions, Temporal/Geographic dimensions in the time beyond class.

Ideally, these weekly exercises will help you build towards integrating a consideration of an everyday AI-driven technology or case study into your final project. 
Accessibility Statement
To ensure disability-related concerns are properly addressed, I request that students with disabilities who require assistance to participate in this class contact me as soon as possible to discuss your needs and any concerns you may have. The University of Illinois may be able to provide additional resources to assist you in your studies through the office of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES). This office can assist you with disability-related academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids. Please contact them as soon as possible by visiting the office in person: 1207 S. Oak St., Champaign; visiting the website: http://disability.illinois.edu; calling (217) 333-4603 (V/TTY); or via e-mail disability@illinois.edu. NOTE: I do not require a letter from DRES in order to discuss your requested accommodations.
Land Acknowledgement Statement
We begin our workshop by recognizing and acknowledging that we are on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. These lands were the traditional territory of these Native Nations prior to their forced removal; these lands continue to carry the stories of these Nations and their struggles for survival and identity.
As a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois has a particular responsibility to acknowledge the peoples of these lands, as well as the histories of dispossession that have allowed for the growth of this institution for the past 150 years. We are also obligated to reflect on and actively address these histories and the role that this university has played in shaping them. This acknowledgement and the centering of Native peoples is a start as we move forward for the next 150 years. We thank the UIUC Native American House for this Land Acknowledgement Statement.

Library Resources
https://www.library.illinois.edu/infosci/
Writing and Bibliographic Style Resources
The campus-wide Writers Workshop provides free consultations. For more information see http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/
The iSchool sponsors a Writing Resources Moodle site https://courses.ischool.illinois.edu/course/view.php?id=3389
The iSchool also provides access to writing coaches who offer free consultations here: https://publish.illinois.edu/ischoolwritingresources/