Data Availability: Making Sure the Gift Keeps Giving

Big Data: Applications and Implications
Saturday, 15 February 2014: 10:00 AM-11:30 AM
Regency D (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
This session discusses the need and framework for making data available to confirm and extend scientific results and to sensibly inform public policy. In the emerging big data scientific world, more information than enormous spreadsheets of numbers needs to be available to the public. Metadata, the framework for interpreting and extending results from numbers, is essential. The difficulty in obtaining needed data is discussed from the perspectives of the media and death penalty opponents; and the session discusses obstacles that social science and public arenas face, as well as the consequences for society. 
Organizer:
Clifford Spiegelman, Texas A&M University
Moderator:
Clifford Spiegelman, Texas A&M University
Discussant:
Nell Sedransk, National Institute of Statistical Sciences
Speakers:
Catherine Grosso, Michigan State University ; Mona Lynch, UC Irvine; Valerie West, John Jay College/CUNY
Finding Data: The Politics and Magic of Accessing Capital Punishment Data