Data-driven, value-sensitive digital social innovations

Course type: Project seminar
Institution: Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences
Funding period: 01.04.2023 to 31.03.2024
Short title: WS DSI

Extract from the funding application: "In order not to cause more harm than help in the development of a DSI (Digital Social Innovation), it is essential to consider values and the ethical perspective."

Orientation of the teaching lab

This teaching lab was aimed at students of all subjects in the Studium Generale programme. One of the main objectives was to address social challenges with technologies and to generate these challenges directly from civil society. Another aim of the teaching project was to raise students' awareness of digital social innovations and value-sensitive technology development and to give them the opportunity to work with non-profit organisations in practice.

The aim was to provide a space for experience with interdisciplinary work during their studies, which is extremely important in practice, especially in the digital field, and to raise students' awareness of the ethical and social dimensions of digital technologies. In addition, students should be given the opportunity to work on projects that actually have a positive effect in the world or can potentially be further developed in practice.

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Review and results

In cooperation with the aid organisation Clubkinder e.V., an application was developed that can have a positive impact on society. To this end, "Value Sensitive Design" was used to look at the values and ethical dilemmas (e.g. data protection vs. individualisation of information) that had to be taken into account when developing the application. On this basis, ideas were developed and reflected upon using design thinking methods. In addition to the creative and responsible handling of data, practical skills for obtaining, processing and visualising data with Jupyter Notebooks were also taught.

The necessary Python programming skills were also learnt as part of the course. This meant that the course was open to all students, whose different specialist perspectives were expressly encouraged. The course was held as a block seminar or hackathon in the winter semester 23/24.