Blog Post 13

This week for SI 643 we completed our webinars in groups of two. Our group presented on algorithms that discriminate and what we can do about it. I believe the there were three key takeaways from our webinar. The first, algorithms have bias and may discriminate in a variety of contexts, like matching supply and demand, pricing, and search results. Fairness is challenging to define, especially when we seek to create a mathematical representation that fits all situations for all people. Lastly, we should work to assess algorithms in contexts by testing for fairness and increasing transparency of systems. Our audience was happy to hear about the frameworks to assess algorithms and overall liked the topic. The chat, while appreciative of the questions in the slides, thought that it may have fizzled out towards the end. 

In addition to presenting, I watched two other webinars from classmates. The first one was about copyright and fair use of other’s material. In the past, I have worked on a project involving taking photos of art at museums and modifying them, so I’ve had a little experience with the subject. However, I wasn’t aware of the complexity of the topic and thought that goes into using other’s material. Now, I feel more informed and comfortable using and modifying other’s information. I also watched a webinar on prison libraries. I’ve never learned or really heard about how prison libraries operate and how they help prisoners. I’ve only seen the representation of prison libraries in movies and shows. I was pleased to hear that the librarians in prison’s help inmates learn about their legal case. 

This class was nothing like I expected, in a really good way. I learned about many exercises to help students learn on a deeper level, like the Socratic Seminar. The readings were challenging and spanned a wide range of domains. I can’t believe I didn’t know about the term information literacy before the semester. I can’t wait to use what I’ve learned and accomplished in this class in my future and career.