Engagement in Open Data Workshops: The Dark Side of Remote Settings

The increasing availability of Open Data gives birth to a fertile field for interested stakeholders to create value out of them; however, limited technical expertise and poor awareness are crucial barriers to their exploitation. Because of these reasons, there is an urge for learners to acquire data and information literacy competencies, which are essential for 21st-century skills, and become familiar with available Open Data sources and their potential uses. To promote the dialogue around activities to boost recognition of Open Data and improve users’ skills to work with them, we proposed a series of workshops to introduce Italian high school learners to searching for, authoring, and building effective communication based on Open Data. This article describes an ongoing activity and details its organization, reports preliminary results on learners’ engagement, and discusses both challenges of the remote setting as well as promising learning outcomes.