Eastern featured special guest Michelle Riordan-Nold, executive director of the Connecticut Data Collaborative (CTData), for University Hour on Feb. 12 in the Student Center Theatre. The event was organized with the help of Garrett Dancik, computer science professor and coordinator of the data science program.

CTData’s mission is to provide data and data support so that nonprofits, state agencies, businesses and the public can make decisions and work toward equity. Riordan-Nold highlighted ways to use data for this work as well as telling CTData’s origin story. 

CTData’s beginnings 

Riordan-Nold explained how the times have changed, as data was once more difficult to access. “Data only existed in PDF (files) and government websites, which is not what we consider accessible data,” she said.  

As a solution, CTData envisioned a website where a broad audience could access data through visualization tools. One of their first projects was the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project in partnership with the Insititute for Municipal and Regional Policy.  

Riordan-Nold kept working with CTData to create websites where data was not only available but accessible, but she realized that while “(we) can put a lot of data out there, it doesn’t mean people know how to use it." 

This led CTData to launch the Connecticut Data Academy in 2017, where they held different workshops teaching people how to use data. They also emphasized the importance of data literacy, which is the “ability to systematically and ethically ask and answer real-world questions with data,” said Riordan-Nold.  

Past projects 

In an early project, data on traffic stops was used to obtain the race and ethnicity of drivers, as well as

post-stop outcomes, which were studied to discover disparities in the ethnicity of those pulled over and their treatment and send a legislative committee to work with police departments.  

A recent project addressed pandemic-era evictions. Federal court records lacked data on sex, race and ethnicity of renters, complicating efforts to determine who is being evicted. 

CTData used multiple sources, including the Connecticut Judicial Branch and the Social Security Administration, to estimate defendants' demographics. They also referenced Census Bureau ZIP code data. 

Findings showed Hispanic/Latino and Black renters faced the highest eviction rates, with most defendants being female. 

CTData’s work was referenced in discussions advocating for the passage of counsel legislation in Connecticut. “The project was rewarding,” said Riordan-Nold. “Sometimes when you do this work, you never know if anybody even cares.” 

Using data effectively 

Riordan-Nold shared the problem of non-profits collecting data but not making decisions based on it, either because they are not trained in data analysis skills or because they fear what the data is going to show: “There is a problem with people collecting too much but not doing enough.” 

Another effort to increase data literacy, specifically in the non-profit sector, led CTData to launch the social enterprise CTData Strategic Planning. They found that women make up 66% of the non-profit workforce, but only 40% of the non-profit staff say they use data that they collect to make decisions.  

“Women are often led to doubt in their abilities in math,” said Riordan-Nold. “These social perceptions about math have influenced participation and confidence levels to use data in the non-profit sector.”