Author Interview – Katherine O’Keefe

This is the second of our Author Interviews in our 12 Weeks of Books to celebrate Castlebridge’s 12th birthday.

This week we looked a little closer to home and I interviewed my co-author and colleague Dr Katherine O’Keefe about our book Ethical Data and Information Management: Concepts, Tools, and Methods.

Katherine O’Keefe – Featured Author

In this short video, Katherine talks about the motivations behind writing the EDIM book and how, back in 2015 when we started the research and scoping out the models we developed in the book, there wasn’t a lot of substantive content available about the practice of implementing ethics in data management and data management practices.

This is an important point, and builds on the topic discussed by John Ladley in last week’s interview – the challenge of EXECUTION as opposed to lip service or “performative” data ethics or ethics washing.

Katherine also discusses a book that influenced her way of thinking about data and information. And (in true Dr O’Keefe style) it is not what we would first expect and is definitely one that data management professionals should seek out!

Katherine’s selection raises a very valid point and goes even further than John Ladley did last week when he touched on the same topic…

People working in data management should read widely from other areas to help them understand and recognise different themes, topics, and issues that arise. This is particularly true when dealing with the “human factors” in information and data management.

Competition Time

If you would like to be entered into a draw to win some of the books referenced by Katherine in this video and in the rest of the videos we’re running this month, please provide your email address and an answer to the simple question in the form below. The terms and conditions for the competition can be found here:

Books Referenced in this Video

• Ethical Data and Information Management (Katherine O’Keefe & Daragh O Brien)
• The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)

Related Castlebridge Content

• Ethics Schmethics, Indians Schmindians 
• Data and Story Telling: A tale of two approaches to data in the 19th Century
• Castlebridge Primer on Ethical Principles in a Data Governance Framework (2015)
• Data Ethics and Covid 19 Return to Work
• New Paradigm or Ethics Washing? (2015)

Related Castlebridge Courses

• Data Ethics 101 – a half-day instructor-led online seminar on the 2nd November