Glossary

Module 1
1.2

Data literacy The ability to constructively engage in society through and about data.

1.4

Gender Is the way in which an individual expresses their gender identity. This is typically through
expression their appearance, dress, and behavior. Gender expression may or may not correspond
with their birth sex or their gender identity.

Gender roles Are the set of societal expectations for the behavior of women and men, boys and girls. It
is heavily influenced by the differences in power between women and men.

Heterosexual People who experience sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to people of the
“opposite” gender (e.g. male vs. female, man vs. woman) or a different gender from their
own.

Gay A term that describes individuals who experience sexual, romantic, or emotional
attraction to people of the same or a similar gender (e.g. man vs. man, woman vs. woman).

Lesbian A term that describes woman individuals who experience sexual, romantic, or emotional
attraction to people of the same or a similar gender.

Bisexual A sexual orientation that describes those who experience sexual, romantic, or emotional
attractions toward both males and females, or to more than one gender.

Pansexual Individuals who can experience sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to any person,
regardless of that person’s gender, sex, or sexuality.

Asexual Individuals who don’t experience sexual attraction to others of any gender or sex.

Raw data (also called dirty or unclean data) is data directly from the source. Raw data is often
unprocessed and not immediately valid or ready to be applied.

Data
collection Is the process of gathering and measuring information in a systematic fashion.

Biases Are personal and/or systematic judgments and pre-conceptions.

Glossary

Selection Bias Also known as sampling bias, is choosing a sample that is not representative of the
population being studied. Selection bias also results when participants are not being
randomly sampled to a condition.

Response Bias Is a general term for any external factor that can influence a respondent’s answers.

Non-response Means certain members of the population being studied do not participate in the data
bias capture. There are many reasons for non-responses bias. Examples include the medium
of study (e.g. online survey) or time study is conducted (e.g. morning times).

Social Is a type of response bias when a respondent is influenced to provide answers that are
Desirability socially desirable and are not necessarily their true responses.
Response Bias

Question Occurs if the question is worded or ordered in such a way that it favors one response
Wording/Order over another.
ing Bias

Outlier/
Extreme Occurs when there are extreme data values that lie far from the majority of the other data
Response Bias points and can skew the results leading to under- or over-estimated resulting values.

Processing Is the series of operations needed to prepare data for analysis.

Data Is systematically combining data from multiple sources together. Processing may or may
aggregation not involve aggregation.

Personally Also known as PII is any data that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's
Identifiable identity.
Information

Data
Is the process of converting data into code to prevent unauthorized access.
encryption

Ratio Compares the frequency of one value for a variable with another value of the same variable.

Rate A measurement of one value for a variable in relation to another measured quantity.

Proportion Number of times a particular value for a variable has been observed, by the total number
of values in the population.
Glossary

Percentage Expresses a value for a variable in relation to a whole population as a fraction of one
hundred.

Percentage Used to express increments, drops, or differences. It represents decimal points. These are
points different from percentages.

Mean The arithmetic average of a set of numbers or distribution. It is the most commonly used
central tendency of a set of numbers. It is used for normal distributions and it is not robust,
as it is influenced by outliers.

Median The numeric value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability
distribution, from the lower half. It is used for skewed distributions. It is computed by listing
all numbers in ascending order and locating the number in the center of the distribution.

1.5

Gender Collected data that reflects issues related to all aspects of women’s and men’s lives,
statistics including their specific needs, opportunities or contributions to society.

Desirable bias Implies taking into account sex and gender differences in order to make a precise diagnosis
and therefore be able to recommend tailored treatments that are more effective for the
needs of each individual.

Undesirable Exhibits unintended or unnecessary sex and gender discrimination.

bias