By Laini Byfield
ODI canvases
A lightweight way to force the right questions early — stakeholders, harms, governance, and decision boundaries.
A structured pre-mortem
The ODI’s Data Ethics Canvas is a project planning tool. In small data environments, it functions like a structured pre-mortem: what could go wrong, who gets harmed, and what controls exist.
Document the purpose, stakeholders, and likely harms — decide what data is truly necessary before building the pipeline.
Re-run the canvas when data sources change, rules change, or reporting scope expands. Canvases are not one-time exercises.
Reference: Open Data Institute, Data Ethics Canvas.
Awareness into operations
Canvases create awareness. ETHICMAP turns awareness into operations by embedding checks into environment, timing, measurement, and publish loops — so the questions get asked every cycle, not just at launch.
The questions a canvas forces at launch are the same questions ETHICMAP forces at every cycle. The canvas starts the conversation. The cycle keeps it going.