Project Leader: Professor Ellen P. Goodman

With funding from the Pratt Fund, Professor Goodman is working with The Markup – a nonprofit devoted to investigative journalism around technology — to investigate public entities’ use of algorithmic decision systems. Working with Rutgers students and former students, The Markup has filed open records requests in all fifty states. The investigations so far have revealed how public entities used algorithms in the fight against COVID and also to screen students for high education admissions. This work has led to instructional videos and outreach to journalists doing this kind of transparency reporting. It will also lead to scholarly work on how open records laws and FOIA do or do not work to create algorithmic transparency.