In order to formulate relevant understanding of key sustainability challenges, evidence-based decision-making relies on comprehensive data. While the complexity of producing and processing spatial data and the potential for biases are well recognised, the social process of making sense of data and its implications for societal uses is less analysed. In this article, insights of critical data studies are applied to study the production of, as well as uses and misuses of, the Finnish urban-rural classification. The classification structures Finland into three urban classes and four rural classes and offers an alternative to classifications that utilise administrative, municipal, and regional boundaries. The classification acts as a boundary object, functioning as a common reference for parties with varying information needs and interests. Using document analysis, as well as an insider action research methodology and our own experiences as data producers, this article aims to understand the processes of sense-making of data in the context of urban-rural classification and identify ways of improving related information systems and data practices. Intended and realised uses of the classification are analysed in order to identify different ways in which data producers and users make sense of data and justify the utilisation of the classification. The process of sense-making starts from the planning of data production and shapes how data and eventually information system are formulated throughout the data cycle. Communication about the limitations of the classification remains an issue and highlights the nature of sense-making as a collective process wherein users are actively shaping data practices as they translate information systems into their own contexts. This also draws attention to the nature of information systems as inherently unneutral, inevitably affected by negotiations shaped by the various information needs.

为了形成对关键可持续性挑战的相关理解，循证决策依赖于综合数据。虽然生产和处理空间数据的复杂性以及潜在的偏见已得到充分认识，但对数据意义的社会过程及其对社会用途的影响的分析却较少。在本文中，关键数据研究的见解被应用于研究芬兰城乡分类的产生、使用和误用。该分类将芬兰分为三个城市类别和四个农村类别，并提供了一种利用行政、市政和区域边界的分类的替代方案。分类充当边界对象，为具有不同信息需求和兴趣的各方提供共同参考。本文通过文献分析、内幕行为研究方法和我们作为数据生产者的自身经验，旨在了解城乡分类背景下数据的意义构建过程，并找出改进相关信息系统和数据实践。对分类的预期用途和已实现用途进行分析，以确定数据生产者和用户理解数据的不同方式，并证明使用分类的合理性。意义建构的过程从数据生产的规划开始，并塑造了数据和最终信息系统在整个数据周期中的形成方式。关于分类局限性的交流仍然是一个问题，并强调了意义构建作为一个集体过程的性质，其中用户在将信息系统转换为他们自己的上下文时积极塑造数据实践。这也引起了人们对信息系统本质上非中立的关注，不可避免地受到各种信息需求所塑造的谈判的影响。