Your Practice of Data Science Tour Guides:
- Brian Wright, Ph.D., Office: Elson room 165
- Email: brianwright@virginia.edu
- TA: Anna Baglione ab5bt@virginia.edu
- Peer Mentors: Izzy Shehan iws4kc@virginia.edu, Brittany Nguyen bhn4bf@virginia.edu and Jasmine Dogu ejd5mm@virginia.edu
- Location: In-Person! Maury Hall 115
Brian's Office Hours(In person (Elson room 165) or Virtual): Tuesday, 2 - 4:00pm and virtually Friday from 9 to 10:00am or by appointment if needed
Office Hours Zoom:click here to join
Course Materials: Practice of Data Science Repo
Subject Area and Catalog Number: Data Science, DS 3001
Year, Term and Time: 2021, Fall, Wednesday 2-4:30
Class Title: Practice of Data Science
Level: Undergraduate
Credit Type: Grade (A-F)
What is Data Science, why is it becoming so important and what is needed to be successful in this field? We will explore these questions throughout the course through a variety of topics with data always at the center. In all things, we focus on creative thinking, not blind implementation. If you cannot answer why you are doing something, not only will you discover no new knowledge but you will also create new problems versus solving them.
The course centers on lab-based work and employs a team-based pedagogy, meaning much of the work in the course can and should be completed in collaboration with your classmates. Though very applied, we also include theoretical content and will have discussion sessions depending on the topic for any given week.
I am also aware that students come from different backgrounds and have a variety of skillsets that they bring to the class. There will be plenty of opportunities for those that would like to take advantage of extra discussions during office hours, TA support sessions, and team-based work that is designed in such a way that we can all learn from each other.
Throughout the course, we will endeavor to “live the life of a data scientist” allowing you to not only be directly taught but gain a sense of what it would be like to be working as a data scientist. You’ll be asked to discover new knowledge and share it with your peers and learn how to use the larger ecosystem of data science to your benefit.
Data Science is incredibly broad and dynamic. The topics below are designed to reinforce this perspective and help you understand the field’s core tenements and what is demanded from practicing data scientists. The key is for you to gain a sense of the scope of Data Science, what is needed to contribute to the community, and feel comfortable incorporating these techniques into your work moving forward. Specific learning objectives are below:
Be able to describe the field of Data Science and its emerging sub-fields
Gain experience working in teams to solve Data Science problems
Gain experience communicating Data Science products
Articulate the advantages and disadvantages of selected ML approaches
Be able to select appropriate ML models given problems and data types
Understand the importance of and methods for evaluating ML models
Understand the negative outcomes associated with ML/AI bias and how they can be avoided
The course will move rather quickly and can be demanding at times. However, if we all work together to support each other you’ll be amazed how much you learn at the end of the semester!
On any given week, the course will require reviewing short video lectures and completing readings prior to coming to class. These lectures and readings will then be implemented in the lab portion of the course which will be conducted during the scheduled class period. Lab sessions will include a variety of activities but mostly be centered on team-oriented coding assignments. Students can also use lab sessions to work on mid-term and final projects when needed.
Ethical data scientist reflection (15%) – Based on in-class discussion and readings
students will write a personal reflection of how ethics and data science interact and
how we all can think about these concerns moving forward. This is critical to the work of
a data scientist as the models we build have the potential to impact the lives of thousands
of people so we must use caution and constraint whenever possible.
Quizzes (15%) – Short occasional (5 or 6) quizzes, will be auto-graded, so you will get instant
feedback. In order to ensure we are all meeting the learning objectives from week to week short
quizzes will be given. You will be allowed as many chances to complete the quiz as needed and
they will be open note however students are to work independently.
Labs (45%) – On most weeks we will have in-class labs/assignments. These are designed to allow you
to practice the skills being presented in class. While they should be submitted individually you are
encouraged to work with your peers as much of the best learning can come from your peers.
You’ll need to create publishable markdown documents for every lab and submit them along
with the raw code file and link each week (Groups).
Final project (25%) – The course will culminate in a final project that will involve
working with a dataset of your choice, giving a presentation, submitting well-annotated
code to include summary information in report form. This is an open-ended project
designed to allow groups to choose a topic of interest from the semester to
explore deeper and share with the class.
R/Rstudio - You'll need to have the software loaded and ready to go day one.
Zoom - Virtual Option for Office Hours
Github - Almost all course materials and collaberation for lab assignemtns
Collab - Submission of assignments and class-wide communications
Discord - Low latency comms for groups and class.
The books below are essentially a starter Machine Learning Library. I will use all of these references at difference points during the class, but not heavily rely on anything but the free options. Applied Predictive Learning is a theory and code review for much of what is in the CARET package. It's a very good book but also expensive. Everything else is either free or can be found for around 15 dollars. If you can master what is in books F through I, you'll be well on your way to being a highly capable Data Scientist. In order of importance I would list them in reverse, I-F.
- A. Weapons of Math Destruction
- B. Evaluating Machine Learning Models – O’Reilly Digital via UVA Library
Texts C-E below are all available here: https://bookdown.org/ - C. R for Data Science
- D. Text Mining with R
- E. R Markdown: The Definitive Guide
- F. Machine Learning with R – Posted in Collab
- G. Applied Predictive Learning, Kuh and Johnson - Expensive but very good
- H. Machine Learning Engineering- Free PDF Version
- I. Mathematics for Machine Learning Free PDF Version
***NOTE: depending on student interest, the syllabus can be adjusted to accommodate additional topics
| Week | Theme | Topics | Lab | Reading/Repo (Prior to Class) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | What is this “Data Science” that you speak of and tech stack | - Assessment - Videos: DS Overview and History | - Find DS Dream Job - Create your first project, load the dataset, visualize using the code provided what questions could this data answer? | Synchronous: Short Lab |
| Week 2 | Getting back up to “coding speed” | 'Dataframing' with tidyverse functions | - Group Case Study - Questions + PsuedoCode + Code + Functions = High Quality Data Science | "Program" Chapter in C |
| Week 3 | I'm Committed Version Control: GitHub | GitHub Lab | ||
| Week 4 | How to share nicely | Knitr and rmarkdown | Rmarkdown article reviews | Rmarkdown: The definitive guide: Sections I and II Knit R Reference Guide |
| Week 5 and 6 | Machine Learning Boot Camp | Key ML Methods | ML Methods Lab | H: Chapter 1 and 2 |
| Week 7 | Let's gather together... but separately | Overview of Clustering Kmeans | NBA Scout for the worst team in the league | F. Chapter 1 and Chapter 9 |
| Week 8 | Computers can read…well kind of | Text Mining – Bag of Words approaches | Regional Climate Change Analysis | D. Sections 1 - 3 |
| Week 9 | Machines really can learn | Introduction to ML: Supervised KNN | Create a Lazy ML Algo | F. Chapter 3 |
| Week 10 | The key to ML: Knowing how bad your model really is… | - Metrics for Accuracy, Sensitivity, ROC, AUC, etc. | Evaluation Lab | All of B. and G.- Chapter 11 |
| Week 11 | Reinforcement Lab | Let's Put these Skills to Use! | Case Study: Loreto Alonzi, PhD | |
| Week 12 | Nature's Perfect ML analogy: Tree Based Methods | Classification: Decision Trees | Predicting Income for Big Brother | F. Chapter 5 and G. Chapter 14.1-14.3 |
| Week 13 | Wisdom of the crowd | Random Forest Overview | Lab | |
| Week 14 | Break- No Class | |||
| Week 15 | Do the next right thing…ethics | Bias in AI Discussion -Simple methods for identifying bias - Protected Classes | Ethical Reflections | Weapons of Math Destruction |
| Week 16 - Exam Week | Final Projects Presentations | Ethical Reflection Due |
Grading Policies: Courses carrying a Data Science subject area use the following grading system: A, A-; B+, B, B-; C+, C, C-; D+, D, D-; F. The symbol W is used when a student officially drops a course before its completion or if the student withdraws from an academic program of the University.
Grading Scale:
- 93-100 A
- 90-92 A-
- 87-89 B+
- 83-86 B
- 80-82 B-
- 77-79 C+
- 73-76 C
- 70-72 C-
- <70 F
University of Virginia Honor System: All work should be pledged in the spirit of the Honor System at the University of Virginia. The instructor will indicate which assignments and activities are to be done individually and which permit collaboration. The following pledge should be written out at the end of all quizzes, examinations, individual assignments, and papers: “I pledge that I have neither given nor received help on this examination (quiz, assignment, etc.)”. The pledge must be signed by the student. For more information, visit www.virginia.edu/honor.
Special Needs: The University of Virginia accommodates students with disabilities. Any SCPS student with a disability who needs accommodation (e.g., in arrangements for seating, extended time for examinations, or note-taking, etc.), should contact the Student Disability Access Center (SDAC) and provide them with appropriate medical or psychological documentation of his/her condition. Once accommodations are approved, just follow up with me concerning any logistics and implementation of accommodations. Please try to make accommodations for test-taking at least 14 business days in advance of the date of the test(s). Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the SDAC: 434-243-5180/Voice, 434-465-6579/Video Phone, 434-243-5188/Fax. Further policies and statements are available at www.virginia.edu/studenthealth/sdac/sdac.html
Technical Support Contacts
Login/Password: scpshelpdesk@virginia.edu
UVaCollab: collab-support@virginia.edu
BbCollaborate Support: http://www.tinyurl.com/uvabbc