CSC-10058 - Introduction to Data Science I
Coordinator: Peter Wootton Tel: +44 1782 7 33767
Lecture Time: See Timetable...
Level: Level 4
Credits: 15
Study Hours: 150
School Office: 01782 733075

Programme/Approved Electives for 2023/24

None

Available as a Free Standing Elective

No

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2023/24

Introduction to Data Science I introduces data science, its relationship with business analytics, statistics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It outlines the key terms and skills required by a data scientist. It provides a practical foundation in commonly used tools for data scientists utilising an interactive learning environment set in real world exercises.

Aims
This module introduces data science, its relationship with business analytics, statistics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It outlines the key terms and skills required by a data scientist and provides a foundation in the tools that are required to apply such skills.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Collect, clean and organise sets of data from the real world: 1,2
Identify methodologies and tools for extracting information from data: 1,2
Demonstrate different visualisation techniques in order to present information from data: 1,2
Form hypotheses and inferences that relate to real-world problems: 2

Study hours

Lectures: 22h
Practicals: 22h
Independent study: 106h

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment

1: Exercise weighted 50%
Programming exercises
A set of 3 data science programming exercises spread across the semester. All exercises are provided in a notebook template with answers to be accompanied by appropriate commentary. Students complete the exercises outside of class in open-book conditions and collaboration is forbidden. In total students can expect to spend 4 hours completing the exercises.

2: Project weighted 50%
Data analysis project
2000-word report on a data science task where students will be given a set of raw data to operate on. Students will be expected to extract the right data from the given set (thus demonstrating what they would choose to collect in the first place), use appropriate methods to clean and organise the data and then apply basic data mining methodologies in order to extract information that would aid the solution of the given problem. Finally the students will choose appropriate visualisation techniques to present the information extracted. . Formatting guidelines will be provided.