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CS551L: DATA SCIENCE: FROM DATA TO INSIGHT (2020-2021)

Last modified: 05 Aug 2021 13:04


Course Overview

Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to identify and understand phenomena captured in structured or unstructured data, extract insights, and add value by generating predictions that aid optimization of processes and equipment. These techniques show considerable promise for bringing about a revolution, increasing the significance and value of owning and collecting data of all types. This course introduces the common techniques and considers the implications for data managers.

Course Details

Study Type Postgraduate Level 5
Term Second Term Credit Points 15 credits (7.5 ECTS credits)
Campus Aberdeen Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Professor Marco (Physics) Thiel

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • Any Postgraduate Programme (Studied)

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

Data Science, short for data-driven science, is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to identify and understand phenomena as captured in structured or unstructured data, extract knowledge or insights from these data, and add value to the data by generating predictions or recommendations that aid optimization of processes, workflows, and equipment usage. Spanning broad areas of information and computational science, mathematics, and statistics, these techniques are showing considerable promise for bringing about a revolution in the uses to which data can be put, solving the challenges of handling exceptionally large datasets, and increasing the significance and value of owning and collecting data of all types.

This course will introduce the subject by explaining the commonly employed techniques, demonstrating with examples the benefits they might generate for a business, and considering the implications for those managing data if the full benefits are to be achieved. Topics to be covered will include: data analytics and data mining; challenges and solutions for large datasets (“Big Data”) and real-time analysis; machine-learning, artificial intelligence, neural networks, and the importance of training data; classification, pattern-recognition and cluster analysis; probabilistic analysis and uncertainty quantification; visualisation; and data integration into models for making predictions and recommendations that aid automation and optimization.


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 30 August 2024 for 1st term courses and 20 December 2024 for 2nd term courses.

Summative Assessments

5 x practical challenges (50%)

Group Lab Report (50%)

 

Resit (for students who failed the course in AY19/20 or for C8 students)

Resit of any failed element

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Course Learning Outcomes

Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
ProceduralApplyPerform data munging/scraping/sampling/cleaning in order to get an informative, manageable data set
ProceduralApplyStore and manage data in order to be able to access data - especially big data - quickly and reliably during subsequent analyses.
ProceduralAnalyseConduct exploratory data analysis to generate hypotheses and intuition about the data
ProceduralCreatePerform prediction based on statistical tools such as regression, classification, and clustering
ProceduralAnalyseCommunicate results through visualisation, stories, and interpretable summaries
ConceptualUnderstandDescribe the typical workflow of data analysis

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