Informatics 397F - ST- Intro to Data Science

The terms "data science" and "big data" appear in the news media and in everyday conversations. Moreover, we are told that we live in the "age of information", where almost every business venture and scientific research initiative collect a massive amount of data which may contain valuable information. This course is an introduction to the concepts and skills involved with the collection, management, analysis, and presentation of large data sets and the data products that result from the work of data scientists. Privacy and ethical issues are discussed. Students will work with data from the financial, epidemiological, educational, and other domains. The course provides many case studies and examples of real-world data that students work with using the R programming language as well as the structured query language (SQL). This course does not satisfy requirements for the CS major.

Open to undergraduate students NOT majoring in Computer Science. COMPSCI 121, PSYCH 240+ w/ C NOT FOR CS MAJOR/MINOR REQUIREMENTS. PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE (OTHER THAN COMPSCI 121) MAY BE CONSIDERED FOR OVERRIDE. BASIC MATHEMATICAL MATURITY (COLLEGE ALGEBRA) IS ASSUMED. SOME EXPOSURE TO BASIC PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS, SUCH AS ONE OF THE COURSES REQUIRED FOR REGISTRATION ON SPIRE. KNOWLEDGE OF RELATIONAL DATABASES IS HELPFUL. SOFTWARE: THE R SOFTWARE FOR STATISTICAL ANALYSIS (HTTPS://WWW.R-PROJECT.ORG/). STUDENTS NOT MEETING PREREQUISITES WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE INFORMATICS PROGRAM (BDIC), MUST REQUEST OVERRIDES VIA THE ON-LINE FORM: https://www.cics.umass.edu/overrides.