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    Introduction To Data Science - Module 1

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    Gabby Cadalin
    This document provides an introduction to the field of data science. It discusses the growing popularity and interest in data science. Data science draws from fields of computer science, statistics, and hacking skills. It involves activities like data exploration, representation, modeling, visualization, and understanding what techniques are most effective. The document outlines six key activities in data science according to David Donoho: data exploration, representation, computing with data, modeling, visualization, and advancing the field of data science itself. It emphasizes that data science is an important way of understanding and knowing about the world.

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    Introduction To Data Science - Module 1

    Uploaded by

    Gabby Cadalin
    82 views4 pages
    This document provides an introduction to the field of data science. It discusses the growing popularity and interest in data science. Data science draws from fields of computer science, statistics, and hacking skills. It involves activities like data exploration, representation, modeling, visualization, and understanding what techniques are most effective. The document outlines six key activities in data science according to David Donoho: data exploration, representation, computing with data, modeling, visualization, and advancing the field of data science itself. It emphasizes that data science is an important way of understanding and knowing about the world.

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    Coursera Lesson Transcript

    Original Title

    Introduction to Data Science

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    This document provides an introduction to the field of data science. It discusses the growing popularity and interest in data science. Data science draws from fields of computer science, statistics, and hacking skills. It involves activities like data exploration, representation, modeling, visualization, and understanding what techniques are most effective. The document outlines six key activities in data science according to David Donoho: data exploration, representation, computing with data, modeling, visualization, and advancing the field of data science itself. It emphasizes that data science is an important way of understanding and knowing about the world.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    82 views4 pages

    Introduction To Data Science - Module 1

    Uploaded by

    Gabby Cadalin
    This document provides an introduction to the field of data science. It discusses the growing popularity and interest in data science. Data science draws from fields of computer science, statistics, and hacking skills. It involves activities like data exploration, representation, modeling, visualization, and understanding what techniques are most effective. The document outlines six key activities in data science according to David Donoho: data exploration, representation, computing with data, modeling, visualization, and advancing the field of data science itself. It emphasizes that data science is an important way of understanding and knowing about the world.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 4

    Introduction to Data Science – Module 1

    Interest in data science is at an all-time high, and really has exploded in popularity in the last couple

    of years. A fun way to see this is to hit up the Google Trends website. Google Trends shows search

    keyword information over time. We could see that the term ‘data science’ is massively popular, really all

    across the globe. We can also see that related queries include topics like python. And we can even see

    certain tool kits that we’ll be teaching in this course. For instance, here's the trend for python pandas, which

    is the focus of module two and three in this course. Before we jump in to a discussion of data

    science, I'd like to take a moment and have you reflected on what you think data science is, and why you

    came to this course to explore. If someone you ran into asked you what data science was all about, what

    would you tell them?

    The history of data science goes back a little further than 2004, which is where the Google search

    term history begins. But this, at least, gives a sense for how popular the area is now. I think the popularity

    of interest in the area comes from the network and data driven society we find ourselves living in. When

    people think of the term data scientist, they tend to think of Google or Amazon or Facebook, places with

    big artificial intelligence research teams, and certainly these are some amazing companies who are doing

    great things with data science. But data scientist isn’t just limited to careers with tech companies. Almost

    every company is turning to data science to better understand how to build products, serve customers and

    leverage new opportunities. And companies aren't the only one.

    In this first course I will be giving lectures here in the University of Michigan digital innovation

    greenhouse. Which was a lab within the office of academic innovation. The space is used by a team which

    includes programmers, behavioral scientists and data scientists who aim to build technologies to support

    next generation teaching and learning. The background of individuals here is very broad and includes folks
    with computer science and information degrees, psychology degrees, and law and business degrees. And

    here they apply data driven methodologies to aid in their discovery, from statistical analysis, machine

    learning and text mining, to information visualization. And this need for data driven intelligence and skills

    is growing in companies and organizations throughout the world.

    Let's start with a look at the roots of the field of data science. The techniques and methodologies of

    data science stem from the fields of computer science and statistics. One of the most well cited diagrams

    describing the field comes from Drew Conway where he suggested data science is the intersection of

    hacking skills, math and stats knowledge, and substantial expertise. This diagram might be a bit

    of an oversimplification, but I think it's a great start. Data science is definitely one of those areas where you

    ask ten people and get ten different answers. One thing that I think is missing from this diagram is the

    underlining need for the scientific inquiry. You don't necessarily get this for having good hacking skills or

    math and statistic knowledge.

    A good data scientist brings skepticism, experimentation, simulation, and replication to bear on

    understanding a given phenomenon. Whether it be trying to predict sales at the coffee shop, cluster products

    in an online store, determine who's likely to win in election or mine health data from

    physiological sensors like Fitbits. In this specialization we're going to touch on all of these issues broadly

    but really focus on skills. In addition to the hacking skills Conway mentions, we're going to develop some

    communication skills in the form of charting, graphing, and related visualizations. A good data scientist is

    one who can communicate their findings clearly to others and having some fundamental

    tools in the toolkit as useful here. We can find a more comprehensive and academic discussion in the work

    of David Donoho, Professor of Statistics in Stanford. Who's providing excellent commentary of views of

    the field in a paper entitled 50 years of data science. We've provided a link to in a course resource.
    There's lots to think about with this paper, but I want to draw your attention to section 8, where he

    describes the field broadly as being made up of six activities. The first of these is Data Exploration and

    Preparation, this involves cleaning data and manipulating it for further analysis. The second is Data

    Representation and Transformation. This specialization is going to look at several different forms of

    representing data. Tabular structures in the first course, text data in the fourth course, and graph-based data

    in the last course. These are just some of the kinds of data you have to deal with as a data scientist. The

    third activity is Computing with Data, and Donoho mentioned specifically the languages of R and Python

    as being fundamental here. He goes further and he talks about pipelining and how data scientist need to be

    able to work with different languages for different parts on an analysis project and I think this is very true.

    Unlike enterprise software projects, where you might use one language for implementing all of the

    functionality you need. Modern data science projects can span many different languages and computing

    paradigms. Knowing when to use the right tool for the job is an important attribute. The fourth activity is

    Data Modeling.

    I think data modeling is a big space but Donoho speaks specifically about predictive modeling,

    which we’ll talk about in the third MOOC in this specialization and generative modeling. There are some

    fundamental differences here, and I think the increased interest in predictive modeling is helping to fuel the

    current data science push. In particular, the modern world, with massive data streams and significant

    computational power, gives us opportunity to rapidly experiment with making predictions. Allowing us to

    innovate and evaluate new data science techniques. The fifth activity is Data Visualization and Presentation.

    Now the word visualization brings with it a number of connotations, such as charting and graphing, as well

    as 3D visualizations and interactive environments. In the second course we'll learn the basics of information

    visualization, but keep in mind that info viz is a whole field of its own. Finally, Donoho suggests there's

    sort of a meta activity which he calls the science about data science. That is understanding what works and

    what doesn't in data science, and building ways to leverage these discoveries. We see examples of this as

    new tools and paradigms of computing are invented


    to change the way data science works. I think Donoho provides a really nice overview of the area of the

    data science. In his paper he also alludes to several investments, research institutions are

    putting into the field. Including the University of California in Berkeley, New York University, MIT and

    the University in Michigan, here, which just kicked off a $100 million data science initiative. Data science

    is becoming a fundamental way of understanding the world around us. While many institutions, including

    my own, are starting to offer data science masters degrees and certificate. I think it's important to think of

    data science as a sort of epistemology, or a way of knowing. Data science thinking can be useful in a variety

    of disciplines and careers. It is a way of approaching problems and critical thinking skills. But this is a

    skills-based course, so in the next lecture we're going to jump right in and start talking about

    the Python programming language.

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