Schedule
Here’s the plan for the semester. Slides and assignments will be linked here as we get to them.
| Week | Topic | Readings | Slides | Lab |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Aug 25–27 | Course introduction | — | Data Literacy | — |
| 2 · Sep 1–3 | Programming I | Think Python, Chs. 1–2 | Programming I | Assignment 1 |
| 3 · Sep 8–10 | Programming II | Think Python, Chs. 3, 7, 8 | Programming II | Assignment 2 |
| 4 · Sep 15–17 | Exploratory data analysis I | Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Chs. 6–7 | Modules & EDA | Assignment 3 |
| 5 · Sep 22–24 | Exploratory data analysis II | Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Chs. 9 and 12 | Exploratory viz | Assignment 4 |
| 6 · Sep 29–Oct 1 | Data wrangling I | Wickham (2014), “Tidy Data” | Data wrangling | Assignment 5 |
| 7 · Oct 6 | Data wrangling II | Exam 1 distributed; Thursday Oct 8 canceled (Fall Break) | — | — |
| 8 · Oct 13–15 | Exam 1 work week | — | Exam 1 due Fri, Oct 16, 11:59pm | |
| 9 · Oct 20–22 | Exam 1 meetings | Individual exam meetings during class sessions (sign-up schedule provided in advance) | — | — |
| 10 · Oct 27–29 | Advanced I/O: databases, web, APIs | McKinney, Python for Data Analysis (3rd ed.), Ch. 6 | Advanced I/O | Assignment 6 |
| 11 · Nov 3–5 | Visualization best practices | Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Chs. 17 and 19 | Data visualization | Assignment 7 |
| 12 · Nov 10–12 | Geographic data | The Nature of Geographic Information, Ch. 1; Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Ch. 15 | Geographic data | Assignment 8 |
| 13 · Nov 17–19 | Data communication and interactive visualization | Tableau, “Best Practices for Effective Dashboards”; Tableau Public “Get Started”; Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Ch. 29 | Communicating | Assignment 9 (due Tue, Dec 1) |
| 14 · Nov 24–26 | Thanksgiving Break — no class | — | — | |
| 15 · Dec 1–3 | Introduction to machine learning; data and AI ethics | “Getting Started,” scikit-learn documentation; Gebru et al. (2021), “Datasheets for Datasets” | Intro to ML · Ethics | Assignment 10 (due Wed, Dec 9) |
| 16 · Dec 8 | Course wrap-up | Last regular class meeting Tuesday, December 8 | — | — |
| Finals · Dec 15 | Exam 2 submission and final exam presentations | In-person, Tuesday, December 15, 8:00am–10:30am, Rees-Jones 216 | — | Exam 2 notebook due at start of session |