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CSE 591 -- Syllabus
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CSE 591 -- Data Science (Fall 2014)

Prof. Steven Skiena

http://www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/591

Date/Time/Place: Tuesday-Thursday, 10AM-11:20AM, 316 Frey Hall

Office Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 11:30-1PM and by appointment

Overview: Data Science is a rapidly emerging discipline at the intersection of statistics, machine learning, data visualization, and mathematical modeling.  This course is designed to provide a hands-on introduction to Data Science by challenging student groups to build predictive models for upcoming events, and validating their models against the actual outcomes.

Recommended Readings: The field of data science is still emerging, and we will not use a textbook for the semester. However, it will be useful to read and consult:

Projects: Each 3-4 person group will be assigned a single, distinct modeling challenge, drawn from the following set of representative topics:

Video: A unique feature of this course is that I will be running it as a ``TV reality show’’ in data science, resulting in a professionally-edited episode for each project, showing its evolution from an ill-defined problem through the development of a principled model and its evaluation.

Student teams will be given video cameras, and each team will be charged with producing rough-edited video segments of up to 20 minutes/group at five different  points in the course of the semester.  Students who are reluctant to appear in these videos, or working to film/edit them should not register for the course.  The final video episodes will be made available on YouTube and/or disseminated by other channels/media.

        

Grading: Grades will be assigned according to the following scale:

I will not grade you on whether your final predictions are correct.   Grades will be based on the general soundness of your modeling, visualization, and evaluation, your level of effort throughout the semester, and the quality and clarity of your oral, web, video, and written presentations.

Lectures: I will give about twenty formal lectures during the semester.  The other class periods will be devoted to project presentations and progress reports, three presentations per team.  All classes will be filmed by Echo360 and made available on Blackboard.

Rules of the Road

  1. Each team will be made up of four students.   One will be selected as leader, with primary responsibility for communicating with me and the video editor.   Another will be selected as primary videographer, responsible to seeing that all video segments are filmed, logging the start/end times of all promising segments, and editing down the video to the required volume.
  2. The course size is constrained by the room size to 33 students, so there will be eight teams.  The course size is limited by the legal capacity of the room and the number of projects which can be effectively run.
  3. I have set aside about a dozen seats to the course for additional registrants.   I will select which students I will accept based on the questionnaire given at the end of class.
  4. I am expecting a substantial amount of effort on the homework and projects.  Some of this work may prove mundane (such as data entry), but I will be expecting each group/student to do what they have to do to get the job done.
  5. Each team member will grade the performance other team members at the end of the semester, to make sure credit is awarded fairly among the group.
  6. I will make the final assignments of students to teams/projects starting the third week of classes.   You will work on the project I assign you, with the students I assign to it.  My decisions will be based on ensuring that each group have people with good presentation and technical skills available.
  7. All students will have to sign disclaimers granting permission to be filmed and permission for the video footage to be used and distributed without compensation or restriction.
  8. Some projects will not have their concluding events until the end of January or slightly beyond.   These groups will receive incompletes or face grade changed based on the final submissions.
  9. If the course goes well, I might try to turn the final reports into an edited volume of articles for publication.   The odds of this happening will wildly increase if there is an able/enthusiastic student to perform the editing duties after the semester, so let me know if you are interested.
  10. I have a strong desire for conformity in technologies across the projects.  Presentations will be given using Powerpoint.  Reports will be written using Latex with a particular style/format.   Web pages will be authored/organized with specified style/formats as well.
  11. Some of the projects may involve travel, buying data/computational resources, props, etc.  I will pay each group up to $100 for expenses (save receipts) and on rare occasions possibly more.   But you all should be willing to spring for some level of expenses if it will improve the quality of the project/experience. An extra $200 per group is only $50/head.
  12. Each student must pursue his or her academic goals honestly and be personally accountable for all submitted work. Representing another person's work as your own is always wrong. Any suspected instance of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Academic Judiciary. For more comprehensive information on academic integrity, including categories of academic dishonesty, please refer to the academic judiciary website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/uaa/academicjudiciary/
  13. If you have a physical, psychological, medical or learning disability that may impact on your ability to carry out assigned course work, I would urge that you to contact the staff in the Disabled Student Services office (DSS), ECC Building, 632-6748/TDD.  DSS will review your concerns and determine, with you, what accommodations are necessary and appropriate.  All information and documentation of disability is confidential.
  14. Many grad students experience enormous pressure – professional, personal and financial. If you or anyone you know is feeling anxious or just needs to talk, help is available.  1-800-GRAD-HLP is a national crisis-line staffed by trained counselors who understand your unique pressures and know how to help.  Use it anytime, 24-7.  Your life matters. For more information, see http://gradresources.org/crisisline/