Syllabus

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• Course Materials
• Course Objectives
• Grading & Attendance
  • Course Components & Points
  • Final Grades
  • Grades
  • Regrade Policy
  • Lecture Attendance
  • Section Attendance
• Course Assignments & Topics
  • Readings & Quizzes
  • Assignments
  • Final Project
  • Exam
• Other Good Stuff
  • Teamwork Expectations
  • Class/Web Conduct
  • Academic Integrity
  • Disability Access
  • Difficult Life Situations
  • Questions & Feedback

Course Materials

• There is no textbook
• All course materials are provided through this website
• ClassQuestion will be used for iecture polling and attedance
• Piazza will be used for general Q&A
• Gradescope will be used for assignment/project submissions and taking quizzes/exams

Course Objectives

• Comprehend core data science concepts and examine their applications
• Discuss data privacy and ethical concerns with real-world examples
• Identify data science questions and the appropriate analytic approach to answering those questions
• Communicate data-related topics and projects
• Demonstrate how to think critically about data, and how to approach problems with a “data-first” mindset
• Describe potential pitfalls of data analyses, how to identify them, and how to avoid them

Grading & Attendance

Course Components & Points

Final Grades

Your letter grade will be determined using the following grading scale:

Given the amount of extra credit offered throughout the quarter, grades are not rounded up.

Grades

Grades are released on Gradescope a week after the submission date and sometimes sooner. Ultimately it is your responsibility to check your final grade and get in touch if you believe there is a problem.

Regrade Policy

The regrade policy is here to protect students from serious issues in grading, not to provide students with a platform to argue about, or plead for an extra point. In our experience less than 3% of the time a regrade results in a change. When we regrade, we closely go through the entire assignment again and reevaluate it as a whole. This means your grade can either stay the same, go up, or go down. This is not to discourage students from requesting legitimate regrades, but to discourage students from arguing about 1 point (which is worth 0.05% of your grade). These discussions require a serious investment of time. We want to spend that time on regrades where a serious issue has occurred or with helping students learn the material outside of class.

If you think a grading error has occurred please follow these steps:

• You have 72 hours to request a regrade
• Initiate the regrade through Gradescope (if it is a group project, confer w/ your team first and submit one regrade after your team comes to a consensus)
• Provide evidence for why your answer is correct and merits a regrade (i.e. a specific reference to something said in a lecture, the readings, or office hours)
• We will get back to you within 48 hours after regrades close with our final decision.

Lecture Attendance

Our goal is to make lectures and office hours worthwhile to attend (e.g. we do in-class exercises). However, lecture attendance is not required. All lectures will be recorded. These will be made available to you (UCSD podcast).

That said, we have found that students who come to lecture and are engaged fully learn the most (which is our goal!). We also know that students have a lot on their plate (which is why we don’t require attendance). To this end, we will incentivize lecture attendance. Students who attend 75% of all lectures throughout the quarter will have their lowest assignment score replaced with full credit. Attendance will be tracked through student responses using the ClassQuestion app. To earn credit for a given class day, you must respond to at least 50% of the day’s questions. (Correctness does not matter.)

Section Attendance

Section attendance is not mandatory, however, if you attend section the week a reading quiz is due, your attendance will earn you full credit for that week’s reading quiz. You must fill out the Google Form attendance form in discussion section to earn this credit. We encourage you to also take the corresponding quiz to test your understanding; however, taking the quiz is not required if you attend section. Further, groups will be created within sections (usually week 2), so it is helpful to attend discussion section that week. Readings will be discussed and lecture material will be reviewed in section, so it is to your benefit to go, participate, and ask questions.

Course Assignments & Topics

This class is a survey course intended to get you all excited about becoming data scientists! Data are everywhere and they’re being used in tried-and-true, new, and creative ways. This course will introduce you to the broad topics in data science, discuss what it means to be a data scientist, and get you on your way to thinking like a data scientist.

Readings & Quizzes

Quizzes cover the reading material assigned, e.g. Quiz 1 only covers material from reading 1 (R1).

• Five multiple choice (10 questions) quizzes
• Available for 48 hours
• You have 1 hour to finish
• One attempt
• Open notes, but you must work alone.
• Taken and submitted through Gradescope

Your lowest quiz score will be dropped when calculating your final grade. Late reading quizzes will be accepted up to 48 hours; however, they will receive ½ credit.

Assignments

Assignments will focus on applying the concepts covered in lectures and readings.

• Three individual assignments submitted through Gradescope
• Use the Google Doc template link (found on this website under assignments), make a copy of the template. You do not have edit access to the version that is linked, only the ability to copy it.
• One PDF submission per student (ensure your name and PID are on the PDF)
• You may resubmit as many times as you like before the deadline.
• Late assignments have 5 points deducted within the first 24 hours, and an additional 5 points during the following 24 hours.
• No late assignments accepted after 48 hours.

Final Project

The final project is a two-part report on how you would handle a complicated data science project. It’s a culmination of what you learned from the assignments and lectures.

• One report submitted through Gradescope per group
• One PDF submission per group (ensure all your names and PIDs are on the PDF)
• Your team may resubmit as many times as you like before the deadline
• Late submissions:
  • Late assignments have 5 points deducted within the first 24 hours, and an additional 5 points during the following 24 hours.
  • No late assignments accepted after 48 hours.

Your final will include your data science question as well as all the nitty gritty, whys, and hows of the data science project you have chosen. You’ll write about your data science question, find some example data, summarize the data, explain how you would wrangle the data to answer your data science question, and describe the types of analysis you would carry out to answer your question of interest. You WILL NOT have to actually perform the analysis to answer the question, nor wrangle data, you only write about how you would perform the analysis and what you expect the outcomes will be.

To reiterate, your team will make a copy of my Google document template and work on that copy together. Make sure to read all the instructions. Your team may resubmit as many times as you want up until the submission deadline. You will receive feedback along with a grade typically within a week for part 1. Feedback from us should be incorporated into part 2 of the final.

Exam

The final exam is comprehensive and will cover the lectures (and possibly guest lectures). An exam review session will be held during discussion section week 10.

• One multiple-choice exam
• Available for 72 hours on Gradescope
• You have 2 continuous hours to finish once started
• One attempt
• Open notes and open Google/ChatGPT/etc., but you must work alone
• Taken and submitted through Gradescope

No late exams are permitted, except for extenuating circumstances. Please reach out to staff as early as possible if you know something will prevent you from taking the exam on time.

Other Good Stuff

Teamwork Expectations

Your team will be working on the final together. We expect all students to, more or less, be equal contributors to the final project. No one person should be doing an entire project; they are meant to be collaborative and give you experience working with people you probably do not know. One successful approach is to first agree on a communication tool/protocol and a schedule. Next, discuss each person’s strengths and divide up responsibilities. Develop a schedule for completing tasks, who is responsible, and a backup person in case an emergency occurs. Finally, check in regularly to ensure progress is being made and leave some time to check and proofread each other’s work.

Dealing with non-cooperative team members – If an issue occurs, first try to work the issue out within your group. Save all documentation, emails, and chats as a record in case you need to contact the course staff later on. If no resolution can be made or the problem resurfaces, you should then contact course staff. We reserve the right to move the student to a new group or grade that student separately from the group, or take any other action to resolve the issue.

Group work is never easy – Teamwork, while difficult, is one of the most important skills you should learn and practice during college. To succeed, communication is critical. You need to be in contact with your group regularly. This will help you keep on top of deliverables and make adjustments if problems should arise. We are always here to help and make use of our experience working on real engineering/science projects.

Class/Web Conduct

In all interactions in this class, you are expected to be respectful. This includes following the UC San Diego principles of the community.

This class will be a welcoming, inclusive, and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), political beliefs/leanings, or technology choices.

At all times, you should be considerate and respectful. Always refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech. Last of all, take care of each other.

If you have a concern, please speak with Prof Ellis or your TAs. If you are uncomfortable doing so, that’s ok! The OPHD (Office for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination) and CARE (confidential advocacy and education office for sexual violence and gender-based violence) are wonderful resources on campus.

Academic Integrity

Don’t cheat.

You are encouraged to (and at times will have to) work together and help one another. However, you are personally responsible for the work you submit (quizzes/assignments/exams). For projects, it is your responsibility to ensure you understand everything your group has submitted and to make sure the correct file has been uploaded, that the upload is uncorrupted, and that it renders correctly. Projects may include ideas from other sources, but these other sources must be documented with clear attribution. Please review academic integrity policies here.

We anticipate you all doing well in this course; however, if you are feeling lost or overwhelmed, that’s ok! Should that occur, we recommend: (i.) asking questions in/after class, (ii.) attending office hours, and/or (iii.) reaching out to course staff.

Cheating and plagiarism have been and will be strongly penalized. If, for whatever reason, this website or Gradescope is down, or something else prohibits you from being able to turn in an assignment on time, immediately contact course staff via email (attach your assignment/quiz/exam answers) or else it will be graded as late.

Disability Access

Students requesting accommodations due to a disability must provide a current Authorization for Accommodation (AFA) letter. These letters are issued by the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), which is located in University Center 202 behind Center Hall. These will be sent to the instructor once submitted, and you will receive a response confirming receipt and discussing the accomodations as necessary. However, if you are struggling to get necessary accommodations or want to further discuss your accommodations, please feel free to reach out directly.

Contacting the OSD can help you further: 858.534.4382 (phone) osd@ucsd.edu (email) http://disabilities.ucsd.edu

Difficult Life Situations

Sometimes life outside of academia can be difficult. Please email me or come to office hours if stuff outside the classroom prevents you from doing well inside it. I can often refer you on to the help you need.

If you don’t have the most essential resources required to thrive as a student, please contact UCSD Basic Needs who can help you access nutritious food and stable housing, and help you seek the means to reach financial wellness.

If you need emergency food, finances, and/or academic and social support you can also contact UCSD Mutual Aid. They provide mentoring and aid that comes from volunteers among your peers. If you don’t need that kind of support, consider joining them in helping your fellow classmates who do.

If you need counseling or if you are in a mental crisis you can contact CAPS. They provide psychiatric services, workshops, and counseling; they also operate a 24/7 crisis hotline at 858.534.3755.

Questions & Feedback

How to Get Your Question(s) Answered and/or Provide Feedback It’s great that we have many ways to communicate, but it can get tricky to figure out who to contact or where your question belongs, or when to expect a response. These guidelines are to help you get your question answered as quickly as possible and to ensure that we’re able to get to everyone’s questions.

That said, to ensure that we’re respecting their time, TAs and IAs have been instructed they’re only obligated to answer questions between normal working hours (M-F 9am-5pm). However, I know that’s not when you may be doing your work. So, please feel free to reach out whenever is best for you while knowing that, you may not get a response until the next day. As such, do your best not to wait until the last minute to ask a question. If there is an emergency and you need to contact staff immediately, email Prof Ellis and put “EMERGENCY-COGS9” in the subject line. I will get back to you ASAP.

If you have…

• questions about course content - these are awesome! We want everyone to see them and have their questions answered, please post questions on Piazza or ask during class/office hours.
• questions about course logistics - first, check the syllabus. If the answer is not there, ask in Section, ask a classmate, or ask during class/office hours.
• something super cool to share related to class - feel free message on Piazza, email Prof Ellis sellis@ucsd.edu), or come to office hours. Be sure to include COGS 9 in the email subject line and your full name in your message.
• something you want to talk about in-depth - meet in person/digitally during office hours or schedule a time to meet 1:1 by email. Be sure to include COGS 9 in the email subject line. Or it may be missed. sellis@ucsd.edu.