Department of Computer Science
The University of Western Ontario
London, Canada
The goal of data analytics is to gain knowledge and communicate conclusions drawn from data. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject using modern computing systems, with equal attention to fundamentals and practical aspects. Topics include sources of data, data formats and transformation, the use of spreadsheets and databases and their programming, statistical analysis, pattern recognition, data mining, big data, and methods for data presentation and visualization. The course is organized as 2 hours of classroom instruction and 2 hours of practical lab per week. Lab problems will include examples from business and finance, geographic information systems, health data analysis and other areas.
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| Name: | Stephen Watt |
| Office: | MC 375 |
| Office Hours: | Tuesdays 11:35-12:20, Thursdays 10:35-11:20 (other times by appointment) in MC 375 |
| Phone: | 519-661-4244 |
| E-Mail: | Stephen.Watt@uwo.ca |
Readings: Readings will be assigned during the course.
Recommended text: Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA, by John Walkenbach. Wiley 2013. ISBN 978-1118490396. Amazon print and kindle editions.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~watt/cs2034
Topics covered in the course tentatively include:
Two hours of lectures per week.
Two hours of tutorial laboratories per week. Commence on third week of classes (i.e. January 19).
Consulting hours will be posted on the course web site.
If students are given accounts on departmental machines, the following will apply:
Each student will be given an account on the Computer Science Department undergraduate computing facility. In accepting the account, a student agrees to abide by the department's Rules of Ethical Conduct.
To be eligible to obtain a passing mark in the course, the weighted average of the midterm and final exam marks must be at least 50 % and the weighted average of the assignment marks must be at least 45 %.
To be eligible to achieve a final mark of 60% or higher in the course (i.e. to be eligible for Honours Programs), the final exam mark must be at least 50% and the weighted average of the assignment marks must be at least 50 %.
If for any reason an assignment is cancelled for the class, then the grades for the remaining assignments will be re-weighted so they still give 15% of the final grade.
The tentative date for the Midterm Exam is 24 February 2015, in class. No electronic devices will be allowed in the Midterm Exam. Students are allowed to bring one single-sided letter-size original hand-written page of notes.
The Final Exam will be as scheduled by the registrar's office during the April exam period. No electronic devices will be allowed in the Final Exam. Students are allowed to bring one single-sided letter-size original hand-written page of notes.
There will be no makeup Midterm Exam, except for students requesting a Special Midterm Exam for religious reasons. These students must have notified the course instructor and filed documentation with their Dean's office at least 2 weeks prior to the Midterm Exam. If you miss the Midterm Exam for any other valid reason, follow the procedure for Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness as given below. If accommodation is approved by your Dean's office, your Final Exam mark will be re-weighted to include the weight of the Midterm Exam.
| Assignment | Assigned | Due | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 January | 2 February | 3% |
| 2 | 3 February | 23 February | 4% |
| 3 | 24 February | 9 March | 4% |
| 4 | 10 March | 23 March | 4% |
Assignments are to be submitted electronically, as described at the time the assignment is given. This will include completing an Assignment Submission Form, which requires a student to declare the assignment to be his or her own work and affix his or her signature.
An assignment loses 5% of its total possible value for each day late. Weekend days count as one day each. Assignments more than 5 days late will not be accepted.
Each student begins the course with 5 virtual "late coupons". Each of these may be used to eliminate one day's late penalty, no questions asked. The assignment still be handed in within the allowable window, however (i.e. not more than 5 days late). Late coupons are non-transferable, can only be used to reduce late penalties, and may not be carried over to other courses.
Extensions may be granted only by the course instructor. If you have serious medical or compassionate grounds for an extension, you should follow the procedure for Academic Accommodation for Medical Illness as given above.
You may contact the course instructor via e-mail with brief questions regarding course material or clarification of assignments. However, please first check the course website for answers to frequently asked questions, or to see if the information is already there, before e-mailing the instructor. You must include "CS2034" in the subject line (otherwise it might get filtered as spam). Please send E-mail from your UWO account and send E-mail in plain text format.
We will occasionally need to send email messages to the whole class, or to students individually. Email will be sent to the UWO email address assigned to students by Information Technology Services (ITS), i.e. your email address @uwo.ca. It is each student's responsibility to read this email on a frequent and regular basis, or to have it forwarded to an alternative email address if preferred. See the ITS website for directions on forwarding email.
You should note that email at ITS (your UWO account) and other email providers such as hotmail.com or yahoo.com may have quotas or limits on the amount of space they can use. If you let your email accumulate there, your mailbox may fill up and you may lose important email from your instructors. Losing email that you have forwarded to an alternative email address is not an excuse for not knowing about the information that was sent.
Any electronic devices students wish may be used for assignments. No electronic devices are allowed during the mid-term or final exam.
Clickers will not be used in this course.
The Web sites for Registrarial Services http://www.registrar.uwo.ca, the Student Support Services provided by the USC listed here http://westernusc.ca/services, and the Student Development Services http://www.sdc.uwo.ca are provided for easy access.
Students who are in emotional/mental distress should refer to Mental Health@Western http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth for a complete list of options about how to obtain help.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 661-2111 x 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.
If you are unable to meet a course requirement due to illness or other serious circumstances, you must provide valid medical or other supporting documentation to your Dean's office as soon as possible and contact your instructor immediately. It is the student's responsibility to make alternative arrangements with their instructor once the accommodation has been approved and the instructor has been informed. In the event of a missed final exam, a "Recommendation of Special Examination" form must be obtained from the Dean's Office immediately. For further information please see: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/medical.pdf.
A student requiring academic accommodation due to illness should use the Student Medical Certificate when visiting an off-campus medical facility or request a Record's Release Form (located in the Dean's Office) for visits to Student Health Services. The form can be found here: https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/medical_document.pdf.
Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/scholoff.pdf.
Computer-marked multiple-choice tests and/or exams may be subject to submission for similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns that may indicate cheating.
Students must write their essays and assignments in their own words. Whenever students take an idea, or a passage from another author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence.
All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the University for detection of plagiarism. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com (http://www.turnitin.com/).
All assignments are individual assignments. You may discuss approaches to problems among yourselves; however, the actual details of the work (assignment coding, answers to concept questions, etc.) must be an individual effort. With each assignment, you are required to sign and hand in an Assignment Submission Form, on which you certify that you understand the course policies concerning plagiarism and individual effort, and that the material you've submitted is exclusively your own work.
The standard departmental penalty for assignments that are judged to be the result of academic dishonesty is, for the student's first offence, a mark of zero for the assignment, with an additional penalty equal to the weight of the assignment also being applied. You are responsible for reading and respecting the Computer Science Department's policy on Scholastic Offences and Rules of Ethical Conduct.
The role of tutoring is to help students understand course material. Tutors should not write assignments or take-home tests for the students who hire them. Having employed the same tutor as another student is not a legitimate defense against an accusation of collusion, should two students hand in assignments judged similar beyond the possibility of coincidence.