Computing Competencies for Undergraduate Data Science Programs: an ACM Task Force Final Report

John DeNero Michael I. Jordan A. Adhikari

13 Februari 2021

The undergraduate data science curriculum at the University of California, Berkeley is anchored in five new courses that emphasize computational thinking, inferential thinking, and working on real-world problems. We believe that interleaving these elements within our core courses is essential to preparing students to engage in data-driven inquiry at the scale that contemporary scientific and industrial applications demand. This new curriculum is already reshaping the undergraduate experience at Berkeley, where these courses have become some of the most popular on campus and have led to a surging interest in a new undergraduate major and minor program in data science.

Genevera I. Allen

3 Maret 2021

Interest in data science education and degree programs has rapidly expanded over the past several years. An integral part of many degree programs is a capstone experience, where students complete a major research or real-world project at the culmination of their educational program. In engineering and computer science, many have shown that client-sponsored projects lead to better student engagement and improved training. In this paper, we discuss experiences with developing an interdisciplinary, client-sponsored capstone program in data science and machine learning. We show how we set up the capstone program, including how the program is structured, how projects are set up, how the course is managed, how students are assessed, and outline the newly developed capstone curriculum. Finally, we report results from a cohort of students participating in this capstone program and discuss lessons learned as well as best practices when developing data science capstone programs.

Allison S. Theobold

29 Juni 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the flaws of traditional grading systems to become even more apparent. In response, a growing number of educators are transitioning their classrooms to focus on alternative methods of assessment. These subversive methods promote more equitable assessments, as they provide a more accurate picture of what a student has learned, cultivate students' intrinsic motivation, and do not privilege students from certain backgrounds. This article details how alternative grading, specifically "ungrading," was integrated into an introductory data science course. I detail how the course components align with the principles of alternative grading, students' responses to the course structure, and the lessons I learned along the way. Finally, I close with a discussion of how infusing alternative methods of assessment into the classroom stands to cultivate the diversity continually lacking in computer science and data science.

B. Bishop Chirag Shah I. Song + 10 lainnya

30 Juli 2022

Many disciplines, including the broad Field of Information (iField), offer Data Science (DS) programs. There have been significant efforts exploring an individual discipline's identity and unique contributions to the broader DS education landscape. To advance DS education in the iField, the iSchool Data Science Curriculum Committee (iDSCC) was formed and charged with building and recommending a DS education framework for iSchools. This paper reports on the research process and findings of a series of studies to address important questions: What is the iField identity in the multidisciplinary DS education landscape? What is the status of DS education in iField schools? What knowledge and skills should be included in the core curriculum for iField DS education? What are the jobs available for DS graduates from the iField? What are the differences between graduate‐level and undergraduate‐level DS education? Answers to these questions will not only distinguish an iField approach to DS education but also define critical components of DS curriculum. The results will inform individual DS programs in the iField to develop curriculum to support undergraduate and graduate DS education in their local context.

Azlan B. Ismail Sofianita Mutalib H. Haron

24 Januari 2023

This article discusses the key elements of the Data Science Technology course offered to postgraduate students enrolled in the Master of Data Science program. This course complements the existing curriculum by providing the skills to handle the Big Data platform and tools, in addition to data science activities. We tackle the discussion about this course based on three main requirements, which are related to the need to exploit the key skills from two dimensions, namely, Data Science and Big Data, and the need for a cluster-based computing platform and its accessibility. We address these requirements by presenting the course design and its assessments, the configuration of the computing platform, and the strategy to enable flexible accessibility. In terms of course design, the offered course contributes to several innovative elements and has covered multiple key areas of the data science body of knowledge and multiple quadrants of the job and skills matrix. In the case of the computing platform, a stable deployment of a Hadoop cluster with flexible accessibility, triggered by the pandemic situation, has been established. Furthermore, through our experience with the implementation of the cluster, it has shown the ability of the cluster to handle computing problems with a larger dataset than the one used for the semesters within the scope of the study. We also provide some reflections and highlight future improvements.