Assignments
Come here for a quick glimpse of where we are in the assignment schedule for W201. Each vertical line in Figure 5 represents the end of the weekend, while the red line is today’s date. The horizontal bars show you the periods during which we expect to you be working on particular assignments. Count the number of vertical lines crossing each bar to learn how many weekends you have left to finish an assignment.
Figure 5: Live Assignment Schedule
Skills
The assignments outlined below are designed to give you practice in honing your performance, composition, and reviewing skills. Performance assignments train your live presentation skills, your use of exhibits and visual aids, and your ability to work collaboratively in teams. Composition assignments train your ability to express yourself effectively in writing. Review assignments train your ability to contribute effectively to the work of others and to elicit and incorporate feedback from collaborators into your own work.
Full descriptions and assignments prompts are displayed on the appropriate week’s assignments page. Figure 6 illustrates when checkpoints are due, and each box is a link that will let you navigate directly to the checkpoint prompt. To give a pace to the semester, the assignments are grouped into three seasons that are each four weeks long. The spring and summer seasons are each focused on the development of an individual portfolio design, or Big Idea, while the fall season is devoted to completing the final group project.
Figure 6: Assignments
Group 1
Perform: Capstone Critique
What are the ingredients to data science quality? It is often easier to answer this question through a critique of existing work than to come up with a list off the top of our heads. This assignment asks you to look at MIDS Capstone Projects from the past several semesters to learn from the efforts of recent MIDS graduates. You will apply your own critical eye toward what you think works and does not work about their data science concepts and their presentation styles.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 50% | 01/15/2018 | |
| 3 | 100% | 10 | 01/22/2018 |
Individual 1
Compose: Big Idea 1
How should you develop and explain a data science idea? It is as simple, and as difficult, as writing it down. Give your idea a beginning, a middle, and an end. Introduce a problem and whose problem it is. Propose a solution. Describe the difference it makes. A beginning, a middle, and an end. A problem, a solution, and a difference. It’s a structure that is easy to learn but hard to master. So sit down and write, and try to pour your creativity into that simple mold.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 25% | 01/15/2018 | |
| 3 | 50% | 01/22/2018 | |
| 4 | 75% | 01/29/2018 | |
| 5 | 100% | 10 | 02/05/2018 |
Participation 1
Review: Peer Review 1
Workshop in small groups by reading and reviewing the work of a close circle of peers. Using the collaboration functions available through GitHub.com, provide feedback about what they should keep, cut, rearrange, or add to strengthen the composition.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 33% | 3 | 01/29/2018 |
| 5 | 66% | 3 | 02/05/2018 |
| 6 | 100% | 4 | 02/12/2018 |
Group 2
Perform: Facebook Critique
Is the “Facebook Experiment” lousy science? Galen Panger thinks so, and he had the gall to make some bad publicity for Facebook. Now their credibility is on the line with other principles and stakeholders who each have different views, which may be sympathetic, indifferent, or hostile to Panger’s argument. How do the interests at stake for each actor affect what they feel they know about the Facebook Experiment? How does the science relate to what people say about the science?
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 50% | 02/12/2018 | |
| 7 | 100% | 10 | 02/19/2018 |
Individual 2
Compose: Big Idea 2
So you were in love with your first idea? Don’t be too sad to turn away, because it was just one draw from your creative urn. Move forward, don’t look back, and focus on the how of quickly creating a concept from start to finish. As did your first, your second proposal should encapsulate the fundamental elements of problem, solution, and the difference it makes. Call it a seed that you can easily plant in the minds of an audience, and if they are interested they will help you to make it grow. If they don’t like a concept, no big loss, because you can reimagine it or move on to the next big idea.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 25% | 02/12/2018 | |
| 7 | 50% | 02/19/2018 | |
| 8 | 75% | 02/26/2018 | |
| 9 | 100% | 10 | 03/05/2018 |
Participation 2
Review: Peer Review 2
Welcome to another round of peer review. What should your interlocutors keep, cut, rearrange, or add to strengthen their compositions? Reflect on what you thought was (and wasn’t) helpful about the feedback you gave and received last time. Aim to be more incisive and helpful this round.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 33% | 3 | 02/26/2018 |
| 9 | 66% | 3 | 03/05/2018 |
| 10 | 100% | 4 | 03/12/2018 |
Individual 3
Compose: Portfolio Cover Page
Time to tie a ribbon around your portfolio by sprucing up your landing page. Record a video to put a face on your work. Write tight abstracts to provide a menu of your ideas for readers to peruse. Fill in any remaining boilerplate. Make it your own!
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 100% | 10 | 03/12/2018 |
Group 3
Perform: Documentary Critique
You will choose an expository documentary film or television show that attempts to provide a theoretically and factually correct description or explanation of a posited phenomenon. You will analyze the storytelling structure of the film as well as the validity of selected claims made during the film. Try to learn from the strategy and tactics used by the filmmaker, while paying attention to the risks to accuracy and truthfulness inherent in storytelling techniques.
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 100% | 10 | 03/19/2018 |
Final
Compose: Design
Your client is proposing a data science investment at next month’s board meeting, and she directs your data science team to prepare a design memo and presentation to persuade the board to greenlight the concept. Time to stretch it out, munch on some user stories, and scrum your way to the finish line!
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | 33% | 04/02/2018 | |
| 13 | 66% | 04/09/2018 | |
| 14 | 100% | 10 | 04/16/2018 |
Final
Perform: Presentation
Your client is proposing a data science investment at next month’s board meeting, and she directs your data science team to prepare a design memo and presentation to persuade the board to greenlight the concept. Time to stretch it out, munch on some user stories, and scrum your way to the finish line!
| Week | Checkpoint | Value | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | 50% | 04/09/2018 | |
| 14 | 100% | 10 | 04/16/2018 |