FIT5213 - Advanced data analytics case study - 2018

This unit gives students the opportunity to work in teams in order to acquire hands on experience in advanced data analytics, develop new skills, and apply the knowledge and skills they have already gained in a practical setting.

Teams will be given real or simulated data sets pertaining to real-world problems, and will apply advanced data analytics techniques in order to develop models over the data and to derive from these meaningful insights. Teams will be self-managed and will perform work by use of standard collaboration tools.

Throughout this process students will need to communicate findings, knowledge and ideas effectively and professionally to a range of stakeholders. The stakeholders will include academics, peers, project-based stakeholders and industry experts. The students will use these communicated findings in order to direct and further their research throughout the process, as well as to divide work in ways that will allow each student to carry out research individually.

Students will be ranked both on the performance of their teams (the quality of the insights and the models, and the ability to visualise and communicate findings to stakeholders) and on their individual performance (professionalism, commitment and collegiality of joint work, quality of research undertaken).

Upon successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. critically analyse a business problem and translate it into a data science problem via interrogation of business stakeholders, with the purpose of ascertaining the underlying business realities and validity of the translation;
2. determine, in conjunction with business stakeholders, agreed methods of evaluation of solutions to-be-derived for the business problem, and critically assess them for their quality, practicality and difficulty of implementation;
3. critically evaluate available data for its sufficiency for the investigation of a given data science problem, and supplement it with external data where appropriate;
4. apply, in an industry standard setting, studied skills of data wrangling, data integration, imputation, model building, validation and optimisation, selecting the most appropriate tool for every situation, in order to derive a satisfactory solution to the business problem;
5. demonstrate discernment and judgement in effective two-way communication to all stakeholders/audiences, including for communicating the final problem solution, recommendations for its implementation, its projected impact on the business, and any insights derived as part of the project;
6. operate effectively as a member of a data analytics team, such as by effective intra-team communication, task assignment, progress communication and overall goal alignment.

In-semester assessment: 100%

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

• One weekly 1-hour meeting with academic and/or industry project stakeholders.
• One 3-hour workshop/meeting every week, including 3 meetings with relevant stakeholders for communication of (interim) findings and review.
• a minimum of 8 hours independent research per week, for completion of case study analysis work individually and together with other team members.

See also Unit timetable information

Data science

Data analytics