Abstract

We provide a computational exercise suitable for early introduction in an undergraduate statistics or data science course that allows students to “play the whole game” of data science: performing both data collection and data analysis. While many teaching resources exist for data analysis, such resources are not as abundant for data collection given the inherent difficulty of the task. Our proposed exercise centers around student use of Google Calendar to collect data with the goal of answering the question “How do I spend my time?” On the one hand, the exercise involves answering a question with near universal appeal, but on the other hand, the data collection mechanism is not beyond the reach of a typical undergraduate student. A further benefit of the exercise is that it provides an opportunity for discussions on ethical questions and considerations that data providers and data analysts face in today’s age of large-scale internet-based data collection.

摘要

我们提供适合于本科统计或数据科学课程的早期介绍的计算练习，使学生可以“玩整个数据科学”游戏：执行数据收集和数据分析。尽管存在许多用于数据分析的教学资源，但鉴于任务的固有难度，此类资源对于数据收集而言并不那么丰富。我们建议的练习集中在学生使用Google日历来收集数据上，目的是回答“我如何度过时间？”这一问题。一方面，练习涉及以几乎普遍的吸引力回答问题，但另一方面，数据收集机制并不是典型的本科生无法达到的。