The module will provide a foundation in data science principles and techniques. Topics covered may include:
- The role of code in data exploration and analysis
- Loading, selecting and visualising data sets from different sources
- Basic programming for data analysis
- Data structures including arrays and data frames
- Principles of inference using simulation and resampling
- Straight line relationships with correlation and regression
- Numerical optimisation
- Regression for prediction and inference
- Bootstrap methods
- Machine learning methods for prediction
Finally, you will complete an independent group data analysis project in which you find, load, clean, explore and analyse a data set of your choice, using inference or prediction methods as necessary. This will be the primary basis of the course assessment.