General Definitions

Question 1

Define data science

Answer 1

Gathering and manipulating data
“translating” data into presentable forms
Extracting insights from data

Question 2

Define data

Answer 2

quantifiable
Raw information prior to analysis
large collections/sets of strings, ints, floats, etc.

Question 3

What do data scientists do?

Answer 3

case studies
deduce meaning from data
predictions, recommendations

Question 4

Define unstructured data

Answer 4

Requires preprocessing prior to interpretation.

Otherwise not directly conducive to analysis

Question 5

Define structured data

Answer 5

tabular data
(the focus of this class)

Question 6

Define big data

Answer 6

high-dimensional data

(excessively) large amounts of data

Question 7

What are some challenges with big data

Answer 7

Sheer scale - time
difficulty in visualization
can be noisy, untrustworthy, or otherwise problematic.

Question 8

Define little data

Answer 8

low-dimensional data

small number of datapoints

Question 9

What are some challenges with little data

Answer 9

May identify spurious patterns or trends

insufficient size for reliable machine learning/analysis

Question 10

Define numerical data

Answer 10

Data represented by numbers

Question 11

Define categorical data

Answer 11

Data represented by categories