ADV 200

Credit: 3 hours.

No matter what your major, or the job you plan to get, becoming fluent at working with data is a sought-after skill. Through lectures and guided workshops, this course provides hands-on- training on fundamentals of data exploration (asking the right questions), data gathering and data analysis (understanding and describing the situation) as well as communicating with data (telling a compelling story through data visualizations). Students learn how to find datasets in online archives and repositories, and are introduced to the commonly used software packages and techniques (spreadsheets, text analytics, social computing). We also focus on critical issues such as data ethics and privacy. We also learn basic computer programming aimed at data analysis. No prior knowledge of research methods, statistics or programming is required.