CS 234 - Fall 2017

Projects in CS 234

Overview: There will be three projects in CS 234 (Fall 2017). The first two projects are group projects, the third one is individual. You should consider the two first projects as "learning projects" in which you explore techniques and practice getting better at all the steps of the data science cycle, by working together with your peers. Doing well in these two projects indicates to yourself, your peers, and me that you are taking your learning seriously and are always looking for opportunities to grow. To encourage experimentation, there will be no grades for the two group projects, but only qualitative feedback about how close your end product is to the standards we see in the research papers we'll be looking at. One good example was the paper we read, "Wikipedians are born, not made". Always keep in mind the data science cycle and make sure that you are learning skills that will help you in its different steps. Then, in the individual project, you can showcase all your skills and knowledge and use that as your argument for how much you learned in the class, based on what you can accomplish.

Project 1 - Wikipedia Edits: In this project we will study knowledge production and bias in Wikipedia by analyzing edits in its articles and the editors who do them.

Project 2 - Google Searches: In this project we will study Google searches in two ways: the searches that users do (by analyzing the Chrome history events) and the ones that Google suggests (by automatically capturing and analyzing its search result pages).

Project 3 - Digital Natives: In this project you will identify a source (or more) of data (start thinking right away) that will allow us to study the generation (your generation) that is called "digital natives", because it grew up with technology. The data has to be "traces", that is content or interactions that are captured automatically by devices. These can be your own traces (for example, all your emails, your browsing history, all your text messages, your instagram interactions, Facebook history, online games, etc.), or you can collect the traces of your friends, in order to make broader statements. Ambitious projects will try to collect multiple sources of traces to paint a more nuanced picture of how the digital natives use technology across different platforms and how much technology is part of their daily lives.

Expectations: In all projects, I expect you to put your best efforts, be engaged, take the initiative, and pursue your own questions within the context of the project theme. I'll always be a resource where you can come to bounce off ideas and discuss their feasibility. These projects are designed so that you take ownership of your own learning, follow your own curiosity, and understand how the data science process works and how to apply it to answer questions about the world.