STAT 430: Topics in Applied Statistics is a topics course in the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois.
In the Spring 2019 term one session will be a new course Data Science Programming Methods offered by Dirk Eddelbuettel.
Statistics and Data Science are focused on making sense of data – and face an
ever-increasing demand for their work. Yet at the same time, data sets increase in size
and scope. Proper tooling is essential to meet these challenges, and as applied work in
data analysis is in effect applied computational work, we will learn the computational
tools and programming methods to meet these data science challenges. Proficiency at
the shell, familiarity with git version control, sufficient understanding of SQL, and
first and foremost actual expertise in R programming are the goals of this course to
prepare students for the coming computational challenges. We will use RStudio Cloud
instances so students are not required to install and maintain all required components.
Prior programming experience (in R or another language) will be helpful, but is not
a requirement for taking the course.
A 2018 report by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine stated:
Data science is emerging as a field that is revolutionizing science and industries alike. Work across nearly all domains is becoming more data driven, affecting both the jobs that are available and the skills that are required. As more data and ways of analyzing them become available, more aspects of the economy, society, and daily life will become dependent on data.
This courses introduces key concepts for computational literacy in a data science context:
This course may be both fast paced as we intend to cover a considerable amount of material, and a little rough at the edges as it is the first iteration of this course — and delivered online.