About the Short Course
The UC Berkeley Data Science Initiative plans to offer a week-long short course designed to familiarize UCB instructors with the approach, pedagogy, and contents of CS/INFO/STAT C8 - Foundations of Data Science (http://data8.org) and support them in developing courses that connect with or build upon that foundation. The Foundations course is already serving 1,000 students per year and is augmented by a dozen "connector courses" which can be taken concurrently, plus a growing set of "extender courses" which build upon it (http://data.berkeley.edu). It introduces computational and statistical concepts in a completely integrated manner through hands-on analysis of real-world data, with the many subtleties that presents. It fulfills the statistics requirement for 90% of the majors that have one, while providing strong insight into the computational aspects of sound inference. Students learn computing and programming in a cloud-based python environment designed for data analytics.
How to Apply
There are no prerequisites for the students in C8 nor for the participants in the short course.
For more information and to convey your interest in participating in this short course, please see the form at http://tinyurl.com/ds-shortcourse2016 and submit it by Friday May 13.
Course Format
This short-course is designed to help instructors who are planning to offer connectors, extenders, data science modules in existing courses, or just want to understand what they can expect students to know coming out of the new data science program. It will be taught by Prof. Ani Adhikari, Distinguished Teaching Award recipient from Berkeley and Stanford, inaugural data8 instructor, and UC BerkeleyX Stat2.x creator.
Morning sessions will be workshops in lecture/ discussion format. Afternoon sessions will be hands-on labs in which participants will explore the computing environment, do some of the work that the students do, and try out their own ideas. The course is open to all faculty, lecturers, and postdocs. We are considering three options in holding the course, so please indicate your availability in the form.
The Data Science Initiative is able to provide a range of financial, technical, pedagogical, logistical, communications, and community-building support to instructors in developing the program.