DATA 501 Project
Dr. Ramon Lawrence

Project Description

The goal of the project is to practice the skills and apply the software tools covered in the course on a practical analysis problem. Ideally, the project involves a real-world data set and an investigation that is interesting to your research. There is no restriction on the type of project as long as it involves data analytics and uses several of the software tools and techniques in the course.

Project Deadlines

The project is out of 100 marks and is worth 10% of your final grade. The project has three deadlines: project proposal (10 marks), project checkpoint (20 marks), and final demonstration and project (70 marks).

Deadline #1: Project Proposal - Due Friday, February 9th

• Marking: worth 10 marks
• Deliverables:
  • 3 to 5 page description of the project including data sets and tools used. You should try to use at least 3 different tools (Excel, R, databases, Python, etc.)
  • Samples: Chemistry proposal

Deadline #2: Project Checkpoint - Due Friday, March 16th

• Marking: worth 20 marks
• Deliverables:
  • Expand the project proposal to include current progress and initial results.
  • Project should be about 50% complete.
  • 10 marks are for the document and 10 marks are for progress

Deadline #3: Final Project and Demonstration - Due Tuesday, April 10th

• Marking: worth 70 marks (10 marks for presentation, 60 marks for document and results)
• Deliverables:
  • Presentations on Thursday, March 30th. Presentations should be about 10 minutes long plus 2-3 minutes for questions.
  • Expand the project proposal to include all results and discussion. Project Evaluation criteria
  • A zip file containing your project proposal document, your project checkpoint document, your final project document and presentation, and all source code and data sets.
  • Samples: Environment Science final report, Engineering final report, Biochemistry final report

Best Prior Year Projects

• 2017 - Assessing the Impact of Smoke-Exposure on Wine Grapes: Applying Data Reduction and Data Management Tools (chemistry) - Proposal, Final report, Presentation