AIX008: Introduction to Data Science: Summer 2022

What is Data Science?

According to Jeannette Wing, Columbia University, Data Science is the study of extracting value from data. The four key words in this definition are "data", "value", "extracting", and "study”.

Data are varied: from numbers to text and images, structured and unstructured, complete or fragmented, small in size or very large ("big data"), where the context of size is context dependent. They are ubiquitous, however, and their availability is leading to a revolution in science and society. Collecting, and analyzing these data to gain "value" leads to many interesting challenges and opportunities that we briefly introduce in this chapter.

Today, data science in the form of machine learning and artificial intelligence is the source of a new revolution with opportunities in many domains. The demands for data scientists currently far exceed the supply.

Data science is a field of study on its own. As such, we must consider its theoretical foundations based on mathematics and scientific methods. We should also pay attention to its societal impact and study the ethical issues raised by data science.

Lecture Notes

Further Reading

• Computational Thinking, Jeannette Wing