This module provides an opportunity for you to undertake a data science project for an external “customer.” Customers will be drawn from around the University and also from commercial organisations. Projects will be large enough that you will need to work in teams. The module will therefore give you experience in eliciting the nature of the customer’s problem, working in teams to develop and present solutions, and iterating on the process in response to customer feedback. It will often require consideration of the legal and ethical context.

Pre-requisites: COM2013 Data Science Group Project 2; COM3021 Data Science At Scale

This module aims to give you experience of working on a problem defined by an external customer with a particular business or research need, but with little expertise in data science. It also aims to give you extensive experience of working in a team in a professional way, applying the knowledge and skills developed in other modules together with the research necessary to tackle the customer’s problem. You will have to interpret and negotiate customer requirements, to produce creative and imaginative solutions that meet these requirements, and to listen to and act on customer criticisms of your solutions.

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Module Specific Skills and Knowledge:

1 Capture requirements from an external “customer”;

2 Negotiate and manage expectations with an external “customer” and with other team members;

3 Acquire knowledge of how data is collected, stored and processed in a “customer” domain;

4 Apply practical and analytical skills to a “customer” domain, developing new skills as necessary;

Discipline Specific Skills and Knowledge:

5 Choose and use an appropriate research and development process;

6 Make an evaluation of scientific risk;

7 Work as a member of a research and development team, participating in self-evaluation and peer review;

Personal and Key Transferable / Employment Skills and Knowledge:

8 Understand and apply legal, social and ethical principles;

9 Develop a systematic understanding and knowledge of a new domain;

10 Tackle a significant technical problem.

Student teams will have weekly meetings with their supervisor.

Assessment of the final report will include an element of peer assessment, negotiated at the start of the project.

Re-assessment will be by resubmission of the final report only. For referred candidates, the mark will be capped at 50%. For deferred candidates the mark will be uncapped.

Basic Reading:

ELE: http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

Reading list for this module: