Second post (due Friday 3/4)
Second post (due Friday 3/4)¶
Your second post should describe the initial directions your team has explored.
The aim should be to convey to the reader a specific project goal motivated by findings in exploratory data analysis or other initial efforts. The goal can be large or small, but should represent a real challenge that you are working with right now. One should be able to answer the following questions after reading your post:
What initial efforts have been made and why? Have you applied any methods or exploratory techniques to your dataset(s)? Have you been working on data cleaning or developing pipleines or other infrastructure? What objectives did you have in mind?
What were the results of your initial efforts? Describe any findings. These may be analytical – such as uncovering an interesting feature of your data – or more qualitative in nature – such as identifying a central challenge involved in your project or identifying methods or tools that will play a key role in later work.
What will your team try next? Set a specific goal that is well-informed by your initial efforts, such as completing a task in progress, modeling a specific relationship that you identified in exploratory analysis, trying a new method to improve on previous ones, fixing a bug in your pipeline, and the like.
In terms of content, your post should include:
a concise refresher on your project and any additional background not covered in your first post;
a summary of your efforts to date and related findings;
and next steps.
You can assume your audience has read your initial post, but even so it’s a helpful practice to provide a few brief sentences at the outset that re-orients the reader to your work. You should fill them in on any further background they might need to understand your efforts, findings, and goals. In particular, if your team has become more fully acquainted with available data since the initial post, it may be helpful to include a revised data description.
Your post should meet the following criteria:
exploratory analysis or initial efforts are clearly presented and their significance and purpose is explained;
after accounting for your initial post, the content is self-contained and any additional background is provided (possibly via references);
at least one figure is included;
at least one goal is stated.
Due to the timing of this post we won’t do peer review in class, but we will do a review offline in place of an assignment in the last week of the term. Here are the submission logistics:
Pull requests should be submitted by Friday March 4 at 5:00 pm PST.
Your team will give written feedback on another team’s post.
Revisions are encouraged but optional.
Mentors will provide additional feedback.