Data Acquisition and Management

In this course students will learn about core concepts of contemporary data collection and its management. Topics will include systems for collecting data (real time, sensors, open data sets, etc..) and implications for practice; types of data (textual, quantitative, qualitative, GIS, etc..) and sources; an overview of the use of data, including what and how much should be collected and the distinction between data, information, and knowledge from a data-centric point of view; provenance; managing data with and without databases; computer and data security; data cleaning, fusing, and processing techniques; combining data from different sources; storage techniques including very large data sets; and storing data keeping in mind privacy and security issues. Students will be required to create a working system for a large volume of data using publicly available data sets.