Course Syllabus¶

This is the official syllabus and course outline for DATA 551.

Warning

Please note that this syllabus is currently under active development, there may be typos or missing sections; treat this as a draft until the course starts!

How will I be evaluated in this course?¶

The grading scheme for this course is here:

Item	Weight	Due date(s)
Milestone 1	25%	Tuesday March 2 at 18:00
Milestone 2	15%	Tuesday March 9 at 18:00
Milestone 3	15%	Tuesday March 16 at 18:00
Milestone 4	25%	Tuesday March 23 at 18:00
Teamwork Document	20%	Tuesday March 23 at 18:00

Attention

All deadlines in this course have an automatic 48 hour grace period after the due dates listed above. Any submissions submitted past the grace period will not be graded (with some exceptions).

Highlights¶

Calendar Entry¶

DATA 551 (1) Dataviz II

The UBCO calendar description of this course is:

Data visualization to produce graphs and images. Advanced data analysis on spreadsheets. Credit will be granted for only one of DATA 301 or DATA 550. Restricted to students in the MDS program.

Prerequisite: All of DATA 534, DATA 543, DATA 550.

Corequisite: N/A

Important Links¶

Name	Description
Course	DATA 551
Term	2020 Winter Term 2
Pre-requisites	All of DATA 534, DATA 543, DATA 550.
Co-requisites	N/A
Additional course fees	$0
Lectures	Zoom on Mon/Wed 9:30-11:00 AM PST; Labs on Tuesdays
Office Hours	Collaborate Ultra at various times (see below for schedule)
Laboratory	Collaborate Ultra
Tutorial	Collaborate Ultra
URL	https://firas.moosvi.com/courses/data551
Instructor	Dr. Firas Moosvi
Email	Contact via private message on Slack

How do I contact the teaching team?¶

For official course communication, I will use Canvas Announcements, please note that replies to announcements will not be monitored and you should use Slack for that.
For all course-related questions you can reach out to the teaching team including instructors and TAs via Slack.
You are encouraged to post questions publicly whenever possible so others can benefit. For private and personal issues, you can send private messages on Slack.
Any student may visit the office hour for any member of the teaching team (TA or instructor)! In other words, you can go to the office hour of ANY TA, not just the one whose lab/tutorial you are registered in.

Team Member	Pronounce as	Contact	Office Hour
Dr. Firas Moosvi (he/his/him); Instructor	Fur-az Moose-vee	Contact via Slack	Friday 10:00 - 11:00
David Ding (TA)		Contact via Slack	TBD

What is a syllabus?¶

Is this syllabus a contract?¶

Rather than interpreting this syllabus as a legal document that serves as a contract between the instructor and the students, I prefer to view the syllabus as a living document. Dr. John Warmer describes this best in his article, “A syllabus is not a contract”:

… this syllabus is not a contract, it is a living document which reflects the experiences, emotions, philosophies, and goals I bring to a particular course.

and also:

A syllabus as a plan is a lot like an itinerary before a trip. There’s some definite highlights we need to hit, but if something that seems cool and worth doing crops up unexpectedly, we need to seize that opportunity in the moment. If something really bad happens (the equivalent of a norovirus breakout on a cruise ship) we may need to abandon something previously scheduled entirely.

Interestingly, it is worth noting that a recent review of legal precedents suggests that syllabi are not considered contracts by the courts :cite:`Rumore2016`.

Having an adaptive and responsive syllabus is important to me as an instructor because it allows me to be more flexible with what/how/when you learn, and respond to your feedback in a meaningful way. I invite you to be co-contributors to this syllabus, and use the tools provided to add your own annotations, questions, and suggestions on making this syllabus work for you.

Important

Please note that I have your best interests in mind, and it is highly unlikely that I will ever change a syllabus in a way that negatively affects the class, or even individual students. If you believe a syllabus change is affecting you negatively, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, or submit your feedback anonymously here.

Changes since the start of Term¶

We will do our best to follow the syllabus, but in case things go south, I will need to make adjustments to the contents and the schedule.

Any major changes to the syllabus (this page) will be documented here, as well as the date the change was made.

Change Date	Summary	Rationale
TBD	TBD	TBD