🗓️ Week 02 - Data types and the concept of tidy data

2022/23 Lent Term

What does data look like? And how do we organise it? This week’s lecture will discuss the concept of tidy data and how to organise data, even if in a spreadsheet. We will also discuss the different data types and how to deal with them.

👨‍🏫 Lecture Slides

Either click on the slide area below or click here to view it in fullscreen. Use your keypad to navigate the slides. You can also find a PDF version on Moodle.

🎥 Looking for lecture recordings? You can only find those on Moodle.

✍️ Coursework (Formative)

Collect data from Wikipedia and make it tidy

• Go to Wikipedia, click on the Main Menu (top left), and click on the “Current events” link.

• Create a new spreadsheet and add all “Ongoing events” to it.

• Collect data for each event: the topic, key dates, period, location, the event, the number of people affected, etc. (feel free to get creative here).

• Consider collecting metadata too: when was the event added to Wikipedia, who added it, etc.

• Now, reorganise your spreadsheet to ensure only one column for each variable and a row for each observation. That is, convert it to tidy data.

• Save your spreadsheet as a CSV file and upload it to Moodle under the “Week 02 Formative - Tidy data” assignment in the “✍️ Coursework and Assessment” section.

  • This will help you build a portfolio of your work throughout the course. We might ask you to refer to this material during your summative assessments.

📚 Recommended Reading

• Check the end of slides for the list of references cited in the lecture.
• Check the 📔 Syllabus for this week’s complete list of indicative and recommended readings.

📟 Communication

• Post your reflections, questions, and links on Slack’s #topic-tidy-data channel.