Tag: Data Science

Knowledge Art learning resources

Following the tragically premature death of Al Selvin in October 2015, I continued to think about how his inspirational research can live on in more than research writings. Friends and colleagues were discussing ways in which we could communicate the ideas behind Knowledge Art to reflective practitioners, in contrast to the more academic audiences we’d been engaging with.

One outcome of this came to fruition as learning resources for the University of Technology Sydney’s Master of Data Science & Innovation, specifically, for the subject I coordinated at the time, Data Visualisation & Narrative.

I prepared a reading based on the book (Publisher/Facebook) tuned to our data science students, with an assessment based on a role-play scenario that gave students the chance to practise their ‘knowledge artistry’. (This is linked to real data challenges that our students engage in with TransportNSW and the NSW Data Analytics Centre, here in Sydney.)

These are Creative Commons-licensed open access resources — do let me know if you find them useful for your own thinking, especially teaching/coaching.

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Here’s a snapshot from that first session…

…and updated video and slides from the latest session this evening 31 March 2021 [PDF]

MDSI students shine (again) in NSW Gov Data Challenge

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Students studying the Master of Data Science & Innovation (MDSI) have once again emerged victorious in the second NSW government’s Data Analytics Centre invitational hackathon. Tackling three rounds of a challenge set by Fire and Rescue NSW to differentiate true fires from false alarms, the winning team enriched the dataset provided by adding weather and Twitter data, and generated additional features such as building type. Excitingly, their work may now influence data policy. A combined team from FEIT and UNSW took silver.

Having won the TransportNSW challenge in 2015, this advances UTS reputation as delivering outstanding, work-ready students. The MDSI teams have defeated other universities and professional companies, not only due to their technical ability, but with high performance teamwork, creativity and their ability to pitch their work to the client.

A consequence of fielding teams in these and other hackathons is that we have come to recognise them as a vehicle for very authentic learning. In close partnership with NSW Data Analytics Centre, MDSI has integrated their data challenges into the 2016 curriculum, providing a core experience for all students.