Classified (20-30 min)

1. Take 5 minutes and look back at Discord discussion of chapter 4.
2. What stood out to you most as interesting from that discussion?
3. What do you still have questions about that was not quite covered in the Discord discussion?

Please write either #2 or #3 in our Discord text channel for today.

 

Practice with Questioning Data Sets (Part I Questions) (30-45 min)

Refreshers:

• Looking around, not just “in” (go to “Looking **Around** Not Just In” about looking for information around the data set and not just within the data set)
• Primary and Secondary Research (this is also linked on the “Data Resources” page on our menu bar on course site)

After thinking about those refreshers, I want us to re-visit the prompt for the Part I questions and get some practice on an example data set. Make sure you have the prompt handy (it is in assignment instructions folder for today as well as for Feb 24).

Here are the questions from Part I:

• What is the title of the data set? Where did you find it? Why are you interested in it?

 

• What is the format of file type of the data set? Is it a file or a database hosted on a website? Something else?

 

• What is in the columns? The rows? If it is not in rows and columns, what sorts of things can you select from dropdown menus, etc.? What kind of stuff is in the cells (or in the input parts to enter information, output parts that give results, etc.)? Tell me about what you see in the interface or what the spreadsheet looks like.

 

• What types of data are in the data set? (i.e., categorical, continuous, discrete, ordinal, binary, qualitative—see our February 1 lesson plan for more information on data types: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/dwtscspring2022/?page_id=45)

 

• Who created this data set? What are their professional credentials? What organizations are they associated with?

 

• Who benefits from this collection of data? Name anyone you can think of. Explain why they would benefit from this collection of data. Think about the consequences of this data being collected and analyzed—can someone make money off of it? Can someone’s quality of life be improved? Who? How?

 

• Who might be harmed by this collection of data? Name anyone you can think of. Explain why they might be harmed by this collection of data. Think about the consequences of this data being collected and analyzed—can someone experience violence due to this data being collected in this way? What kind of violence (physical, psychic, emotional)? Can someone’s quality of life be impacted negatively by the collection and/or analysis of this data? Who? How?

 

• Have other people or organizations used this data set? If so, for what? What do these kinds of uses tell you about the usefulness of this data? (e.g., what do those people or organizations generally spend their time doing and how have they used this data?)

 

Activity

In five groups of 3 and two groups of 2, you are going to try to brainstorm some possible answers for each question about the following data set. First, let’s take care of groups here:

Group 1: Harshita, Calvin, Aftar

Group 2: Jesus, Terence, Mike

Group 3: Isabella, Inesa, Dora

Group 4: Joanna, E’Longe, Eva

Group 5: Najae, Usri, Kabilan

Group 6: Letycja and Evelyn

Group 7: Alvy and TJ

 

Data Set for Activity

The data set we will look at is about Airbnb listings in NYC for 2019. I found this at Kaggle, and anything on Kaggle you will have to remember is often cleaned up and retrieved from somewhere else (look at “context” to get a sense of original location).

To get the csv file, go to the download button that is highlighted in the image below.

Also good to know: When using Kaggle, sometimes multiple data sets are available, so you might want to scroll all the way down and click around followed by clicking the download button to the right (highlighted in below image:

If no one in your group wants to make a Kaggle account to get access to the data set, I used my Kaggle account to download it. It is on our Blackboard website under “Resources Unable to be Posted on Website”.

 

Specifics of Activity

1. Try to talk through each question and list as many possibilities as you can think of on this Google Doc (type into the boxes along with the other groups)
2. What possibility was most interesting to you?
3. What question was most confusing for how to approach for this data set (or just in general)

 

Next Time (2-5 min)

• Complete Part I of Data Set Critical Biography
• Have an in-progress draft ready for Thursday
• See you in VC 4-160 on Thursday, Feb 24.