Class Schedule

Class: Tuesday / Thursday, 1:25-2:40pm

Office Hours:

• Nick: Thursday, 9:30-10:30am, https://duke.zoom.us/my/nickeubank or Gross Hall 231

Texts Used

This course will make use of readings from a handful of different sources. The main four, in order of the amount they will be used, are:

• DS4H: Data Science for Humans (This website, free.)

• Cunningham: Causal Inference Mixtape ($30 new, $20 used. Online Access through Duke Library)

• KTX: Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing ($40 new, $30 used.)

• GHV: Regression and Other Stories ($40. Too new to have used versions.)

Date	Topic	Do Before Class	In Class
Th Jan 9	Course Overview		acme
Tu Jan 14	Solving Problems by Answering Questions	Read, sign, submit syllabus on gradescope. How to Read Solving Problems	generating
Th Jan 16	Stakeholder Management	Solving the Right Problem History of Data Science Why It’s Important To Get Your Question Right (30 min video)	stake
Tu Jan 21	Proscriptive v. Descriptive Questions	Descriptive versus Prescriptive Questions
Th Jan 23	Exploratory Questions: Purpose, Internal and External Validity	EDA Using Exploratory Questions Answering Exploratory Questions Internal v. External Validity	exp
Tu Jan 28	Capstone With Training Wheels Assignment		Explor Assign How to write to stakeholders
Th Jan 30	Teams 1	What Project Aristotle Learned Edmondson, The Fearless Organization, Chpt 1 (on Canvas)
Tu Feb 4	Teams 2	Review Team Charter Assignment Edmondson, Teaming, Chpt 2 from “Cognitive Barriers to Teaming” (p. 82) to end of Chapter (on Canvas) Cross Cultural Intelligence When and How to Escalate Optional: Fostering Psychological Safety Tips
Th Feb 6	Passive Prediction Questions: Purpose and Alignment	Using Passive Prediction Answering Passive Prediction	Pass
Tu Feb 11	Passive Prediction Questions: Internal and External Validity	Right Way To Be Wrong
Th Feb 13	Giving Feedback	Feedback Exercise?	Feedback Exercise?
Tu Feb 18	Passive Prediction Questions: Loss Functions		admissions interp
Th Feb 20	Passive Prediction Questions: Interpretability	Stop Using Black Boxes Black box models require trusting data too Optional: Combining explicit models and black boxes in Scientific ML
Tu Feb 25	Causal Questions: Purpose	Using Causal Questions Answering Causal Questions
Th Feb 27	Causal Questions: Potential Outcomes	Potential Outcomes Framework	po
Tu Mar 4	Causal Questions: Potential Outcomes	Cunningham, Chpt 4, pp 135 (“Independence Assumption”) - 148 (Stop at “Randomization Inference”) Indicator Variables (Note SDO (Simple Difference in Outcomes) in Cunningham same as “widehat{ATE} from class) Optional: Read Chpt 4 in Cunningham from start (different presentation of potential outcomes)	resume
Th Mar 6	Causal Questions: Experiments in Practice, Internal Validity	Experiments: Internal Validity (In Practice): KTX: Chpt 2 (End to End Example) KTX: Chpt 3, “Threats to Internal Validity” (p. 42-47) KTX: Chpt 19 (A/A Testing)
Tu Mar 11	Causal Questions: Experiments in Practice, External Validity	Overall Evaluation Criteria: KTX Chpt 7. Finishing Internal Validity: Different Randomizations: KTX Chpt 22 Experiments: External Validity (In Practice): KTX, Chpt 3, “Threats to External Validity” to end (p. 47-54) Kohvai, Tang and Xu, Chpt 23 (Primacy Effects / Long Term Decay)	abtest
Th Mar 13	Causal Questions: Experiments in Practice, Design	Designing Experiments Statistical Power and Sample Sizes: GHV Ch 16 Don’t stop experiments early!	power p-value preview
Tu Mar 18	NO CLASS
Th Mar 20	NO CLASS
Tu Mar 25	Causal Questions: Experiments, Bayesian Analysis	AB Testing Review
Th Mar 27	Causal Questions: Experiments, Bayesian Analysis & Decision Theory	Statistical Decision Theory (on Canvas). 550-556 (This is same as IDS 705 Lecture 8 Reading)
Tu Apr 16	MIDTERM	MIDTERM
Th Apr 3	Causal Questions: Regression	Causal Beyond Experiments	incomeineq
Tu Apr 8	Causal Questions: Matching	The Why of Matching The How of Matching Summary Methods for Matching Watch the video above from about 15 minutes in (where link starts) till at least 45 minutes in, keep going if you want to learn about propensity score matching problems.	matching
Th Apr 9	Causal Questions: Differences and Differences / Panels	Cunningham, Chpt 9 pp 406 (Difference in Differences) - pp 433 (Stop at “Importance of Placebos in Diff-in-Diff”) -(Book page numbers at bottom of PDF on canvas. Full chapter is in PDF, more than you need to read.) Optional but encouraged: (dont need to follow everything, but here’s a real diff-in-diff) Enfranchisement and Incarceration Diff-in-Diffs at Netflix
Tu Apr 15	Interpretation of Results	Revised Exploratory Due along with Causal Proposal	ev
Wed, April 23		Optional Due Date for Causal Rough Draft (11pm)
Wed, Apr 30		Final Causal Report Due