Class Schedule

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

Office Hours:

• Nick: Thursday, 9:00-10:00am, https://duke.zoom.us/my/nickeubank or Gross Hall 231

Texts Referenced in Schedule:

• Cunningham: Causal Inference Mixtape

• Kohvani, Tang and Xu: Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing

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	EDA Using Exploratory Questions Answering Exploratory Questions	exp
Tu Jan 28	Exploratory Questions	Internal v. External Validity Writing Good Notebooks Start Team Project Writing to Stakeholders	Explor Assign
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) Optional: Fostering Psychological Safety Tips
Th Feb 6	Passive Prediction Questions	Using Passive Prediction Answering Passive Prediction	Pass
Tu Feb 11	Passive Prediction Questions	Right Way To Be Wrong
Th Feb 13	Passive Prediction Questions	Stop Using Black Boxes Black box models require trusting data too Optional: Combining explicit models and black boxes in Scientific ML	admissions interp
Tu Feb 18	Causal Questions	Using Causal Questions Answering Causal Questions
Th Feb 20	Causal Questions	Potential Outcomes Framework	po
Tu Feb 25	Causal Questions	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 Feb 27	Causal Questions: Experiments	Experiments: Internal Validity (In Practice): Kohvani, Tang and Xu: Chpt 2 (End to End Example) Kohavi, Tang and Xu: Chpt 3, “Threats to Internal Validity” (p. 42-47) Kohvani, Tang and Xu: Chpt 19 (A/A Testing)
Tu Mar 4	Causal Questions: Experiments	Overall Evaluation Criteria: Kohavi, Tang, and Xu Chpt 7. Finishing Internal Validity: Different Randomizations: Kohavi, Tang and Xu Chpt 22 Experiments: External Validity (In Practice): Kohavi, Tang and Xu, 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 6	Optional Class	Optional Class
Tu Mar 11	NO CLASS
Th Mar 13	NO CLASS
Tu Mar 18	Causal Questions: Experiments	Designing Experiments Power Calculations: Georgiev, Chpt 4 (Canvas) Don’t stop experiments early!	power
Th Mar 20	Review Day	AB Testing Review
Tu Mar 25	Causal Questions: Experiments	Statistical Decision Theory (on Canvas). 550-556 (This is same as IDS 705 Lecture 8 Reading)
Th Mar 27	MIDTERM	MIDTERM
Tu Apr 16	Causal Questions: Regression	Causal Beyond Experiments	incomeineq
Th Apr 3	Exploratory Questions Feedback	Bring comments on other teams’ report
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