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Guidelines Data Science Project PX55PA PB

The document provides information about assessing a data science project, including three components: an oral presentation, written thesis, and oral exam (viva). The thesis is the most heavily weighted component at 65% of the final mark. It must be under 4,000 words and include sections on the project's motivation, data, methods, results, discussion and references. Supplementary materials like code and additional figures/tables can also be included. The 20-minute viva will involve questions from examiners about the student's understanding of their project's topic, methods, results and conclusions. Both the presentation and viva will be assessed based on structure, content, and timekeeping.

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61 views

Guidelines Data Science Project PX55PA PB

The document provides information about assessing a data science project, including three components: an oral presentation, written thesis, and oral exam (viva). The thesis is the most heavily weighted component at 65% of the final mark. It must be under 4,000 words and include sections on the project's motivation, data, methods, results, discussion and references. Supplementary materials like code and additional figures/tables can also be included. The 20-minute viva will involve questions from examiners about the student's understanding of their project's topic, methods, results and conclusions. Both the presentation and viva will be assessed based on structure, content, and timekeeping.

Uploaded by

vrajesh pandhi
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Data Science Project (PX55PA/PB)

Description
The data science project is a very important component of your training. It will provide you
with experience in conducting an independent research project. It will constitute an
opportunity to apply the knowledge and understanding that you have gained and the tools
that you have learnt during the courses in semesters 1 and 2 directly in a research setting.
Moreover, it will enable you to acquire a range of important planning, analytical, oral and
written presentation skills.

Overall course assessment


There are 3 main components to assess the Data Science project:
• Oral presentation (mandatory but it does not contribute to final mark): 20 min oral
group presentation (10 min for individual project) explaining the motivation of the
project, main objectives and workplan.
• Thesis (65% of overall mark): written thesis to be submitted by the 11th of August (full
time)/27th October (part-time), see details below.
• Viva (oral exam, 35% of overall mark): vivas will take place in the weeks of the 28th of
August – 8th September (subject to changes)/mid-November for part-time students.

Structure of thesis
The thesis will consist of 2 parts:

1. Written report (max 4,000 words, excluding references, abstract and captions of
figures and tables; please provide final word count): the motivation, background,
methodology, main results and discussion need to be presented in this report in the
format of a scientific paper (in word or pdf format). The report needs to include the
following sections:

• Title of the project, student’s name and ID number


• Abstract (about 300 words, not included in word count): it should
describe the main objectives of the project, how the study was done
(without methodological detail) and summarise the main results and
their significance.
• Introduction: provide background to put the research conducted in
your project into context and to allow readers outside the field to
understand the aims and significance of it. Give an overview of what
has been done in the literature on this topic.
• Data: describe the data used in your analysis.
• Methods: technical details about the methods used (definition of main
concepts, main equations, parameters) should be given so that a
researcher in the field can reproduce your results.
• Main results: this section should describe the main results of your
research project, the interpretation and conclusions that can be drawn.
You should support this section with the main figures and/or tables
illustrating your results. What actionable insights can be gained from
your analysis? If you include further figures and or tables in the
Supplementary Material section (please see point 2 below) to support
your main results, you should make refer to it in the main text and
make clear where those results can be found (e.g. see Table S2 from
Supplementary Material).
• Discussion: this section should remind the reader about your aims,
main results and their implications. If applicable, you should compare
your results to previously obtained results in the area and you can
suggest next steps of future research following up from your results.
• References: you should cite all sources that you have used for your
research (published papers, pre-prints, webpages, codes, etc), as well
as data sources used. Please note that a reference should be given at
every point in your report where you cite published information. There
are many schemes for referencing material. The important thing is that
you are consistent. There are many resources provided by the
university to help you with referencing in academic writing, please
check this link (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/academic-
life/study-resources-3379.php#panel3953). References do not count
towards the word count.

Given the word limit of the written report, you will need to write in a concise way,
highlighting the main points of the research that you have carried out during your
project and selecting the key figures/tables that support your most important results.
The rest of the figures relevant to the project can be included in the Supplementary
Material (please see next point). Tables and Figures need to be numbered, so that
they can be referred to in the text, and they also need to include a caption explaining
their content.
The university provides many resources to help you developing your academic writing
skills. Please check the following link, under the tab Academic Skills: Student Learning
Services, Academic Writing: Come to the Writing Room!
(https://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/academic-life/study-resources-
3379.php#panel3953). There are academic writing sessions that you can book through
the online course booking system.

2. Supplementary Material (no length limit): the supplementary material should include
the main codes that you have written to carry out your research. You should comment
the codes in detail, so that the different steps that you have coded are clear to another
person not familiar with the code. Moreover, the code needs to be in a runnable form.
You can also include supplementary figures and tables that support the results that
you have presented in the main written report. In that case, it is very important that
you refer to the supplementary material in the main written report. You can also add
more technical details, such as information about the database and further
computational resources that you have used. For example, if you have built an SQL or
Mongo database, you should explain your design decisions. The supplementary
material can also contain analyses that did not directly lead to insight. The
supplementary material can be submitted as one or several files.

1
Your supervisor will also help you to develop your scientific writing skills by giving you
feedback on the first draft of your thesis. For this to properly work, however, it is crucial that
you send a first draft of your thesis well before the thesis submission deadline. This is to make
sure that your supervisor has time to read your draft and give you feedback. Please discuss
with your supervisor an appropriate timeline for this to occur.

Plagiarism
Copying or reporting the work of others without attributing the source is plagiarism and, if
detected, may lead to failure. Please see notes above about how to write references in your
written report. Please also check the following university link, which explains how to avoid
plagiarism (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/academic-life/study-resources-
3379.php#panel3954)

Format and timeline of viva (oral exam)


The viva or oral exam will take about 20 minutes. Your supervisor, an internal examiner and
a moderator will be present (the external examiner might be present too). The internal
examiner will lead the oral examination. The role of the supervisor is to provide clarification
(only if needed). The moderators will sit in all exams to ensure the marks are distributed fairly
and consistently.
The viva is a session where the internal examiner will ask you questions about your thesis.
The purpose of the viva is to test your understanding of the topic of your thesis, the methods
that you have used to analyse the data, how you interpret your main results and which
conclusions can be drawn from them. In preparation for your viva, you should read again your
work with a critical eye and think about areas of the work that might prompt questions. You
should make sure that you understand all aspects that you have written in your thesis, and
discuss the viva with your supervisor before the date of the oral exam.
Sometimes students tend to view some of the questions as a challenge, so that they fail to
notice how simple the question actually is. Try to listen calmly, and do not rush your answer.
If you do not understand the question, please ask the examiner for clarification. Be prepared
to answer technical questions, as not all examiners will be familiar with the methods and tools
that you have applied in your project. In the case that you do not know the answer to a
question, it is not the end of the world. Just try to keep focused on the rest of the questions.
Further details about how the oral exams will be conducted, will be made available closer to
the date.

Assessment criteria
Oral presentation:
Presentation: prepare clear slides, legible, with good balance of graphics and text. It is
also important that you plan the structure of your talk, so that it is logical (audience
can understand it even if they are not familiar with the topic). Keep the talk
interesting, motivate the topic of your research project and highlight open questions.
Keep the information presented relevant to the chosen topic, and make sure that you
have good timekeeping.

2
Content: make sure that you have the right amount of introduction to the topic for
peers; that the explanations are clear and correct; that the data science concepts are
clear and at the right level, and that you present a clear and logical plan for the project.
Thesis:
The criteria that will be use to assess the written thesis will include:
• Presentation/structure
• Literature (analysis and coverage)
• Critical analysis
• Understanding of material
• Ability to communicate
• Quality of work
• References (correctly presented)
• Word limit
• Supplementary material and comments provided on the submitted codes

Oral exam:
The criteria that will be used to assess the oral exam will include:
• Understanding of material, depth of knowledge.
• Ability to communicate ideas
• Breadth of knowledge

The thesis and oral examination will be assessed by both the examiner and supervisor, who
together will agree on a mark for each of those components. Feedback in the form of written
comments will be sent to the students.

Coordinators: Marco Thiel and Mamen Romano

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