Software Tools for Data Analysis
STA 9750
Michael Weylandt
Week 14 – Thursday 2026-05-14
Last Updated: 2026-01-14
STA 9750 Week 14
Today: Lecture #11: Statistical Modeling in R
- Communicating Results (
quarto) ✅ RBasics ✅- Data Manipulation in
R✅ - Data Visualization in
R✅ - Getting Data into
R✅ - Statistical Modeling in
R✅
Today
Today
- Administrative Business
- End of Semester Reflections
- Course Project Presentations
- A Final Farewell!
Course Administration
Mini-Project #04
MP#04 - TBD
Peer feedback due 2026-05-24
Course Support
- Synchronous
- MW Office Hours 2x / week: Tuesdays + Thursdays 5pm
- MW Office Hours during finals week (Dec 16 and Dec 18)
- Asynchronous: Piazza (\(<20\) minute average response time)
Grading
Mini-Projects:
- Mini-Project #01 ✅
- Mini-Project #02 ✅
- Mini-Project #03 ✅
- Mini-Project #04
- Submission ✅
- Peer Feedback
Grading
Group Project:
- Proposal ✅
- Check-In ✅
- Final Presentation ⬅️
- Final Reports
- Group
- Individual
Course Project
End of Semester Course Project:
- In-Class Final Presentations
- Today! [Or during finals week for a few teams]
- Individual Report
- 2026-05-21
- Group Report
- 2026-05-21
- Peer Evaluations
- 2026-04-02, 2026-05-21
See detailed instructions for rubrics, expectations, etc.
Final Report - Group
Non-Technical Summary
Think of yourself as a “consultant” asked by a client to investigate a topic. This is the “Executive Summary” - details in appendix (individual reports)
Should cover roughly the same material as presentation
- Can link to individual reports for details
- Use image links
![]()to reference figures from individual reports - “Words and pictures” not “code”
Only one of you needs to submit on Brightspace. Everyone should still open a GH issue
Final Report - Individual
Technical Appendix to Group Report.
Appendix for lower-level (detail-oriented) staff, not leadership
Still requires writing and context, etc. but this is in particular where I’m going to look at your code and analysis.
Good Thinking is more important than Good Findings
I am your audience, so don’t waste time explaining basic technical details. I’m more interested in you justifying the choices you made along the way
Code does not count towards word counts. (See helper function for word count)
Final Reports
Group and Individual Reports
- Submitted via GitHub and Brightspace
- Everyone submit a separate link to group report on GH
Deadline on “final exam” day
No late work accepted (I have to submit grades before family arrives!)
Project Peer Feedback
New peer feeback mechanism (feedback welcome!)
- You have 100 points to allocate to teammates
Can’t assign points to yourself
Additionally, 8 optional qualitative questions (Brightspace) for peer evaluation
Submit a copy for each teammate - I will anonymize to give advice
- Due on same day as reports
If you don’t submit, you won’t receive any points
Final Project Grading
Rubric is set high to give me flexibility to reward teams that take on big challenges
Hard rubric => Grades are curved generously
Multiple paths to success
If your project is “easy” on an element (data import in particular), that’s great! Don’t spend the effort over-complicating things. Effort is better spent elsewhere
STA 9750 Mini-Projects
- Congratulations! Done with all Mini-Projects!
Fantastic work this semester!
STA 9750 Mini-Projects
Four Mini-Projects:
- MP#01: TBD
- MP#02: TBD
- MP#03: TBD
- MP#04: TBD
STA 9750 Mini-Projects
Four Application Domains:
- MP#01: TBD
- MP#02: TBD
- MP#03: TBD
- MP#04: TBD
STA 9750 Mini-Projects
Four Types of Analysis (“Rhetoric”):
- MP#01: TBD
- MP#02: TBD
- MP#03: TBD
- MP#04: TBD
STA 9750 Mini-Projects
Four Important Skill Sets:
- MP#01: TBD
- MP#02: TBD
- MP#03: TBD
- MP#04: TBD
End of Semester Reflections
Instructor’s Reflection
Course Feedback
Reflection on course:
- How far have you come?
- What have you learned?
- What was helpful? What was unhelpful?
This is in addition to the Baruch central course assesments.
Course Feedback
Used to improve future course offerings. Previous changes:
- Added a second round of project feedback
- Help students “scope” projects suitably
- More applied analytics than programming exercises in HW
- Other programming resources already online;
- Many students have prior experience (Python, SQL)
- More interest in Analytics than Software Engineering
- Added GitHub and Portfolio Construction
- Give students evidence of skills to share with employers
Course Feedback
Plans for next semester:
- Make MPs Best 3 of 4 (auto-drop one)
- Details TBD; h/t @HV for suggestion
- Add technical Qs to pre-assignments
- Allow unlimited retries
- Move MP deadlines a bit earlier to give more time for final presentations
- Require team check-ins earlier in semester
- Make ‘work plan’ and conflict plan mandatory
Other thoughts welcome!
Hall of Fame
Submit Hall of Fame Nominations
Baruch Course Evaluations
Short Break to complete course evaluations
Roughly:
- Scores used by central administration
- Comments used by faculty and departments to improve offerings
On to the Show!
Presentation Order
TBD
Wrap Up
Thank you for the Great Semester!
Wrap-Up
Topics covered:
- Communicating Results (
quarto): Markdown, GitHub, Pages / Static Sites, RBasics: Vectors, Data Frames, Packages, Function Calls, Conditionals- Data Manipulation in
R:select,filter,mutate,group_by,summarize, joins - Data Visualization in
R:ggplot2, maps, interactivity - Getting Data into
R: file system, flat files, JSON, HTTP, APIs, HTML - Statistical Modeling in
R
Mini-Projects: Real data, real analysis
Advice
Use the break well!
- Finish the semester strong
- Take a well-deserved break
- Come back in a month or or so
- Consolidate and refresh skills
- “Spaced Repetition” to ‘lock in’ new skills
- Old Mini-Projects for additional practice
Don’t let all your effort go to waste!
Farewell, but Not Goodbye!
If you’re staying at Baruch:
- Visit my Office Hours anytime
- Take these skills and use them to excel in future classes
- Continue to develop your professional presence
If you’re graduating:
- Congratulations!
- Always Available by Email