Deriving Insights of Value

Quartier de la Sorbonne, Paris, France

Photo by Jonathan Acuña (2018)

Deriving Insights of Value

A simple problem, but what’s the answer?

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Post 333 / DS Log 5

          As mentioned before, the data scientist teacher is someone who works with data in three different fronts simultaneously. That teacher is a miner, a cleanser, and an analyst. Let’s see his/her role in the following case scenario, a language school whose graduating population is not interested in participating in the institution’s graduation.

1	Problem Identification	In this case scenario the problem is not that only 53% of the possibly graduating learners want to participate in the end-of-the-course ceremony; the real problem to discover is why this is happening. The teacher has to find out the real question to ask to mine and explore data.
2	Data Collection	At this point, the teacher has to start collecting data from as many sources as it is possible including the school’s database, any economic report issued by the Ministry of Economy, printed press and news programs on TV/radio or social media.
3	Data Exploration	With all possible data coming from public or institutional databases, the teacher can start finding the pieces of the puzzle. Information can then be organized for the teacher to start finding commonalities, categories, or names for the reasons that are found.
4	Analysis of Data Collected from Various Sources	The teacher cannot only base the analysis of data from institutional databases. Some sort of triangulation is needed to match data to reveal connections never thought before but that may have a say on why some 43% of possibly graduating students don’t feel encouraged to attend a graduation ceremony.
5	The Storytelling behind the Data	Once the teacher lets the data speak by themselves, s/he listens to what all these is stating as to why learners are uninterested (or interested) in going to a graduation ceremony. Reasons can be triggered by different societal phenomena.
6	Taking Action	As soon as the data tell their story, the teacher has to talk to the institution’s stakeholders, directors, or departmental heads to discuss what needs to be done to either motivate learners to join the graduation celebration or to reconsider if the way the graduation ceremony is actually held should continue to be celebrated in the same way.

          Though it is not yet clear why only 53% of learners who finish the institution’s program are willing to go to the graduation ceremony, the case is a good example as to how the “investigation” has to be carried out. And for a better understanding of these notes of mine, please take a look at the infographic that matches what each step of the data science procedure contains along with the case scenario.