Instructor	TA	Time	Dates
Cathy O'Neil	Josh Vekhter	TR 10am-1pm	July 15-Sept 2

#Locations for the remainder of the summer:

1. Aug 12: 607B (j-school)
2. Aug 14: 607B (j-school)
3. Aug 19: 609 Hamilton
4. Aug 21: 609 Hamilton
5. Aug 26; 607B (j-school)
6. Aug 28: 609 Hamilton
7. Sept 2: 607B (j-school) *this class runs 1-6pm, to showcase your final projects

#Course Description: This course begins with the idea that computing tools are the products of human ingenuity and effort. They are never neutral and carry with them the biases of their designers and their design process. "Platform studies" is a new term used to describe investigations into these relationships between computing technologies and the creative or research products that they help to generate. How you understand how data, code, and algorithms affect creative practices can be an effective first step toward critical thinking about technology. This will not be purely theoretical, however, and specific case studies, technologies, and project work will make the ideas concrete.

#Syllabus:

##July 15 In Class: Cathy talks about the class, the final projects, and does some exploratory statistics inspired by the Facebook. Here's an ipython notebook we will work with in class.

Reading:

1. Critical Questions for Big Data by danah boyd and Kate Crawford
2. The Facebook Emotions study
3. Zeynep Tufecki's response
4. A technical criticism by John Grohol
5. [Response from the Social Computing Community] (https://medium.com/@msbernst/the-destructive-silence-of-social-computing-researchers-9155cdff659)

Homework:

Think of what your final project will be about and start looking for data.

In Studio:

Q&A about the second semester in the CS department with Adam Cannon and Sophie Chou.

##July 17

In Class:

Emanuel Derman guest lectures on modeling and models. His notes are here.

Cathy: Financial time series. iPython notebook here.

Reading:

1. Metaphors, Models, and Theories
2. The Absolute
3. The Sublime

In Studio:

SQL

##July 22

In Class:

First, Suresh Naidu guest lectures on speech patterns in economics.

Next, some students give their pitches.

Then, Josh talks about anonymization (part 1)

Reading: How to Lie with Statistics (as much as you can), Cartoon Guide to Statistics (take a look)

In Studio:

Deeper dive into statistics:

1. Notation of statistics
2. Statistical significance
3. The concept of independent events
4. Computing some probabilities
5. Bayes's Theorem

##July 24

In Class:

Matthew Connelly guest lectures on the declassification engine

Josh talks about anonymization (part 2)

Reading:

1. Diplomatic History After the Big Bang Using Computational Methods to Explore the Infinite Archive.
2. A Taxonomy of Privacy

In Studio:

Cathy talks about the encryption method called RSA. RSA worksheet available here. View it online here.

She also talks about CS classes in the Fall.

##July 29

In Class:

Mark Hansen guest lectures on Data Journalism

Reading:

1. Read this by Johanna Drucker
2. Then skim metafont paper.
3. Read this from Leterror
4. And this from MoMA
5. Then watch a little Bret Victor...
6. And if you have time, finish with a short essay by Kate Hayles

In Studio:

Let's talk about your projects. Come with questions. We can also talk about classes next semester for Lede-24 students.

##July 31

In Class:

Cathy goes over important points from How To Lie With Statistics and The Cartoon Guide To Statistics, and then we talk about Eploratory Data Analysis and try it out on some project data.

We'll explore this and this.

And this

Reading:

1. Read this illustrated guide to logical fallacies

Homework:

Bring in your project data!

In Studio:

More help with EDA on your projects.

##August 5

In Class:

danah boyd guest lectures on teen privacy and big data.

After that we will talk about project milestones and requirements and a template for project presentation.

Reading:

Read at least the introduction of danah's book, It's Complicated.

In Studio:

Let's talk about your projects and how they're going!

##August 7

In Class:

Julie Steele guest lectures: How Tools Inform Our Design

Reading:

1. "The Default Choice, So Hard to Resist" by Steve Lohr. The New York Times: October 15, 2011.
2. "I Hate Learning New Things" by Tal Yarkoni. October 7, 2009.
3. "The PHP Singularity" by Jeff Atwood. Coding Horror (blog): June 29, 2012.
4. "Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction" by Bret Victor. October 2011.
5. "Winchester Mystery House" - An unplanned house

In Studio:

Calculus review (part 1)

##August 12

In Class:

John Keefe guest lectures

Josh talks about using Bokeh to make pictures prettier.

In Studio:

Calculus review (part 2)

##August 14

In Class:

Scott Klein of ProPublica guest lectures on running a data journalism group

In Studio:

Linear Algebra (part 1)

##August 19

In Class:

Luis, Sophie, and Josh talk about vector graphics and the internet.

Reading:

1. Computerized Picasso
2. Algorithms Visualized
3. Using Animations to Convey Information
4. Using Color to Convey Information

Optional:

1. More Color resources
2. Mike Bostock on process for creating visualizations
3. Chart for visualizing networks
4. Chart for visualizing positional data

Homework:

1. An Exercize in Distinguishing Colors

In Studio:

Linear Algebra (part 2)

A reference text for linear algebra

##August 21

In Class:

Jeff Larson from ProPublica guest lectures on reverse engineering political ad models and then we have a FIELD TRIP TO PROPUBLICA!!!!

In Studio:

Let's talk about projects.

##August 26

In Class:

Maxine Rockoff and Lisa Radcliffe guest lecture on health data

Required Reading:

1. Read the first chapter of this (click on "Full Table of Contents," then "download") about biomedical informatics, an excerpt from a book written by Edward H. Shortliffe and Marsden S. Blois. This gives a doctor's view of what technology in health care could do for personal and population health and looks at the resulting challenges as well as the opportunities.
2. Here's Looking at You: How your personal information is being tracked and used. This consumer-focused white paper gives a quick overview of the context, opportunities and challenges of sharing your health data and provides an introduction to the social media aspects of the growing amount of health data.
3. Connecticut health exchange seeks to help customers after data breach. Government HIPAA covered entities are also vulnerable to data breaches. Here, Access Health Connecticut, the state health data exchange created for the federal Affordable protect themselves after their personal information has been compromised.
4. Community Health says data stolen in cyber attack from China. Publicly-traded Community Health Systems Inc (CYH.N), one of the biggest U.S. hospital groups (operating 206 hospitals in 29 states), says it was the victim of a cyber attack from China, resulting in the theft of Social Security numbers and other personal data belonging to 4.5 million patients. Note that this massive breach was revealed in the middle of August, this year.
5. Documents Reveal Gaps In City Welfare Data. Sometimes it is more important to note what data are missing as opposed to what data are present - and why.

Optional Resources:

Since 2009, HIPAA covered entities have been required to report data breaches involving 500 or more individuals (note the CT breach would not even count). Spend a moment using HHS’s on-line reporting tool to search the 5 years of unbelievable data. This is an interactive page; choose your report criteria by clicking the boxes and then export or review your output on-line.

Useful overview access point for HHS information regarding HIPAA privacy requirements, including who and what are covered.

One of the prickliest issues with health and human services data sharing is who owns what and how true integration can be achieved in a complex environment. Governance often becomes the sticking point. APHSA has put together some very basic and useful steps in establishing Governance for these sorts of data sharing systems.

Finally, for fun you might want to see how Maxine Rockoff and her colleagues put data together by hand 35 years ago, taking days to do what can today be done (better) in a flash. "Positive Programming": The Use of Data in Planning for the Rural Health Initiative" by Rockoff, Gorin and Kleinman, available here.

In Studio:

Let's talk about presentations.

##August 28

In Class:

Alexander Howard guest lectures.

Reading:

Alex's Tow Report

In Studio:

Cathy reviews presentations.

##September 2

In Class:

CLASS PRESENTATIONS!!

1-5pm, Room 607B, followed by a final party at Cathy's house.

Reading:

1.Nick Diakopoulos's Tow Report

1.Growth in a Time of Debt

2.Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff

3.THE REINHART AND ROGOFF CONTROVERSY: a summing up

4.Piketty findings undercut by errors

5.Piketty response to FT data concerns