New Student Registration: Data Science

Data Science

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics offers one 3-credit course at the 100-level (see course description at the bottom of this page).

• DSCI 101 – Data Management

This is a required course for a major, joint major, honours, joint honours, or minor in Data Science, and may also be an elective in any program, except the Diploma in Engineering.

Data Science is an interdisciplinary program, meaning that it incorporates relevant courses from other academic subjects. In addition to its core courses, Data Science has designated courses from other departments that serve as DSCI electives for its programs.

Students interested in pursuing a Data Science program may want to consider taking introductory courses in one or more of the interdisciplinary subjects. This will provide necessary prerequisites to take the allowable designated courses in future years. The Data Science section of the Academic Calendar specifies these designated courses. It would be useful for interested students to look at the courses in the Calendar to determine courses that are of most interest to them, which in turn would dictate the introductory-level courses that would be good choices for first year.

For all designated courses, students should note the following departmental prerequisites:

• BIOL: BIOL 111 and 112 are minimum prerequisites for BIOL 311.  There is no prerequisite for BIOL 452, other than permission of the instructor.
• BSAD: There are no first-year prerequisites necessary for these courses.  Business administration courses are normally restricted to students in the Faculty of Business. Student interested in taking BSAD designated courses will require permission (overrides) from the chair of marketing and enterprise systems to register into these courses. Pending availability, this permission will normally be granted to DSCI students.
• CSCI: CSCI 161 and 162 are prerequisites for CSCI 275.  CSCI 161 is the prerequisite for CSCI 350.  There is no prerequisite for CSCI 215.
• ECON: ECON 101 and 102 are prerequisites for ECON 272.  MATH 106 and 107 (or ECON 271, which requires ECON 101), and STAT 101 or 231, are minimum prerequisites for ECON 371 and 472.
• EESC: CSCI 161 or one of EESC 171, 172, CLEN 101, 102 are minimum prerequisites for EESC 377.
• MATH: MATH 106 and 107 are prerequisites for MATH 287.  STAT 101 or 231 is the prerequisite for MATH 382.
• PHYS: PHYS 121 and 122, MATH 106 and 107, and CSCI 161 are prerequisites for PHYS 374.
• STAT: STAT 101 or 231 is the prerequisite for STAT 344.

Course Description

DSCI 101  Data Management
This course provides the skills and tools required to manage and analyse data in the day-to-day work of a data scientist. Students will be able to find and access data, assess the quality and suitability of data, and write software to access, manage, and analyse data. Topics include data handling (storage, access, recovery, etc.), data models (e.g., flat, relational, and JSON), database management with query languages (e.g., SQL), automation and API access with scripting languages (e.g., R), and basic analysis. Three credits.

Please refer to Section 9.14 Data Science in the Academic Calendar.