Second Annual Penn State Datafest Competition To Be Held April 22-24, 2016
The Penn State Department of Statistics will host its second annual American Statistical Association Datafest™ competition on the weekend of April 22–24, 2016.
“We chose to get involved because we saw this as a fantastic way for our students to experience the ‘data science’ profession, have a learning experience outside the classroom, and just have fun,” said Stefanie Austin, instructor in statistics, who is helping to organize the event.
During the 48-hour competition, student teams work to “find and share meaning in a large, rich, and complex dataset,” according to the Penn State Datafest website.
Students from all undergraduate and master’s programs at all Penn State campuses are welcome to compete. If a student wants to participate but doesn’t already have a team in mind, the Datafest organizers will place those individuals on a team. Last year, the first year Penn State Datafest was held, saw 60 students comprising 15 teams participate.
The data set and general research question are kept secret until the first day of the event, so no team has an advantage. Teams of two to five students spend the weekend working to answer the research question and find the most interesting insights into the data. Each team makes a short presentation at the end of the competition to show their findings. A panel of judges chooses team winners in the category of Best Visualization, Best Insight, Most Creative, and then of those teams, Best in Show.
This year the event will take place in the Life Sciences Building, and the judging panel will include local data science industry professionals. But the opportunity to experience a real-world data science career situation remains the same.
“Students rarely have the opportunity to work with a real data set that is this large and complex. It is a great experience for any student who believes they will work with data in their careers,” said Austin. “It is also a great experience in teamwork and collaboration, as well as in defining a research question. These are all difficult skills to teach, so we appreciate that Datafest offers a fun avenue for students to practice these skills.”
For more information and to register for the competition, visit the Penn State Datafest website.