Understanding the Data Process and Big Data to Gain Insight and Knowledge

How do companies know what movies and books to recommend to their customers? How do websites know what ads to display when you are online? These companies are collecting data based on your browsing and buying habits online. This is an example of how data is used to gain insight and knowledge. When data is properly captured and analyzed, it can provide important insights. It is used by retail, sports, finance, manufacturing, and many more industries as part of their marketing strategy.

Essential Questions

What are the complexities of collecting, processing, and analyzing large sets of data?
How do computers help find patterns in digital information?
How is data collected and used?
What are the differences between data and information?
How can data be represented visually?

Key Terms

Data - pieces of information collected through observation and measurement

Information - knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction and collected data

Dataset - A way of collecting data that involves large sets of data from sources already collected

Interpretation - an explanation of patterns observed in the data

Hypotheses - an idea or theory that is not proven

Scalability- capable of being easily expanded or upgraded on demand

Big data - any collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand data management

Structured data - data that resides in a fixed field within a record or file

Unstructured data -information that is not organized in a pre-defined manner

Data Mining - the practice of examining large databases in order to generate new information

Filter - a process used to narrow down data in a worksheet

Data visualization- to communicate information clearly and efficiently to users via the information graphics selected, such as tables and charts

Infographic - A visualization tool used to display multiple charts and graphs in a meaningful way

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