Policies
Table of Contents
About the Course
Course Description
Foundations of Data Science combines three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It also delves into social issues surrounding data analysis such as privacy and study design.
Prerequisites
The curriculum and format is designed specifically for students who have not previously taken statistics or computer science courses. Students with some prior experience in either statistics or computing are welcome to enroll and often find that this course offers a new perspective that blends computational and inferential thinking. Students who have taken several statistics or computer science courses should instead take a more advanced course like Data 100.
Materials & Resources
Our primary text is an online book called Computational and Inferential Thinking: The Foundations of Data Science. This text was written for the course by the course instructors. A complete PDF of the textbook can be found in the Student Materials Google Drive.
The computing platform for the course is hosted at data8.datahub.berkeley.edu. Students find it convenient to use their own computer for the course. If you do not have adequate access to a personal computer, we can help you borrow a machine; please contact data8@berkeley.edu.
Support
You are not alone in this course; the staff and instructors are here to support you as you learn the material. It’s expected that some aspects of the course will take time to master, and the best way to master challenging material is to ask questions. For questions, use Ed. We will also hold in-person and a limited number of virtual office hours that offer drop-in help on assignments and course material.
Your lab TA will be your main point of contact for all course related questions/grade clarifications. The TAs are here to support you so please lean on your lab TA if you need more support in the class or have any questions/concerns.
Small-group tutoring sessions will be available for students in need of additional support to develop confidence with core concepts. In past semesters, students who attended have found these sessions to be a great use of their time. Details about sign-ups will be available a few weeks into the term.
Course Components
Live Lecture
Live lectures will be held from Monday to Thursday from 10:10am-11am, and on Friday from 10:10am-12pm in Dwinelle 155; students are expected to attend live lectures synchronously due to the fast pace of the summer. Recordings of these sessions will be provided within 1-2 days of the lecture. Slides and lecture examples will be provided on the course website.
Labs
This course has two 2-hour labs per week, held on Mondays and Wednesdays. All students are required to attend the first lab section, on Wednesday 6/21. If you are unable to attend the first lab section, please reach out to your assigned TA once you receive your section assignment.
Weekly labs include a discussion worksheet covering recent material and a programming-based lab assignment that develops skills with computational and inferential concepts. Lab assignments will be released on Friday and Monday night each week, and are due the following Monday and Wednesday, respectively.
This summer, we are offering two lab formats: an attendance-based 30-student option called regular lab and an early submission-based option called self-service lab. The latter self-service option is only open to continuously enrolled students (2+ semesters at UC Berkeley) who have sucessfully completed both a statistics and computer science course at the university level. Additional details for enrolling in the self-service lab option will be released towards the start of the semester. Note that once the lab section signup window closes, changes between regular and self-service lab will not be permitted.
Regular Lab
Regular lab meetings are two hours long on Monday and Wednesday. The first hour focuses on the discussion worksheet and group problem solving. The second hour is dedicated to completing the programming-based lab assignment. To receive credit for lab, you must attend both parts. If you complete the lab assignment before the lab period is over and get checked off by the course staff, you may leave early and still receive credit. If you stay for the complete lab period, make significant progress on the lab assignment, and get checked off by the course staff, you will receive full credit for the lab even if you haven’t completed the whole lab assignment.
You do not need to submit your lab notebook to Gradescope. You will receive full credit for the lab assignment if you are checked off. Your GSI will only check you off if you have either finished the lab notebook or worked until the end of the lab and made substantial progress.
Regular lab sessions will not be recorded and are only offered in-person.
Self-service Lab
To enroll in the self-service lab, you must have taken both a statistics and computer science course at the university level. Additionally, you must have been enrolled at UC Berkeley for at least to semesters. This application will be released alongside the lab section preference form before the start of the term. After this form closes, changes will not be allowed.
Students in the self-service lab are expected to complete the lab on their own and submit the completed lab by 11:59 pm on the due date (Monday for labs released on Friday, and Wednesday for labs released on Monday). If you choose to submit early, you must finish the entire lab and pass all autograder tests (100% of tests passed) to receive credit. No partial credit will be awarded.
Please note that by not attending the weekly lab sections, you are missing out on a vital discussion worksheet as well as additional resources (exam prep and personalized support). Working on programming-based lab assignments in a small classroom with dedicated course staff available to help is a great way to learn. Therefore, we strongly recommend you choose option (1) and attend synchronous lab sections. In addition, extra credit can be earned through your attendance and participation in lab (described in the Grades category below).
Homework and Projects
Bi-weekly homework assignments are a required part of the course. You must complete and submit your homework independently, but you are allowed to discuss problems with other students and course staff. See the Learning Cooperatively section below.
Homeworks will be released on Tuesday and Friday, and are due that same Friday and the following Tuesday night, respectively.
Data science is about analyzing real-world data sets, and so you will also complete two projects involving real data. On each project, you may work with a single partner; your partner must be from the lab you enrolled in. Both partners will receive the same score.
If you submit a homework or project 24 hours before the deadline or earlier, you will receive 5 bonus points on that assignment.
Exams
The midterm exam will be held on Friday, July 14 from 10am-12pm PT. Please note the date and time carefully.
The final exam is required for a passing grade, and will be held on Friday, August 11 from 10am-12pm PT.
There will be no alternate exams for the midterm and the final exam for those with exam conflicts. If you have exam accommodations on file with the DSP office, they will be taken into account for both the midterm and final exams.
Grades
Grades will be assigned using the following weighted components. Every assignment is weighted equally in its category. For example, there are 2 projects, so each project is worth (20 / 2)% = 10% of your grade.
| Activity | Grade |
| Lab Credit | 10% |
| Homeworks | 20% |
| Projects | 20% |
| Midterm | 20% |
| Final | 30% |
| EPA | 2% [Extra Credit] |
In past semesters of Data 8, more than 40% of the students received grades in the A+/A/A- range and more than 35% received grades in the B+/B/B- range.
Extra Credit: Engagement, Participation and Attendance (EPA)
Extra credit participation points were created to encourage people to be good academic citizens, in a way that traditional grades could not capture. This can help boost you over a grade boundary if you’re close to one. Scoring is confidential, and your score will not be shared - please do not ask staff members any questions about this.
You may demonstrate your engagement in Data 8 through attendance and participation during live lecture, lab section, office hours, and EdStem. For example, actively asking / answering questions during lecture will help you accumulate extra points in this category. Additionally, there are several ways to engage with the course staff: lab sections, tutoring sections, and office hours. At the end of the semester, your participation in these section activities will be scored according to attendance and engagement. The best way to score full points in this section is to attend your lab section/lecture, sign up for tutoring, and make sure your TA knows your name!
The maximum number of extra credit percentage points you can accumulate throughout the semester is 2%.
Grade Bins
This semester, we will use grade bins to determine the lowest possible letter grade based on final composite scores (where each grade component is weighted according to above table). While we will not raise these bins, we may lower them. The table below contains the grade bins for this semester. For example, final composite scores between 80% (inclusive) and 90% (exclusive) will receive grades of at least B+/B/B-.
| Composite Score (%) Range | Grade Range |
| [90, 100] | A+/A/A- |
| [80, 90) | B+/B/B- |
| [65, 80) | C+/C/C- |
Regrades
Grades for Homeworks, Projects, and Labs will be posted on Gradescope after the assignment’s due date. Solutions to the assignment and common mistakes will also be posted on Ed. It is up to you to check the solutions and request a regrade request before the regrade deadline (typically 5 days after grade release). Regrade requests can be made on Gradescope. Any regrade request past the deadline will not be looked at; this is to enforce the same deadline across all students, so please do not delay in reviewing your work.
For the midterm exam, there will be a regrade request submission window. Please review the solutions and common mistakes before submitting a regrade request. Requests where a rubric item was incorrectly selected or not selected will be reviewed, but any regrade requests that ask to change the rubric or for partial credit will be ignored.
Assignments
Submitting Assignments
All assignments (homework, labs, and projects) will be submitted on Gradescope. Please refer to this tutorial for submitting assignments.
Late Submission
The deadline for all assignments in this course is 11 PM PT. Assignments submitted until 11:59 PM on the day of the deadline will not be marked as late. Homework and lab submissions after this time will not be accepted. Instructions on if you qualify, and how to request assignment extensions are on the accommodations page.
We understand that life happens. For this reason, your two lowest homework scores and two lowest lab scores will be dropped in the calculation of your overall grade. If you have an ongoing situation that prevents you from completing course content, please contact your lab TA.
Projects will be accepted up to 2 days (48 hours) late. Projects submitted fewer than 24 hours after the deadline will receive 2/3 credit, and projects submitted between 24 and 48 hours after the deadline will receive 1/3 credit. Projects submitted 48 hours or more after the deadline will receive no credit.
Assignment Extensions
Due to the fast pace of the summer offering, we are unable to offer assignment extensions for the vast majority of students. As mentioned above, you are provided two lab and homework drops for emergency situations that may come up. Only after using all your assignment drops, if you continue to encounter further emergencies beyond your control, please do not hesitate to reach out. Please fill out the Extenuating Circumstances Form, and a course staff member will reach out to you and provide a space for conversation, as well as to arrange accommodations as necessary. Note that you will be asked to provide supporting documentation, and these requests will be approved on a case-by-case basis.
Learning Cooperatively
We encourage you to discuss course content with your friends and classmates as you are working on your assignments. No matter your academic background, you will learn more if you work alongside others than if you work alone. Ask questions, answer questions, and share ideas liberally.
If some emergency takes you away from the course for an extended period, or if you decide to drop the course for any reason, please don’t just disappear silently! You should inform your lab TA and your project partner (if you have one) immediately, so that nobody is expecting you to do something you can’t finish.
Academic Honesty
You must write your answers in your own words, and you must not share your completed work. The exception to this rule is that you can share everything related to a project with your project partner (if you have one) and turn in one project between the two of you, and if you are attending a lab session and have a lab partner you can share everything related to that lab with your lab partner.
Make a serious attempt at every assignment yourself. If you get stuck, read the textbook and go over the lectures and lab discussion. After that, go ahead and discuss any remaining doubts with others, especially the course staff. That way you will get the most out of the discussion. It is important to keep in mind the limits to collaboration. As noted above, you and your friends are encouraged to discuss course content and approaches to problem solving. But you are not allowed to share your code or answers with other students. Doing so is considered academic misconduct, and it doesn’t help them either. It sets them up for trouble on upcoming assignments and on the exams.
In addition, posting course content such as homeworks, projects, and exams on any 3rd party websites or submitting your own answers on outside sites/forums is considered academic misconduct.
You are also not permitted to turn in answers or code that you have obtained from others. Not only does such copying count as academic misconduct, it circumvents the pedagogical goals of an assignment. You must solve problems with the resources made available in the course. You should never look at or have in your possession solutions from another student or another semester.
Please read Berkeley’s Code of Conduct carefully. Penalties for academic misconduct in Data 8 are severe and include reporting to the Center for Student Conduct. They might also include a F in the course or even dismissal from the university. It’s just not worth it!
When you need help, reach out to the course staff using Ed, in office hours, and/or during labs. You are not alone in Data 8! Instructors and staff are here to help you succeed. We expect that you will work with integrity and with respect for other members of the class, just as the course staff will work with integrity and with respect for you.
Finally, know that it’s normal to struggle. Berkeley has high standards, which is one of the reasons its degrees are valued. Everyone struggles even though many try not to show it. Even if you don’t learn everything that’s being covered, you’ll be able to build on what you do learn, whereas if you cheat you’ll have nothing to build on. You aren’t expected to be perfect; it’s ok not to get an A.
A Parting Thought
The main goal of the course is that you should learn, and have a fantastic experience doing so. Please keep that goal in mind throughout the semester. Welcome to Data 8!