Refreshing and expanding Masters students’ programming and data visualisation skills
As the value of data science skills becomes more apparent to both students and faculty within a wider range of disciplines and settings, so does the need for institutions to respond this demand via their teaching programmes. One such programme aiming to provide multidisciplinary training in this area is the Master in Data Science provided by the University of Trento.
Earlier this year, Professor Giuseppe A. Veltri, Associate Professor in Research Methodology & Cognitive Sociology at the University of Trento, used two SAGE Campus online courses to both refresh and expand the skills of his Masters students: Introduction to R for Social Scientists and Introduction to Data Visualisation. Giuseppe described his experience of using the courses and the motivations behind his decision.
Interdisciplinary students had varied programming abilities
Giuseppe teaches a computational social science (CSS) course as part of the two-year interdisciplinary Master's degree. The students on this course come from a variety of academic backgrounds, including the social sciences, biology, computer science, economics and humanities – meaning some are more technologically savvy than others.
Although students are required to have some basic R knowledge in order to meet the course prerequisites, their experience can vary widely and some students lacked confidence in using the programming language. Gaps in their knowledge can become apparent when they reach more advanced levels of analysis during the course. Giuseppe told us, ‘R is easy to forget’, so he needed a resource that his students could refer to in order to refresh their knowledge.
In addition to the R programming skill requirements, students on the CSS course benefit from being able to visualise their data, but the course does not include data visualisation training in its curriculum. Giuseppe, therefore, was interested in his students having access to complementary learning material as
‘data visualisation is essential for social scientists because they are usually those that most interact with a lay audience’.
Resources needed to be on the university’s Learning Management System (LMS)
Giuseppe had tried R and data visualisation courses from other online course providers to solve this challenge, but one drawback to these was that learners had to go to the platform of the course provider. This directed students away from the Trento’s LMS where all the other course resources and assets were. Furthermore, this meant Giuseppe couldn’t see data on his students, which was a key differentiator for him.
SAGE Campus courses as revision and complementary material
The SAGE quality and the option to integrate the courses on his institution’s LMS were key aspects that motivated Giuseppe to use the two SAGE Campus courses with his students. He used the courses in Moodle, noting the implementation went smoothly.
As his students were already familiar with R, the Introduction to R course was used as a revision tool. It was provided as supplementary training to support the teaching that Giuseppe delivered on the CSS course. The purpose was to enable students to move from abstract learning to being able to solve concrete problems. Specifically, Giuseppe wanted the students to be able to have a better interaction with problems in his class.
In terms of the Introduction to Data Visualisation course, his students hadn’t been exposed to this type of training previously, so it was offered as complementary material. Giuseppe told us that he could see lots of potential for integrating the course with his existing learning material.
Unlocking the full benefits of SAGE Campus
Feedback from the students who took the courses was very positive. All the students felt that both courses taught them skills or knowledge that they will be able to use their research and they would all recommend the courses to others. Additionally, all the students told us that they would like their institution to make other SAGE Campus courses available to them in the future. One student commented, ‘they’re very good for revision and for refreshing your knowledge.’
Giuseppe told us that his students particularly enjoyed the activities in the data visualisation course and he felt that the R course, ‘is neatly organized’. He found that the students that used the material were quite engaged and that they seemed to really like the courses overall.
In order to get the full benefit of the great content in future, Giuseppe believes that the best way to use the courses would be to provide them as pre-module reading for his class as well as for revision later on.
If you or your institution is interested in using online courses as pre-module reading, revision or complementary material for students, check out our offering for groups.