Overview

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The Capstone project will allow you to continue to apply and refine the data analytic techniques learned from the previous courses in the Specialization to address an important issue in society. You will use real world data to complete a project with our industry and academic partners. For example, you can work with our industry partner, DRIVENDATA, to help them solve some of the world's biggest social challenges! DRIVENDATA at www.drivendata.org, is committed to bringing cutting-edge practices in data science and crowdsourcing to some of the world's biggest social challenges and the organizations taking them on. Or, you can work with our other industry partner, The Connection (www.theconnectioninc.org) to help them better understand recidivism risk for people on parole seeking substance use treatment. For more than 40 years, The Connection has been one of Connecticut’s leading private, nonprofit human service and community development agencies. Each month, thousands of people are assisted by The Connection’s diverse behavioral health, family support and community justice programs. The Connection’s Institute for Innovative Practice was created in 2010 to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners in the behavioral health and criminal justice fields with the goal of developing maximally effective, evidence-based treatment programs. A major component of the Capstone project is for you to be able to choose the information from your analyses that best conveys results and implications, and to tell a compelling story with this information. By the end of the course, you will have a professional quality report of your findings that can be shown to colleagues and potential employers to demonstrate the skills you learned by completing the Specialization.

Syllabus

Module 1. Identify Your Data and Research Question

In this Module, your goal is to review the lectures and readings in the Overview of the Capstone Project, and 1) decide which data set you will use to complete your capstone project. In addition 2) identify your research question, 3) propose a title for your final report, and 4) complete Milestone Assignment 1 as described in the assignment. By the end of this Module you will have drafted a final report Title and Introduction to the Research Question. Your Introduction to the Research Question should include a statement of your research question, your motivation or rationale for testing the research question, and some potential implications of answering your research question.

Module 2. Data Management

In this Module, your goals are to 1) complete the majority of your data management so that you are ready to begin your preliminary statistical analyses; and 2) complete Milestone Assignment 2 as described in the assignment. By the end of this Module you will have drafted a final report Methods section. Your Methods section should include a description of your sample, measures, and the analyses you plan to use to test your research question.

Module 3. Exploratory Data Analysis

In this Module, your goals are to 1) explore your data more extensively through descriptive and basic statistical analyses and data visualization; and 2) complete Milestone Assignment 3 as described in the Assignment. By the end of this module, you will have begun to draft your final report Results section, including some figures.

Complete Your Final Report

In this Module, you 1) will complete your analyses; 2) finish writing your final report, and 3) submit your completed Final Report as the fourth and final assignment. A complete description of what is required for your final report and a detailed grading rubric can be found with the assignment; a sample final report is provided with the materials in the first module.