Data Systems Data Page

Example Course Structure

Denison Courses

In the Data Systems course at Denison University, we use Jupyter iPython notebooks as the primary programming environment. These are used for homework assignments, for practicum activities, and for the starting point to set up in-class activities engaging the students. Examples of the notebooks, both in source form and converted to HTML, are available on this page.

To simplify delivery of material to students, expecially given the dependencies between the homework and class notebooks and the associated data files, we use a read-only GitHub repository for the students. Here, all the materials are gathered and organized in a structure that satisfies the needed dependencies. Before starting a class with an activity or before beginning a homework, students simply perform a "git pull" to obtain updated materials.

In this section, we present the structural context for two of our most recent instances of the course. We provide links to public versions of the student repository as well as to 14-week class schedules and planning.

Data Systems Course, Spring 20

GitHub Repository, Spring 20

In this instance of our Data Systems class, one objective was to interleave and integrate data forms and data sources earlier in the semester. So instead of leaving chapters from Part III of the book to the end, we moved them up. In particular, after units on foundations and the tabular model (using local files), we then covered the relational model, and had a focus on remote databases and queries over the network. We then moved on to networking and HTTP, and then went back and covered the hierarchical model, using XML and JSON acquired over the network.

The link in this section leads to a Google Spreadsheet that was a live document, updated through the semester, and containing the daily topics and coverage.

Data Systems Course, Fall 20

GitHub Repository, Fall 20

In this semester, due to hybrid learning models and pandemic requirements, we strove for flexibility. We started the semester with a high level set of goals per week. Then through the semester, we generated week by week plans to target the given goals. We give here links to the overall schedule, as well as to the plans per week in the expansion in this seciton.

Week 01 (html)
Week 02 (html)
Week 03 (html)
Week 04 (html)
Week 05 (html)
Week 06 (html)
Week 07 (html)
Week 08 (html)
Week 09 (html)
Week 10 (html)
Week 11 (html)
Week 12 (html)
Week 13 (html)
Week 14 (html)

Homework Notebook Examples

Notebook	HTML
00-algorithm.ipynb	00-algorithm.html
00-functions.ipynb	00-functions.html
00-listbasic.ipynb	00-listbasic.html
02-filebasic.ipynb	02-filebasic.html
02-fileproc.ipynb	02-fileproc.html
03-dictionaries.ipynb	03-dictionaries.html
03-DoLandLoL.ipynb	03-DoLandLoL.html
03-functions.ipynb	03-functions.html
03-listcomp.ipynb	03-listcomp.html
03-LoD.ipynb	03-LoD.html
03-patterns.ipynb	03-patterns.html
07-access.ipynb	07-access.html
08-agg_group.ipynb	08-agg_group.html
08-combine.ipynb	08-combine.html
08-operations.ipynb	08-operations.html
09-normalize.ipynb	09-normalize.html
09-transform.ipynb	09-transform.html

Notebook	HTML
11-column_ops.ipynb	11-column_ops.html
11-groupby.ipynb	11-groupby.html
11-single1.ipynb	11-single1.html
12-mult_groupby.ipynb	12-mult_groupby.html
12-mult_table.ipynb	12-mult_table.html
13-dbprog.ipynb	13-dbprog.html
15-json.ipynb	15-json.html
15-xml_startup.ipynb	15-xml_startup.html
16-xml_operations.ipynb	16-xml_operations.html
16-xpath.ipynb	16-xpath.html
19-networking.ipynb	19-networking.html
20-http_intro.ipynb	20-http_intro.html
20-requests.ipynb	20-requests.html
21-encoding.ipynb	21-encoding.html
21-files_http.ipynb	21-files_http.html
22-webscrape.ipynb	22-webscrape.html

Class Activity Notebook Examples

Notebook
00-tableau.ipynb (html)
03-DoL_LoL.ipynb (html)
03-functions.ipynb (html)
03-native.ipynb (html)
03-topnames.ipynb (html)
06-tidy_intro.ipynb (html)
07-access1.ipynb (html)
07-access2.ipynb (html)
07-access3.ipynb (html)
07-tabaccess.ipynb (html)
08-agggroup.ipynb (html)
08-combine.ipynb (html)

Notebook
09-tidynormal.ipynb (html)
09-transform1.ipynb (html)
09-transform2.ipynb (html)
10-sql_start.ipynb (html)
11-queries.ipynb (html)
12-advanced.ipynb (html)
12-mult_join.ipynb (html)
13-dbprog.ipynb (html)
14-dbcreate.ipynb (html)
15-joins.ipynb (html)
16-json.ipynb (html)
16-xpath1.ipynb (html)

Notebook
16-xpath2.ipynb (html)
16-xpath3.ipynb (html)
20-http1.ipynb (html)
20-http2.ipynb (html)
21-dataclient.ipynb (html)
22-webscrape.ipynb (html)
23-kiva.ipynb (html)
23-tmdb1.ipynb (html)
23-tmdb2.ipynb (html)
24-github.ipynb (html)
24-spotify.ipynb (html)

Custom Software

Module	Description
dbutil.py	Collection of utility functions for use with database connection setup. Used in some of the exercise and class activity notebooks.
mysocket.py	Set of functions as a thin wrapper over the socket interface, used in the textbook, exercise, and class activity notebooks.
util.py	Set of functions to enable flexible exploration of (primarily) hierarchical data to ease discovery and understanding of structure.
modules.zip	Compressed ZIP archive of the above three modules.