This course explores the world of complex data analytics: information systems that are able to analyze big data and transform these restless streams of data into insight, decisions, and action. Complex analytics focuses on how we extract the data from a complex system – such as a financial market, a transport network or a social network – and process that into meaningful patterns and actionable insights.
Big Data
After starting the course with an overview to the subject we will look at the emergence of big data and the expanding universe of dark data; we talk about the ongoing process of datafication, the quantification of more and more aspects of our lives and the many issues that it brings with respect to privacy.
Advanced Algorithms
In the second section, we will talk about the rise of algorithms as they are coming to effect ever more spheres of our world. We will introduce you to the workings of machine learning systems and the different approaches used, we go more in-depth on neural networks and deep learning before assessing the limitations of algorithms.
Smart Systems
The third section is dedicated to smart systems, as the convergence of machine learning with the internet of things is beginning to populate our world with systems that exhibit adaptive and responsive behavior, which are autonomous and can interact with humans in a natural way. Here we look at cyber-physical systems, smart platforms, and autonomous systems before discussing security issues.
Data-Driven Organizations
The final section deals with the relationship between people and technology and the emergence of a new form of analytics and data-driven networked organization. We talk about the fundamental distinction between synthetic and analytical reasoning as a way of understanding the distinction between digital computation and human reasoning and as a means for interpreting the rapidly evolving relationship between the two. This is not a technical course where you will learn the details of data modeling or how to build machine learning systems. What it does provide is an overview of this very exciting and important new area that will be of relevance to almost all domains, researchers, engineers and designers, businesses and the general public alike. The course aims to be a comprehensive overview of complex analytics, it aims to be inclusive in scope. We try to provide an understanding of the context to these major technological developments; a conceptual understanding of the methods and approaches of big data modeling and analysis; an overview to the underlying technology and address the issues and consequences, both positive and negative, of such technological developments.
