Class Schedule

Class: Tuesday / Thursday, 1:25-2:40pm

Office Hours:

Date

Topic

Do Before Class

In Class

Thrs, Jan 11

Course Overview

Tues, Jan 16

Solving Problems by Answering Questions

Thrs, Jan 18

Stakeholder Management

Tues, Jan 23

Proscriptive v. Descriptive Questions

Thrs, Jan 25

Exploratory Questions

Tues, Jan 30

Exploratory Questions

Thrs, Feb 1

Teams 1

Tues, Feb 6

Teams 2

Thrs, Feb 8

Passive Prediction Questions

Tues, Feb 13

Passive Prediction Questions

Thrs, Feb 15

Passive Prediction Questions

Tues, Feb 20

Causal Questions

Thrs, Feb 22

Causal Questions

Exercise

Tues, Feb 27

Causal Questions

  • Cunningham, Chpt 4, pp 135 (“Independence Assumption”) - 148 (Stop at “Randomization Inference”)

  • Indicator Variables

(Note SDO (Simple Difference in Outcomes) in Cunningham same as “widehat{ATE} from class)

Optional:
  • Read Chpt 4 in Cunningham from start (different presentation of potential outcomes)

Exercise

Thrs, Feb 29

Causal Questions: Experiments

Experiments: Internal Validity (In Practice):

  • Kohvani, Tang and Xu: Chpt 2 (End to End Example)

  • Kohavi, Tang and Xu: Chpt 3, “Threats to Internal Validity” (p. 42-47)

  • Kohvani, Tang and Xu: Chpt 19 (A/A Testing)

Tues, Mar 5

Causal Questions: Experiments

Overall Evaluation Criteria: Kohavi, Tang, and Xu Chpt 7.

Finishing Internal Validity:

  • Different Randomizations: Kohavi, Tang and Xu Chpt 22

Experiments: External Validity (In Practice):

  • Kohavi, Tang and Xu, Chpt 3, “Threats to External Validity” to end (p. 47-54)

  • Kohvai, Tang and Xu, Chpt 23 (Primacy Effects / Long Term Decay)

Exercise

Thrs, Mar 7

Optional Class

Optional Class

Tues, Mar 12

NO CLASS

Thrs, Mar 14

NO CLASS

Tues, Mar 19

Causal Questions: Experiments

Designing Experiments

Power Ex

Thrs, Mar 21

Review Day

AB Testing Review

Tues, Mar 26

Causal Questions: Experiments

  • Statistical Decision Theory (on Canvas). 550-556

(This is same as IDS 705 Lecture 8 Reading)

Thrs, Mar 28

MIDTERM

MIDTERM

Tues, Apr 2

Causal Questions: Regression

Thrs, Apr 4

Causal Questions: Indicators and Fixed Effects

Tues, Apr 9

Causal Questions: Matching

  • Cunningham, Chpt 5, pp 175 (“Matching and Subclassification”) - 206 (Stop before “Propensity Score Matching”)

Thrs, Apr 11

Causal Questions: Differences and Differences / Panels

  • Cunningham, Chpt 9 pp 406 (Difference in Differences) - pp 433 (Stop at “Importance of Placebos in Diff-in-Diff”)

  • Diff-in-Diffs at Netflix

Optional but encouraged: (dont need to follow everything, but here’s a real diff-in-diff)

Tues, Apr 16

Ethics

Tues, Apr 18

EXTRAS

Stuff that didn’t make it to class

  • Adversarial Users:

Texts Referenced in Schedule: