This week is all about spreadsheets and how people manage to mess them up. I have some direct knowledge of the major effect that having a spreadsheet as your main source of information and of using a spreadsheet inappropriately can have so I am very careful whenever I use them. I am a big user of Excel. For my last business, I used it as my main accounts package. This worked for a few reasons particular to me:
24 years in banking and having completed a big proportion of the Institute of Banker's exams so I have a deep knowledge of accounts management
30 years experience in programming at "mission critical" levels
30 years of using spreadsheets in a wide variety of situations (starting with Lotus 1-2-3 in 1985!)
These have ensured that, when I create a spreadsheet, I always incorporate cross checking features that highlight any numeric inaccuracies.
I found that the course work took a very short time to complete which has enabled me to concentrate on the TMA. I want to have this assignment nailed before the break coming up. It is my birthday during the break week so I am hoping to enjoy the rest and not to have to play catch-up.
Now to the TMA. I am concerned that I have nothing to judge my written performance against. Most here will have completed, what I know as, foundation courses recently. These will have eased the student into writing TMAs in a gentle way. My last assignment for the OU was written in 1980. Since then, I have spent my time writing specifications, code and manuals - none of which is a help in writing 300 words on ‘Is facial recognition tech really a threat to privacy?’ . I have no idea as to whether what I write is in the right format, worded correctly, is too detailed or too trivial. I know that I have an aversion to using "clever" words so this may be my downfall.
Anyway, I have completed the written work up to question 3b and the notebook up to question 4a. Some of the notebook questions don't quite correspond to my code output. As an example, there is a comment -
# A quick inspection shows that we have one spurious row at the end the DataFrame.
# (The original spreadsheet has an entirely blank line after the Clinical Senate rows.)
Well, I have a blank line there in the spreadsheet itself but it doesn't appear in my dataframe! I took the point of view that I would just comment on this and not worry about it. Later, this appears:
# Finally remove the spurious space at the end of the 'One ' column name.
# Enter your code here.
I don't have that space so I have placed a comment in the box saying:
# I don't have a space at the end of the 'One' column name
I am hoping that this won't cost me any points. I have just the data visualisation part of the notebook and questions 5 & 6 to complete before 7th April so I should be OK. Given that we have only just got the course work for week 8 and there is no sign of anything further yet, I guess that I will have to hope that I can stay one week ahead.
Week 6 - Spreadsheets and TMAs
This week is all about spreadsheets and how people manage to mess them up. I have some direct knowledge of the major effect that having a spreadsheet as your main source of information and of using a spreadsheet inappropriately can have so I am very careful whenever I use them. I am a big user of Excel. For my last business, I used it as my main accounts package. This worked for a few reasons particular to me:
These have ensured that, when I create a spreadsheet, I always incorporate cross checking features that highlight any numeric inaccuracies.
I found that the course work took a very short time to complete which has enabled me to concentrate on the TMA. I want to have this assignment nailed before the break coming up. It is my birthday during the break week so I am hoping to enjoy the rest and not to have to play catch-up.
Now to the TMA. I am concerned that I have nothing to judge my written performance against. Most here will have completed, what I know as, foundation courses recently. These will have eased the student into writing TMAs in a gentle way. My last assignment for the OU was written in 1980. Since then, I have spent my time writing specifications, code and manuals - none of which is a help in writing 300 words on ‘Is facial recognition tech really a threat to privacy?’ . I have no idea as to whether what I write is in the right format, worded correctly, is too detailed or too trivial. I know that I have an aversion to using "clever" words so this may be my downfall.
Anyway, I have completed the written work up to question 3b and the notebook up to question 4a. Some of the notebook questions don't quite correspond to my code output. As an example, there is a comment -
# A quick inspection shows that we have one spurious row at the end the DataFrame.
# (The original spreadsheet has an entirely blank line after the Clinical Senate rows.)
Well, I have a blank line there in the spreadsheet itself but it doesn't appear in my dataframe! I took the point of view that I would just comment on this and not worry about it. Later, this appears:
# Finally remove the spurious space at the end of the 'One ' column name.
# Enter your code here.
I don't have that space so I have placed a comment in the box saying:
# I don't have a space at the end of the 'One' column name
I am hoping that this won't cost me any points. I have just the data visualisation part of the notebook and questions 5 & 6 to complete before 7th April so I should be OK. Given that we have only just got the course work for week 8 and there is no sign of anything further yet, I guess that I will have to hope that I can stay one week ahead.