This three-day course will be held March 16–18, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST each day.
There is a growing demand from public and private policymakers and funders to apply big data science and machine learning for evaluation. The demand is growing due to public awareness of how the private sector uses machine learning algorithms to create on-demand tools that cost-effectively augment planning, assessment, prediction, and decision-making. Government agencies like the National Science Foundation are using big data science and machine learning to evaluate their impact. When applied correctly, machine learning algorithms can reduce the cost and time of conducting evaluations.In this introductory course, participants will learn the fundamentals of integrating machine learning algorithms of big data science into their evaluation approach. The course will guide participants through building evaluation models using datasets and introduce algorithms for data modeling. The course will use an open-source, no-cost, no-code visual-based analytics platform – KNIME – and will introduce participants to its analytic tools and machine learning algorithms.