Data Analysis Lab

Today's Plan

Today you'll use AI to do something it's genuinely good at: analyzing data. You'll pick a dataset, ask questions about it, and create artifacts: charts, reports, interactive visualizations, whatever you can get AI to produce. By the end of class, you'll share your conversation and your best artifacts.

Use ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini so you can share a link to your conversation afterward.

What to bring: Curiosity. We'll provide dataset options, or you can bring your own data.

In-Class Activity~75 min

Dataset Selection & Strategy~10 min

Partner work

Strategy Share-Out~5 min

AI-Assisted Analysis~25 min

Submission~10 min

Gallery & Discussion~20 min

Feedback~5 min

Dataset Selection & Strategy

Partner Activity

This activity involves working with a partner.

Choose a Dataset & Plan Your Analysis

Pick a dataset that interests you. You can bring your own data or choose from the options below. Then brainstorm: what questions would be interesting to answer with this data?

Illinois & University Datasets

Grey Book — Faculty and staff salaries at Illinois. Compare departments, track trends, explore pay equity.
DMI Enrollment Data — Student enrollment, demographics, major trends, persistence rates at Illinois.
Illinois Open Data — State government datasets: transportation, health, economic data, and more.
Fighting Illini Stats — Athletics data: basketball, football, historical records.

Fun General Datasets

Spotify Tracks — 160K songs with audio features (danceability, energy, tempo). How has music changed over decades?
IMDB Movies — Movie ratings, genres, trends. What makes a highly-rated film?
College Majors & Salary — Salary by major, gender gaps, employment rates. Which majors pay best?
NBA Stats — Player performance, game outcomes, salary analysis.

Or bring your own data — survey results, personal projects, data from another class. AI can work with CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, pasted tables, or even data you describe verbally.

With your partner: Discuss which dataset you'll each use and brainstorm 3 questions you want to answer.

Strategy Share-Out

Let's see what everyone is planning to explore.

AI-Assisted Analysis

Analyze Your Data with AI

Work individually with AI. Upload your dataset (or describe it) and start exploring your questions.

Getting started:

Open ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini
Start a new conversation (you'll share the link later)
Upload your dataset file or paste your data
Ask your first analysis question

Tips for effective data analysis with AI:

Be specific: "Show me salary trends by college from 2015-2025" is better than "analyze this data"
Iterate: Your first chart won't be your best. Ask AI to adjust colors, labels, scales, or try a different chart type
Ask "why": When AI shows you a pattern, ask it to explain what might cause it
Be skeptical: AI can produce charts that look good but misrepresent the data. Check that axes, labels, and scales make sense
Try different angles: If one question isn't interesting, pivot to another
Push for artifacts: Ask AI to create charts, graphs, reports, tables, interactive visualizations, or anything else that communicates your findings. Claude's artifacts feature and ChatGPT's code interpreter are particularly good at this.

Save your best artifacts (screenshots, downloads, links) — you'll submit them in the next stage.

Submission

Share Your Work

Create a share link to your AI conversation and submit your best artifacts.

Share link instructions:

ChatGPT: Click the share button → "Create link"
Claude: Click the share button → "Create link"
Gemini: Click the share button → "Share"

Artifacts are anything AI helped you create: charts, graphs, tables, reports, interactive visualizations, data summaries. Screenshot them, download them, or paste links to Claude artifacts or ChatGPT canvas outputs.

Your artifacts and conversation links may be shared publicly as examples of AI-assisted data analysis. Let Geoff know if you'd prefer yours not be shared.

Gallery & Discussion

Gallery

Let's see what everyone found. Geoff will show artifacts and ask a few students to walk us through their analysis.

Class Gallery (0)

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