COMM5007 Coding for Business

Group Assignment

Term 3, 2024

1. Overview

This group assignment covers materials in Weeks 1 to 7. It accounts for 30% of the final grade in COMM5007 Coding for Business.

You must present your findings in the form. of a written report and a pitch presentation, together with your Jupyter notebook(s).

.    The assignment is to be undertaken in groups of FOUR [4] or FIVE [5], and all team members must come from the same lab/tutorial.

.     In this assignment, you would use the data analytics knowledge you gain from the lectures, labs/tutorials, and class exercises to develop your solution(s).

.    The group will be awarded a group mark as a baseline mark. This baseline mark may or may not be adjusted for the individual group members based on the (optional) within-group peer  review.

. Tips based on previous experience:

•     Start immediately after group formation.

•     Keep backup copies of all your work.

•     Hold group meetings at least once, better twice, per week.

•     Define roles and responsibilities within the team, especially you will need a project leader/group co-ordinator for handling submissions, scheduling meetings, etc.

2. Key Dates

What?                                      When?

Group Formation                       Groups of 4 or 5; Week 4 Lab – The team leader emails your tutor with all teammates’ names and zIDs

Assignment Due                        Week 10 Friday 15th Nov 2024, 3:00 pm (AEST) – Submit the written report, Jupyter Notebook(s), and presentation slide deck via Moodle (Submission details are shown in Section 3)

Pitch Presentation                      Week 10 Lab (presentation in class followed by Q&A)

3. Project Description

You are a group of new hires in an analytics team. You just greeted your team manager Alice on your first day. She asked you to investigate a dataset, prepare a report, and present key findings to an audience with NO technical background. You can make a sensible hypothetical context for the given dataset. For example, your organisation could be a consulting firm and your audience could be senior officials in the Transport for New South Wales (NSW), NSW Police, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, or another related organisation.

3.1. Dataset

You can choose ONE (1) of the provided data sets as the main data set. You can find supplementary data sets online that are related to the main data set, to further your research. But the main data set is what you are asked to investigate thoroughly.

Dataset 1 – NSW Crash Data

The “data-manual-static-for-open-data-20211020” shows the data dictionary of attributes

(and values) in the dataset “nsw_road_crash_data_2018-2022_crash” . You can find both files on Moodle.

Dataset 2 – NSW Freight Data

The “tpa-dg-data-dictionary-sfm” shows the data dictionary of attributes (and values) in the dataset “sfm-dataset-nov-2019_2” . You can find both files on Moodle.

Remark 1: If some attributes do not appear in the data dictionary, you should do further research or make reasonable assumptions.

Remark 2: You can find these two datasets from Open Data Transport for NSW, where you need to register an account in order to download the data.

3.2. Analysis Approach

To help you better approach the analysis, let’s use Sydney’s real estate transaction data from CoreLogic as an example. This is just for illustration.

Dataset: https://www.corelogic.com.au/our-data/recent-sales Sensible questions could be:

-     How do sales volumes in the entire Sydney vary seasonally and annually?

-      How has price growth been in different neighbourhoods in the past year?

-     What is the level of affordability among Sydney residents? (additional data on household income distribution would be needed)

To address these questions, we need to decide on which visualization serves the purpose, e.g., histograms, scatter plots, box plots, etc. With all the plots, we then need to tell an interesting and cohesive data story. This needs to be tailored to the audience. The two contexts below would have very different analyses:

-     You are the analytics team within a property agency in Sydney and are pitching to foreign buyers.

-     You are the analytics team within the NSW government and are reporting to senior government officials about property market and affordability.

Remark: Data visualization is not the main purpose of this course, however one of the main purposes to learn Python in Business School is to perform. data analysis using visualization techniques. Hence this assignment is to allow students to apply coding to data analysis and storytelling.

To guide your analysis, you should define a proper analytical approach (e.g., For the Sydney housing market question framed above, you would need to define “sales volume changes” or “average sales volume” as the variable you need to analyse). In addition, you should include  basic descriptive statistics, e.g., average and median, to provide a general pattern of the data. Finally, you should visualize the data by using the data visualization techniques, and present intuitive business insights, and how these insights can help make better business decisions.

3.3. Requirements for the Report

The written report accounts for 75% of this Group Assignment.

.    UNSW Coversheet. Submit your assignment with a signed coversheet of all group members. (Note: Typed signatures are allowed.) Failure to include the UNSW coversheet with signatures will lead to a penalty of 5% of the awarded marks, and no marks will be released until the coversheet is received.

.    Length. The total length of the report must not exceed 2,000 words (excluding the cover page, table of contents, abstract/executive summary, Python code, reference  list, and appendix). You can stay well below this limit.

.    Table of Contents. Should not exceed one page, restricted to two levels of headline.

.     Format. The style/format of the report can be as you find it appropriate and useful. You should use headings, sub-headings, bullet points, diagrams, and tables as

appropriate. The file format of the report is only Microsoft Word.

.    ZIP File. The ZIP file should contain all Python code of the project. The Python

code must be stored in one or more Jupyter Notebooks that must be able to run

without any bug/error. The submitted code can replicate all results such as

visualisation, descriptive statistics and others that presented in the Report and Pitch.

.    References. References and citations (if any) should follow either the UNSW (Harvard) or the APA 7th  citation style. standard.

.    File Naming. The files should be “GroupName_Report”.DOCX (e.g.,

T09AG2_Report.docx) and “GroupName_Code”.ZIP (e.g., T09AG2_Code.zip). The group name includes your lab session code. Please refer to Moodle and confirm with your tutor to get your complete correct GroupName.

.    Only one submission per group. The Team Leader (or a delegated person) will    submit the report and the code through Turnitin on Moodle. Failure to comply will lead to a penalty of 5% of the awarded marks.

.     Your report should be written in clear and simple language suitable for an audience with NO technical background.

.     Words within figures are NOT included in the word count.

.     Text inserted as pictures will NOT be marked. Only figures can be inserted as pictures.

.     Figures and tables should be appropriately labelled.

.     Your language should be free of bias, including but not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability.

3.3. A 15-minute Presentation

The presentation/pitch accounts for 25% of this Group Assignment.

This presentation is your opportunity to engage directly with the audience and present them with the most relevant information. To complete a successful pitch, your team will need to:

.     Present your pitch to the audience (no technical background).

.     Answer questions that raised from the audience.

You will need to submit your pitch deck as a PowerPoint presentation through Turnitin on

Moodle. The file name should be GroupName_Pitch.PPTX, e.g., T09AG2_Pitch.pptx.

Requirements for your pitch deck and presentation:

.     You must address your proposed research question(s).

.     You need to transform. your problem into analytics.

.     Your pitch deck must contain all critical information required to support your recommendations.

.     You must assume that some of your audience may NOT have the time to read through your written report and will therefore rely solely on the pitch deck and your pitch to  make a decision.

.     You can reuse as many or as little contents from your report in your pitch deck.

.     You have the flexibility to decide what would be the best in this scenario.

.     Overall, your pitch deck and the presentation should be concise, logical, and professional.

Any content beyond the 15-minute mark for the pitch presentation will NOT be assessed. After the presentation, you should expect a maximum 5-minute Q&A from your tutor and cohort. At least two team members have to present in this pitch, but team members who are not presenting should still help in the preparation.

Note: All team members must be present during the  Week 10 Lab/Tutorial to participate in

Q&A. The presentation will be assessed in  Week 10 Lab/Tutorial under exam conditions, i.e., students who do not attend, will not receive the presentation/pitch mark.

4. Marking Criteria for Report

Criterion                                                                         %              Questions to be asked by the marker

Executive summary, problem statement and data             10

 Does the report clearly and precisely describe the business problem(s) or question(s) that you are seeking to answer, including your methods/tools, your conclusions/results, and your recommendations?

 Does the report appropriately introduce the dataset, its source, and limitations?

Data visualization and analysis                                        35

 Is data correctly imported and processed?

 Is data enough to support the analysis?

 Are the visualizations clear and appropriate?

 Does the analysis provide detailed and insightful interpretations of each visualisation?

 Is the analysis clear, organized, and effectively communicating the findings?

 Are visualizations effective, comprehensive, and supportive in the defined context?

Coding, flowchart, and conclusions                                   30

 Are the codes well-structured?

 Are codes efficient, concise, and properly documented?

 Can the flowchart clearly and correctly inform. the whole analysis process?

 Are questions in the problem statement clearly answered?

 Are the results correctly interpreted?

 Can the data analysis and methods effectively support the conclusions and recommendations?

5. Marking Criteria for Pitch Presentation

Criterion                                                                         %                      Questions to be asked by the marker

Completeness and appropriateness of the project             10

 Does the presentation fulfill the required structure of the assignment within the time constraints?

 Is the audience engaged by the presentation?

 Are the presentation slides free from spelling and grammatical errors?

 Is a professional style. (e.g., bullet points) applied consistently throughout the presentation?

Quality of the oral presentation of the report                       10

 Is the language used appropriate?

 Is the presentation clear?

 Does the presentation have a moderated speed?

Group work                                                                    5

6. Diaries and Reflection (Optional)

An important part of a project is to record and to evaluate the teamwork. The purpose of the diary is to reflect and learn from the project, in addition to achieving the project’s aims in a narrow sense. The project requires that each team member should keep a personal diary, and the group should keep a group diary (diaries might be asked for in cases of disputes) and   that the group includes a critical reflection in their report.

Individual Diary: You, as an individual member of a group, are required to keep a diary of your work activities. The individual dairy should record your work on the assignment and should note details such as what you did and when you did it. You may also record meeting notes in the diary. The individual diary is NOT to be submitted with the assignment and will NOT be marked. The individual diary may be consulted by the LiC/Lecturer in case of group disputes. Failure to produce an individual diary on request by the LiC/Lecturer will be taken as evidence for a lack of a structured effort in the project.

Group Diary: Your group’s dairy must record all the activities that take place in completing the assignment. The group diary is NOT to be submitted with the assignment and will NOT be marked. The group diary may be consulted by the LiC/Lecturer in case of group disputes. The  format of your group’s diary is up to you, but it must record the following details for each    group activity:

.    The Group Leader is responsible for keeping the group diary unless other

arrangements are made within the group.

.     Record what the activity  (meetings, work)  entailed.

.     Record location, time, date,  and duration of a group activity.

.     Record who was present at the activity.

.    For “next actions”:  Specify who is doing what by when.

.     Signatures  of all  members, or other suitable  forms of demonstrating that all

members  have seen and approved meeting minutes and other records in the group diary.

7. Within-Group Peer Review (Optional)

In general, equal contribution of group members is expected. Significantly unequal contributions should be discussed in due time within the group. In the case that a dispute emerges, the group needs to discuss with the LiC. At the end of the assignment period, you need to perform a within-group peer review to evaluate the contribution of all group members (including yourself) to the group project. The purpose of the within-group peer review is to critically reflect on the group work, to prevent “free-riding” and to redistribute marks between group members in cases where free-riding or unequal contributions occur. Claims of unequal contributions, especially if contradicting the evaluation of others, will need to be substantiated with evidence, e.g., group diary, personal diary, meeting notes, emails, Facebook messages, Line messages, messages, WhatsApp messages, etc. The LiC will make a final judgement in the case that a dispute emerges by calling in the group and/or considering earlier discussions and submitted evidence.