WEEK 2: Data Collection & Organization Fundamentals

Data Collection, Cleaning, and Organization

Details/Subtopics:

• Types of dairy data: continuous vs. categorical, time-series, event-based
• Data quality: accuracy, completeness, consistency
• Introduction to Excel/spreadsheet organization
• Basic data cleaning techniques

Activities/Tasks

• Lecture (1/27): Principles of data collection, Visualization
• Lecture (1/29): Data cleaning workflows and common issues in farm data
• Lab (1/29):
  • Hands-on: Clean a “messy” CURC dataset (provided with intentional errors)
  • Practice Excel functions for data organization
  • Identify data quality issues and document cleaning steps

Due Dates:

• Lab worksheet on data cleaning (due start of Week 3)

Datasets/Resources:

• Sample CURC dataset with quality issues, Excel templates