What one card scan tells a shop
You pay for a drink and scan your loyalty card. The till stores one small row: your card number, the item, the shop and the day.
One row is tiny. Now picture millions of rows from thousands of shops, every day. Patterns appear that no person could see by reading. That is big data (data too large or fast for normal tools).
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can name sources of big data and say how an organisation uses each one.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Big data | data so large, fast or varied that normal tools cannot handle it |
| Source | the place data comes from |
| Personal data | any data that can point to a living person |
| Consent | a person freely agreeing to how their data is used |
| Loyalty card | a card a shop gives you to collect points |
| Bias | data or results that treat some people unfairly |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
What makes data big
Big data is not just a lot of rows. People describe it with three words that start with V.
Volume is how much data there is. Velocity is how fast new data arrives. Variety is how many forms it takes: numbers, text, photos, video and sound. Organisations use computers and special software to store and study it.
The three Vs
| Word | Question it answers | Everyday example |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | How much? | Every purchase in every shop in a year |
| Velocity | How fast? | Thousands of game moves each second |
| Variety | What forms? | Likes, photos, maps and spoken words |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.