Data science is the study of data. It involves developing methods of recording, storing, and analyzing data to effectively extract useful information. The goal of data science is to gain insights and knowledge from any type of data — both structured and unstructured.
Data science is related to computer science, but is a separate field. Computer science involves creating programs and algorithms to record and process data, while data science covers any type of data analysis, which may or may not use computers. Data science is more closely related to the mathematics field of Statistics, which includes the collection, organization, analysis, and presentation of data.
Because of the large amounts of data modern companies and organizations maintain, data science has become an integral part of IT. For example, a company that has petabytes of user data may use data science to develop effective ways to store, manage, and analyze the data. The company may use the scientific method to run tests and extract results that can provide meaningful insights about their users.
Data Science vs Data Mining
Data science is often confused with data mining. However, data mining is a subset of data science. It involves analyzing large amounts of data (such as big data) in order to discover patterns and other useful information. Data science covers the entire scope of data collection and processing.
