Guide to the Unit 3/4 Informatics SAT

[technodisney]

Hey everyone, welcome to my summarised guide on creating an Informatics SAC. The SAT is a significantly large and somewhat ridiculous project so I hope it's helpful for some of you. Included are basic structure tips, research methods and tools.

A big thanks to @Poet for taking the time to proofread this for me.

I completed Informatics in 2018 and I found this SAT exhausting and a lot of hard work, but worth it in the end as I was analysing a topic I was passionate about.
I achieved a 36 raw study score in 2019 and got top marks for almost every section of the SAT.

When I refer to different criteria, I am citing various requirements in this VCAA document.

Format of the SAT

Spoiler

The SAT is an overwhelmingly big task that takes half of the year to complete. It is broken down into two sections; analysis and design. In the first half you must pick a topic to research and gather data on, analyse the data and come to a conclusion and in the second half you design a website, build a website and then analyse how well the website you built meets your needs.

The approximate order you do everything in is as follows:

1. Analysis
      i. create a GANT chart
      ii. come up with a hypothesis including scope and constraints
      iii. gather data
      iv. validate data
      v. analyse data
      vi. come to a conclusion
2. Design
      i. come up with design ideas
      ii. pick a design idea and flesh it out
      iii. build your website
      iv. analyse how your website meets your requirements
      v. analyse your GANT chart

Part 1 Analysis (Unit 3)
Create a GANT Chart

Spoiler

This is the most important part of the SAT. A GANT chart is a timeline for the entire SAT and it really helps if you have a clear idea of each task that you need to complete. This is vital for keeping you on track throughout the entire SAT.

You need to use Microsoft Excel to lay out the timeline of the project, what each task is and how long it will take.

Below are included the basic steps to include when creating a GANT chart for this SAT. Feel free to use this as a template if you find you are struggling with this step.

Steps for GANT Chart

Analysis
    Create Project plan
    Formulate Hypothesis
    Identify Scope and Constraints
    Gather Data
    Validate and Reference Data
    Organise and Manipulate Data
    Write Analysis Report
    End of Analysis Stage
Design
    Produce 2-3 design ideas
    Prepare evaluation Criteria
    Design preferred Solution
    Designs Finished
Development
    Create new MMOS
    Create Navigation
    Import and Format Content on each page
    Check MMOS for effectiveness
    MMOS is complete
Evaluation
    Prepare Evaluation Criteria
    Prepare Evaluation report for MMOS
    Prepare evaluation report for project plan
    SAT Finished

Some tips:
Give each task in the project a number
List any prerequisite tasks (task 1 before task 2, task 2 before task 3, etc.)
Show the week number and the date the week starts at the top.
Include a comment section for annotations
Color code the GANT chart to indicate what needs to be done
Make sure you regularly update the GANT chart throughout the SAT noting any changes and the reason for the change

Here is my GANT chart. Feel free to use it as a template

Come up with a hypothesis including scope and constraints

Spoiler

For me this was probably the absolute easiest part of the entire SAT. I already had in mind what I would like to research and test last year when I found out about the SAT so I didn't have to do much brainstorming.
If you are having trouble working out what hypothesis you would like to research, just think of a topic that interests you. Whether it be video games, sport, books, technology or anything else, try to come up with some ideas on an aspect you would like to test or how two or more popular things in that topic compare.
Some examples from people in my class were to do with women representation in sport, theme park wait times increasing (me), availability of baby formula and a comparison of PUBG and Fortnite. You can really do it on anything as long as you are able to source some data on that topic.

Your hypothesis should be worded in this format 'independant variable causes a dependant variable because of this reason'.
For example my hypothesis was "After the introduction of the Fastpass + Attraction reservation system at Walt Disney World guests satisfaction has decreased because it has caused overall wait times to increase."
You must have a reason at the end and you need to be able to make sure you can actually test whether or not the hypothesis is true and whether or not it is because of your reason.

Constraints are the restrictions you must abide by that you have no control over. For constraints you must list your constraints and give a brief explanation of the reasons behind each constraint.
The way I did this was by splitting the constraints into three different categories, economic (things like time and money), technical (things like storage space and computing power) and social (things like copyright and anonymity). The Nelson textbook describes various constraints well.It may be useful to have a quick look at what sort of data is obtainable for your topic and set parts of your scope based on that.

The Scope are the restrictions you choose to abide by. These are determined by you.
Once again, for each restriction you have in your scope you must give a small explanation as to why you have chosen to use it.

Gathering Data

Spoiler

For me this was the most enjoyable part of the entire SAT.
It involved scouring the web for data and also creating surveys to then promote all over the internet.

You need to make sure that you source data from both Primary and Secondary sources.

You need to make sure that the data you collect is relevant to your hypothesis and you should have a clear idea of what statistics and data you are looking for before you search the web for it. I spent hours looking for data on my topic with no clear goal and that time just ended up wasted - but as soon as I had a clear idea of what I wanted to find, I had no trouble finding it.

The easiest way to collect primary data is by making an online survey you then distribute. I recommend using Google Forms as it has the most advanced form features at a free price point.

Distributing the survey to get a wide enough range of responses is a part that most of my class struggled with. But I got over 1,000 responses to my survey.
I used a website called Reddit, Reddit is full of communities called “subreddits” and there are subreddits for everything and most are thriving online communities.
For example, I posted my survey about theme park attendance in r/wdw r/Disneyworld r/disneyparks and r/Disney, I followed the rules of these communities and I wrote a paragraph explaining that I am in my final year of high school and I am looking to collect data. I also posted in some other online forums related to my topic of interest.

Find some online communities relevant to your topic. There is also r/samplesize which is a subreddit dedicated to people posting surveys. And don’t forget there is a thread in the Informatics board here dedicated to posting surveys on ATARNotes, so if you don’t want a stupid amount of responses you should be fine just posting on AN.

In terms of collecting secondary data, it can be tricky to find data on the internet. Sometimes you have to comb through many many websites just to find some statistics on the topic.
Don’t be afraid to contact an organisation who may have some data that you require. If you send them a nice email and you explain your reasons for collecting the data they might just give it to you. Make sure that you contact them with your school email address to add to the credibility. Just make sure that you reference how you got the data.

Validate and Reference Data

Spoiler

You also need to analyse the integrity of all the data you have collected.
As per the Nelson textbook, integrity can be broken up into 4 categories.
- Timeliness (how new the data is or how relevant the time the data was taken is relevant to your hypothesis)
- Authenticity (whether the data source can be trusted, and whether the data is real)
- Relevance (how relevant the data is to your hypothesis)
- Accuracy (whether there are any errors in the data)
          Accuracy can be broken down into a few categories (the four Cs)
          * Correctness (checking the spelling is correct and no wrong data has got in)
          * Clarity (Make sure that the meaning of all the data is clear! For me, some of my data was in the US date format, so I had to write a formula to swap it to the Australian system, this made the data more clear)
          * Completeness (whether any lines of data have something missing or any of the data is missing)
          * Consistency (this includes stuff like making sure that capitalisation is consistent whenever the same word is used in a response and any other abnormalities from the raw data)
For each of these you need to explain how you have checked the data makes each of these criteria, and if it didn’t how you fixed it.

MAKE SURE YOU REFERENCE EVERYTHING
It is very important that you reference everywhere that you get any data off.
And to get a little step ahead for exam study don’t use a site like citethisforme.com, on the Informatics exam you will be required to know one of the referencing systems off by heart.

Manipulating and Securing Data

Spoiler

This section of the SAT I realised was fairly challenging until I found some useful tools that sped the process up.

It can also get fairly time consuming. I had to codify 1,000 lines of data, that was pretty much me turning some opinions people have wrote into, “positive”, “neutral”, “negative” and “other”. That was mainly what I had to do in preparing the data, as well as combining multiple data sets into one.

After all the data is codified and ready you need to go through and analyse it, which basically means you go through creating interesting charts from your data set/s you have acquired. My suggestion is too just make as many charts as possible and compare as many different values to each other as you can do. This will make writing up your analysis and conclusion easier.
It took me a while to work out how to use them but “pivot tables” were an absolute life saver. I had in my head the charts I was trying to make but I couldn’t work out how to combine all of my data.
There is no easy way I could explain how it works, but it basically combines your data and is useful for finding correlations between different elements. Google something along the lines of “what is a pivot table” and you will find some useful videos and blogs showing you how to use them. They are more ideal if you have bigger data sets like I had though. The data I got from an external company had more than 20,000 lines and pivot tables helped me so much sorting through all of that data.

 It is important to make sure it is highly relevant to your hypothesis. If you are just getting random charts from your data that aren’t relevant to your hypothesis you will not get full marks.

I found it worked for me to make a high volume of charts comparing various aspects and then taking out the ones which had the most relevance.

In terms of securing data you just need to explain how you are keeping the data safe so it can’t be lost and also how it is stored securely under password protection and backed up.

Conclusion

Spoiler

This section  much like the others I made much tricker for me then I had too.
When you manipulated the data you should have created a wide variety of charts. Here you simply need to pick out the charts which have the most relevance to your hypothesis you created earlier. Present them all in a word document and write an explanation of how they help prove or disprove your hypothesis.
You MUST make sure it is highly relevant to your hypothesis. You also need to be careful not to repeat yourself and have filler. You should have a paragraph with a few sentences to explain each chart, but it's better to be short and content rich people then repeating information.

After all these charts you must have a final conclusion which should be a couple of paragraphs referring to all of your evidence you presented above talking about how well it does or doesn't prove your hypothesis. If the data and information you gathered has proved your hypothesis wrong that is ok you just need to discuss why.
Just keep asking yourself "why?". My teacher looked over my draft and then kept asking me "why?".

It is also important to note that you also need to prove there is a link between the two factors. And just because they correlate that does not mean they are linked, it could be a different factor changing that is affecting both of them.

CONGRATS! You have now completed the first (and in my opinion the trickiest) part of the SAT.
You are halfway there.

Part 2 Design and Development (Unit 4)
Come up with design ideas (including criteria)
I am currently writing this section. I am planning to have it completed by the 7th May

build your website
I am currently writing this section. I am planning to have it completed by the 14th May

Analyse how your website meets your requirements
I am currently writing this section. I am planning to have it completed by the 21st May

Analyse the GANT Chart
I am currently writing this section. I am planning to have it completed by the 28th May


My overall thoughts
I am currently writing this section. I am planning to have it completed by the 5th June

I am going to add the further parts to this when I get time. But I am going to start of just by posting all of this as the SATs are starting soon/may have already started for some people.
I apologize for taking so long.

If you have any questions about the SAT post them below and I will answer to them best of my ability.

[Aaron]

Love!

[mkhudruj]

Please help me i still cant figure out a good hypothesis, can you please give me any ideas?

[technodisney]

Please help me i still cant figure out a good hypothesis, can you please give me any ideas?

First think of a topic that you are interested in.
What sort of stuff do you get excited about? Movies, sport, comics, music, TV shows, travel etc...
The whole thing is easier if you have a genuine interest in what you are researching.

I may be able to provide you with some suggestions if you let me know what you are interested in.

And don’t come up with an idea and then tell yourself it is silly (as I did). As long as you can collect data on the topic it is a good topic to make a hypothesis about.

[Buzzy123]

Hey did you finish off writing them my teacher really can't teach so i'm basically relying on this information.
If not where did you get this info from?

Cheers

[technodisney]

Hey did you finish off writing them my teacher really can't teach so i'm basically relying on this information.
If not where did you get this info from?

Cheers

Hi Buzzy123,

I am unsure when I will complete this. I am working on it when I can in my free time. But I am doing the best I can.

Which stage are you up to?

[Buzzy123]

Hi Buzzy123,

I am unsure when I will complete this. I am working on it when I can in my free time. But I am doing the best I can.

Which stage are you up to?

Hey Buddy,

Ive basically finished the first part and wanting to get a head start on the second part!

Cheers.

[GeneralJuicy]

Cheers mate !

[Liban Farah]

You only got a study score of 36 (raw)? Do you know why?

Also whens the next part of the SAT going to be up? your running a bit late