The University hosted a data competition that received 225 submissions from students on campus. Among this group, 45 came out as winners for 45 different sub-groups.

“The competitions entailed to solve a relatively simple problem of interpolation. Students have access to points of a function and they were asked to predict the value of that function at different points,” said Jorge Lemus, assistant professor in economics. “The winner was the student with the most accurate predictions.”

Lemus said he hopes to see an increase in the number of participants in the future. This year, 350 students registered.

The results of the competition were also used in an investigation on how information disclosure affects participant numbers in online competitions.

“We find that displaying a real-time leaderboard increases participation. This is an important finding because online competitions are becoming very prominent in many fields,” Lemus said.

He said economists care about how competition design may shape participation incentives and affect participant performance.

The data competition also served as an opportunity for participants to test their data science skills and learn about data analysis, he said.

Participation in the event was limited to University students, and the winners of each of the 45 competitions were awarded a $50 Amazon gift card. Students could submit their work up to 10 times per day.

“We think that now that we run these competitions, students realized they are not difficult, so if we were to run them again we would possibly have a higher participation rate,” Lemus said.

Guillermo Marshall, assistant professor of economics and co-organizer of the data science competition, said in an email he was positively surprised in the number of students who were interested in participating.

“It reflects the large number of students who are interested in testing and applying their data science skills in real-world settings,” Marshall said.

He said it is a good opportunity for students to apply the skills they have learned in their courses to solve real-world problems.

Chen Song, graduate student in LAS, said she decided to participate in the hopes of putting the competition on her resume.

“This experience is highly correlated with my economics major,” Song said. “I assumed it could be beneficial for my resume if I won.”

Although Song said the competition itself was not difficult, she did not win.

“The competition wasn’t that hard, but it was hard to get an accurate result,” she said.

[email protected]