Back to basics: What is the difference between Data Analysis and Data Mining?

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What is the difference between Data Analaysis and Data Mining:

1) One view is that: Data Mining is one particular form of Data Analysis.

difference between data mining and data analysis

One of the reason I researched about the difference between Data Analysis and Data Mining because I find that the terms are used Interchangeably and now I know why. It’s because Data Mining is considered as a particular form of Data Analysis.

2) I found other view that says:

Data Analysis is meant to support decision-making, support conclusions & Highlight note-worthy information. So when “Analyzing data” – we know what we want; we want answers to support our hypothesis; we want data in summarized form to highlight useful information.

While

Data Mining is meant for “Knowledge discovery” and “predictions”. So when “Mining data” – we look for undefined insights; We want the data to tell us something we didn’t knew before; We want to find patterns in the data that we had not anticipated.

Sources:

http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~jhf/ftp/dm-stat.pdf

http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/5026/what-is-the-difference-between-data-mining-statistics-machine-learning-and-ai

http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/1521/data-mining-and-statistical-analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_analysis

 

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