2. Data Acquisition

Collecting the required data means acquiring the data in a visual form. This data now becomes the base of your project/system. This is known as Data Acquisition. Remember that the data needs to be accurate and reliable as it ensures the efficiency of your system.

Data Acquisition is the process of collecting the required data from reliable sources for the project.

Explanation

This stage is about acquiring the data from reliable sources for the project.
Data can be a piece of information or facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. Whenever we want an AI project to be able to predict an output, we need to train it first using data.
For example : If you want to make an Artificially Intelligent system which can predict the weather, you would feed the data of previous days for that locations into the machine. This is the data with which the machine can be trained. Now, once it is ready, it will predict the weather conditions efficiently. The previous weather data here is known as "Training Data" while the next weather prediction data set is known as the "Testing Data".
Note*- For better efficiency of an AI project, the Training data should be authentic and relevant to the problem statement scoped.

Data Features : Data Features refer to the type of data you want to collect.
For example : If an AI machine predict the salary of any employee, data features would be salary amount, increment percentage, increment period, bonus, etc.

System Maps : The concept of System Maps, help us to find relationships between different elements of the problem which we have scoped. It helps us in strategizing the solution for achieving the goal of our project.
We use system maps to understand complex issues with multiple factors that affect each other. In a system, every element is interconnected. In a system map, we try to represent that relationship through the use of arrows. Within a system map, we will identify loops. These loops are important because they represent a specific chain of causes and effects. You may also notice the use of ‘+’ signs and ‘-’ signs. These are an indicator of the nature of the relationship between elements.
For example :Let us draw the System Map for the Water Cycle now.