The third and final evaluation methodology we propose and illustrate is derived from the recent,
best-selling book, Big Data, by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger and Kenneth Cukier (2013).
At base, big data, according to the authors, refers to our rapidly increasing ability to examine,
crunch and ‘‘drill down’’ into enormous amounts of data, analyze them immediately, and often draw
quite unexpected conclusions from them. The authors go on to argue, ‘‘At its core, big data is about
predictions’’ (P. 11). It is, they state, ultimately about inferring probabilities or estimating likelihoods
about connections that we never knew existed (p. 12 and p. 14).