Data 8X: Foundations of Data Science now on edX
UC Berkeley and edX just announced that the extremely popular Berkeley course Data 8: Foundations of Data Science(link is external) will be available online starting on April 2nd, as a Foundations of Data Science Professional Certificate Program(link is external). Students will be able to continue to join throughout the course.
This program broadens the university’s public mission by helping anyone, anywhere think critically about data in the world, draw conclusions, and interpret and communicate results. It develops ways in which Computer Science and Statistics have merged to provide data-driven methods integrated with domain knowledge to answer a broad range of questions and drive decision making. Students analyze a diverse array of real data sets, including economic data, geographic data, and social networks.
No prior statistics, computer science, or programming experience is expected. Participants will learn to program in Python 3 using industry standard data science libraries such as Numpy. All the computational analysis is done seamlessly in the cloud. The student needs only a browser and a desire to better understand the world through data. The program aims to make data science truly accessible to everyone.
The program is a sequence of three 5-week courses:
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Foundations of Data Science: Computational Thinking with Python(link is external), starting on April 2, teaches the basics of computational thinking, an essential skill in today’s data-driven world, using the popular programming language Python.
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Foundations of Data Science: Inferential Thinking by Resampling(link is external) teaches how to use inferential thinking to make conclusions about unknowns based on data in random samples.
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Foundations of Data Science: Prediction and Machine Learning(link is external), teaches how to use machine learning, with a focus on regression and classification, to automatically identify patterns in data and make better predictions.
All of these are taught by Berkeley’s award-winning faculty, Ani Adhikari(link is external), John Denero(link is external), and David Wagner.