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The third course in Johns Hopkins Data Science specialization on Coursera is Getting and Cleaning Data. The purpose of this class is to get students familiar with the process of creating a “tidy” data set from a variety of different sources. Like The Data Scientist’s Toolbox, this class is taught by Jeff Leek. The breadth of material covered in this course was spectacular. Dr. Leek spent the majority of the first two weeks of the course explaining who to read a variety of data sources into R, some of which I was pretty familiar with, but others I was learning about for the first time.

R Programming Coursera Review

By Lucas in moocs

August 13, 2014

The second course in Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization on Coursera is R Programming. I took this class concurrently with The Data Scientist’s Toolbox, which was more of a “warm up” class. If you don’t have much of a programming background, you’d better get warm quickly, because this class gets hot in a hurry for the uninitiated. R Programming is substantially more challenging than The Data Scientist’s Toolbox. R Programming is taught by Roger Peng, who, based on forum feedback, seems to be a student favorite in the data science sequence.

Data Scientist’s Toolbox Review

By Lucas in moocs

August 11, 2014

The Data Scientist’s Toolbox is the first course in the nine course sequence (plus capstone) that Johns Hopkins is offering via Coursera towards a Data Science Specialization. This course was not only my first course in that sequence, it was my first class on Coursera. In fact, it was my first MOOC (massive open online course). While I was under the impression that the general public is now pretty well informed about MOOC’s, it’s been pretty obvious from speaking with my college educated peers that that is not the case.

The Data Science Specialization from Johns Hopkins on Coursera

By Lucas in moocs

August 8, 2014

For nearly six months, this blog has gone quiet. Considering I’ve had 3+ years of posting an average of two times a week, that’s quite a stretch without writing. There have been a variety of reasons for my silence, including increasing work and family commitments, but as I alluded to last fall a couple of times on this blog, I’ve also been investigating new career options. The biggest reason for my silence is the significant amount of time that I’ve devoted to career questions over the first half of this year.

Getting and Cleaning Data Coursera Review

R Programming Coursera Review

Data Scientist’s Toolbox Review

The Data Science Specialization from Johns Hopkins on Coursera

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