This course will equip you with the specialist knowledge and technical skills you need to effectively apply the powerful tools and insights of data science to your work.
Developed by the pioneering Data Science team at the University of Southampton – ranked among the top 100 universities globally – this course is designed to introduce you to the theoretical components of data science and give you hands-on experience in producing solutions to data science problems using Python.
Taught by industry-leading experts in data science using a practical approach to learning data skills, this 6-week flexible online course will see you extend your knowledge and expertise across data mining, machine-learning, and data visualisation to become a highly-skilled and effective data scientist.
Extra tuition support with Python
If your technical knowledge of Python or statistics is minimal and you’d like extra support before commencing the course, we can offer an additional pack of 5 intensive 1-hour tutorials.
These supplementary tutorials will help you work through any technical issues you may encounter on the course, and enable you to rapidly gain the confidence you need to use Python for data science.
Hear about students' experience on the course:
The course runs over 6 weeks and is broken down into manageable weekly topics:
Week 1: Welcome and course information
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Welcome and introduction to the course
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What data science is and why it’s important
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A ‘hands-on’ Jupyter familiarisation activity
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Python Primer
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Glossary of terminology
Week 2: Introduction to core concepts and technologies
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The data science process
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A data science toolkit
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Types of data and example applications
Week 3: Data collection and management
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Sources of data
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Data collection and APIs
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Exploring and fixing data
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Data storage and management
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Using multiple data sources
Week 4: Data analysis
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Introduction to statistics
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Basic machine-learning algorithms
Week 5: Data visualisation
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Types of data visualisation
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Data for visualisation
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Technologies for visualisation
Week 6: Future of data science
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An exploration of the future of data science
After successfully completing the course, you’ll be able to:
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Understand key concepts in data science and their real-world applications
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Explain how data is collected, managed and stored in the context of data science
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Implement data collection and management scripts using MongoDB
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Demonstrate an understanding of statistics and machine-learning concepts vital for data science
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Produce Python code to statistically analyse a dataset
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Plan and generate visualisations from data using tools such as Python and Bokeh
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Work effectively with live data and utilise the opportunities presented by cloud services