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Welcome to the course

Welcome to Get ready for a Masters in Data Science and AI, a free two-week taster course. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be delving into some of the topics …

Sharing your report

In this step, you’ll have an opportunity to share your report and receive feedback from your peers. Your task Share a link to your report in the comments below. Make …

Investigating data-based headlines

As we’ve seen in the previous two steps, the way research is gathered and reported can impact its accuracy and the way the reader interprets it. We’ve looked at an …

Practice creating a plot

Your task Search online for data which gives a top 10 tallest, heaviest, richest, fastest, or similar. Write some Python code to draw a bar graph with either horizontal or …

Variable operations

What use is storing data in variables if we don’t do anything with it? In Python, and many other programming languages, we can use operators in order to do calculations …

Basic plotting

We often communicate complex information through pictures, diagrams, maps, plots and infographics. When starting to analyse a dataset, simple graphical plots are useful to sanity check data, look for patterns …

Getting the most out of your learning

As this might be your first time studying with Coventry University, we’ve put together a few tips to help you get the most out of the experience. Comments FutureLearn is …

Getting numerical data into Python

Suppose we have a question, some data, and we know a little bit of Python. How do we get our data into Python in order to start exploring it? Getting …

Review of the week

Congratulations on completing this week. We hope you have enjoyed exploring data science. This week we have explored: What it means to be a data scientist The importance of asking …

Review of the week

Congratulations on completing this week. This week, we have explored: How to load your data into Python Using mathematics in Python Building basic graphical plots in Python Statistical thinking (including …

Sizing up data

When it comes to data, size is usually described in units of Kilobyte (KB), Megabyte (MB), Gigabyte (GB) and Terabyte (TB). What do these terms mean? Before we consider data …

Variables

Variables store information that can vary through manipulation. We use variables in our everyday life. Checking your bank balance online, for example; the balance (value) is stored in a variable. …

Data representation

We’ve taken the first few steps in Python programming: breaking down an algorithm into steps that the computer can understand. Now let’s look at how data is broken down and …

What can we do with a plot?

We have seen that the Matplotlib Python library makes it easy to produce some basic graphical plots. So what makes for a good plot and how can a graphical plot …

What is data science about?

Before thinking about data, it is much more important to ask the right questions. When we think of data science we often think of the data. What data do we …