The Data Science and Engineering with Spark XSeries, created in partnership with Databricks, will teach students how to perform data science and data engineering at scale using Spark, a cluster computing system well-suited for large-scale machine learning tasks. It will also present an integrated view of data processing by highlighting the various components of data analysis pipelines, including exploratory data analysis, feature extraction, supervised learning, and model evaluation. Students will gain hands-on experience building and debugging Spark applications. Internal details of Spark and distributed machine learning algorithms will be covered, which will provide students with intuition about working with big data and developing code for a distributed environment. This XSeries requires a programming background and experience with Python (or the ability to learn it quickly). All exercises will use PySpark (the Python API for Spark), but previous experience with Spark or distributed computing is NOT required. Familiarity with basic machine learning concepts and exposure to algorithms, probability, linear algebra and calculus are prerequisites for two of the courses in this series.
An excellent online course offered by edX: how it works
edX courses consist of weekly learning sequences. Each learning sequence is composed of short videos interspersed with interactive learning exercises, where students can immediately practise the concepts from the videos. The courses often include tutorial videos that are similar to small on-campus discussion groups, an online textbook, and an online discussion forum where students can post and review questions and comments to each other and teaching assistants. Where applicable, online laboratories are incorporated into the course.
edX offers certificates of successful completion and some courses are credit-eligible. Whether or not a college or university offers credit for an online course is within the sole discretion of the school. edX offers a variety of ways to take courses, including verified courses where students have the option to audit the course (no cost) or to work toward an edX Verified Certificate (fees vary by course). edX also offers XSeries Certificates for completion of a bundled set of two to seven verified courses in a single subject (cost varies depending on the courses).
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