I heard about this Coursera course through the Davis R Users' Group (DRUG) mailing list, which is something that has just started up. I first heard about DRUG less than a week ago, and I immediately signed up. The first meeting is this Friday.
It is apparently not a workshop but simply two hours of the week set aside to work with R in the company of other people working with R. At least, that seems to be the plan so far. Hopefully this will mean that I will get a lot of analysis done, and I might even come across some interesting problems I can talk about on this blog, both in my own work and in other people's. And I believe it will be a good environment to work with any sort of phylogenetics software.
And of course, it can be time set aside for me to work on my online course material for "Computing for Data Analysis." I enrolled in the class just today, so I haven't had a chance yet to check out the lectures, but I plan to do so soon. They say it is designed for first-year biostatistics graduate students, so we will see how it fits into what I already know. Regardless, I am sure it will be a blast! I can always use more practice.
There are lectures, quizzes, and longer programming assignments associated with the class. Coursera seems to have quite a variety of classes available. I hope to take a more thorough look at what relevant courses are available later . . . I would like to take any classes involving R and maybe some other languages as well.
I am also interested in checking out some of the Udacity courses, which were previously recommended to me by a friend who works for Google. I think none of their classes are about R (mostly Python, I believe), but I am sure many are relevant to those interested in programming languages and data analysis. They offer classes for those with no programming background as well.
Both Coursera and Udacity are free. While some Coursera courses don't give out certificates, this one does, as long as you get a passing grade (70/100). I believe all of the Udacity courses have an option for certification, so you can have some record that you put in the effort to learn the material.
This will be my first time taking an online course, but from my experience taking a statistical computing class, I think the assignments will be very useful in retaining information and building good habits, even without the certification accompanying it. Even still, it could be a nice addition to a C.V., and Udacity also offers to send resumes to companies. That's not necessarily relevant to those wishing to stay in academia, but it's nice to know that we're developing transferable skills!
Hi Tomomi! How was the Coursera class? I'm thinking of taking it in January. Hope all's well at Davis.
ReplyDeleteLaura Garrison (from Bodega class)
HI Laura!
DeleteThe Coursera class was good, but there's relatively little direction. It was great for me to practice writing scripts and functions, and learn a couple of new tips, but you don't really learn about good coding habits. The homework was all just whether it worked or not, even if it was really messy and inefficient code. Because of that, I feel like you get out as much as you put in--it's almost too easy to force your way to an answer that works without learning what you could've done better.