The 9 Best Free Online Data Science Courses In 2020 Posted on : Feb 24 - 2020

You don't have to spend a fortune and study for years to start working with big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Demand for "armchair data scientists" – those without formal qualifications in the subject but with the skills and knowledge to analyze data in their everyday work, is predicted to outstrip demand for traditionally qualified data scientists in the coming years.

This means that practically anyone can upgrade their employability and career prospects by learning the fundamental theory and practical skills needed for data science. And luckily, there's a ton of resources online to help you do just that.

Here’s my overview of some of the best. Some of these might require payment at the end of the course if you want official certification or accreditation of completing the course, but the learning material is freely available to anyone who wants to level up their data knowledge and skills.

Data Science Crash Course, John Hopkins University (Coursera)

Designed to give a "fluff-free" overview of what data science is, how it works, and what it can be used to do. This course offers an introduction to the technical side of data science but is particularly aimed at understanding the "big picture" for those who need to manage data scientists or data science work.

It's a relatively short course consisting of just one module that can be completed in under a week and serves as a great introduction for those who want to learn the terminology and understand how to build a data science strategy, without necessarily needing detailed instructions on using the technical tools involved.

Introduction to Data Science (Revised) - Alison

A completely free course that breaks down the core topics of the data science process and an introduction to machine learning into three modules, each designed to take around three hours to complete, and concluding with an assessment. Once you've worked through that, you can choose from several other similarly bite-sized tutorials covering data programming languages, visualization tools, and techniques such as building clustering and regression models.

Data Science and Machine Learning Essentials – Microsoft (EdX)

This course, aimed at those wanting to improve their career prospects with a mix of practical and theoretical knowledge, walks you through core concepts and terminology, statistical techniques such as regression, clustering, and classification, and the practical steps needed to build and evaluate models. View More