Best Data Science Online Courses

By Brendan Martin, (LearnDataSci).

Editor: check also KDnuggets page for Online Education in Analytics, Big Data, and Data Science

The following is a comprehensive list of Data Science courses and resources that explain or teach skills within Data Science, such as machine learning, data mining, analytics, cleaning, visualization, scraping, using APIs to make data products, artificial intelligence, and much more.

Please excuse our appearance. We want to keep the list here for your reference while improving it live, so you may notice some sections here may be inconsistent. We are in the middle of building out what will hopefully be a much better viewing experience!

Also, we would like you to know that some of the links to courses here are affiliate links. By going through us to gain access to a course, LearnDataSci may receive a commission. Thank you in advance to anyone that purchases a course from here, we greatly appreciate the support.

Save 65% on almost any course!

Coursera

Specializations:

Being able to pay for each course as you go or all at once makes Coursera’s specializations very attractive. If you either don’t want to spend a lot at once, or if you just want to get a taste of Data Science, Coursera’s paths are great for getting totally new learners off the ground.

Each specialization consists of a handful of courses that are usually taken in order and require some programming experience and working knowledge of mathematics up to algebra.

Although you may take the courses for free, you can also pay to receive certificates for each course you take, which will grant you an overall specialization certificate in the end.

Standalone Courses:

• Introduction to Data Science
• Process Mining: Data science in Action
• Genomic Data Science and Clustering (Bioinformatics V)
• Big Data Science with the BD2K-LINCS Data Coordination and Integration Center
• Computational Methods for Data Analysis
• Data Analysis and Statistical Inference
• Statistics: Making Sense of Data

---

 edX

Xseries:

Like Coursera, edX also has courses bundled together to form a knowledge set, called Xseries. You can take these courses for free, or purchase verified certificates to complete the bundled track. So far, edX only offers one Xseries that is relevant to Data Science.

Standalone Courses:

• Data Science and Machine Learning Essentials
• Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science
• Introduction to R Programming
• Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python
• Data Analysis: Take It to the MAX()
• Text Mining and Analytics
• Data, Analytics and Learning
• Implementing Real-Time Analytics with Hadoop in Azure HDInsight
• Big Data in Education
• Statistics and R for the Life Sciences
• Explore Statistics with R
• Text Mining and Analytics
• Introduction to Linear Models and Matrix Algebra
• Applications of Linear Algebra Part 1
• Applications of Linear Algebra Part 2
• The Analytics Edge
• CS For All: Introduction to Computer Science and Python Programming

---

Udacity

Nanodegree:

Udacity only has one track, or what they call a Nanodegree, that is relevant to Data Science, and that’s the Data Analyst Nanodegree. The great difference between Udacity’s track and either Coursera’s or edX’s is that you get more interaction from the staff, such as feedback on your project and career advice.

Also note that the Nanodegree programs are not exactly course based, but instead project based. Udacity has a list of courses that it recommends to complete on its platform before embarking on the Nanodegree projects.

To pursue the Nanodegree, you’ll need to set aside $200 per month for 9-12 months, but Udacity provides an amazing benefit where you’ll get half of your tuition back if you graduate in less than 12 months.

Recommended Courses for Data Analyst Nanodegree

• Intro to Computer Science: Build a Search Engine & a Social Network  (Free, or $199/month for projects with reviews, coaches, and a verified certificate)
• A/B Testing: Online Experiment Design and Analysis (Free)
• Data Visualization and D3.js: Communicating with Data (Free)
• Intro to Machine Learning: Pattern Recognition for Fun and Profit (Free)
• Intro to Hadoop and MapReduce How to Process Big Data (Free, or $199/month for projects with reviews, coaches, and a verified certificate)
• Real-Time Analytics with Apache Storm: The “Hadoop of Real-Time” (Free)
• Intro to Data Science: Learn What It Takes to Become a Data Scientist (Free, or $199/month for projects with reviews, coaches, and a verified certificate)
• Data Analysis with R: Visually Analyze and Summarize Data Sets (Free)
• Intro to Statistics: Making Decisions Based on Data (Free)
• Intro to Descriptive Statistics: Mathematics for Understanding Data (Free)
• Intro to Inferential Statistics: Making Predictions from Data (Free)
• Data Wrangling with MongoDB: Data Manipulation and Retrieval (Free)
• Model Building and Validation: Advanced Techniques for Analyzing Data (Free)