Coursera Data Science compared to Data Camp courses for R

Recently Data Camp has really expanded their offering fof R tutorials. So I thought the time has come to re-look at the courses offered on Coursera for Data Science compared to those offered on Data Camp. This review is solely based on my own experience.

I took the courses in the Coursera Data Science series last year. Usually I enrolled in a class or two at a time. Each course in the nine course series was a month long and consisted of a series of lectures, some quizzes and one or two projecst which had the student work on a piece of data and submit the results for evaluation that could include automated grading or peer review. The courses started with setting up R, Github and Rstudio. The courses then go on to cover data visualization, data manipulation, regression and some machine learning. I found the courses to be a good base overview of the skills and tools needed to work in R as a data scientist. My greatest concern is the hardest parts are the first few classes that set everything up. After that I found the classes to be pretty easy. In fact, I am concerned that many of the students who fail to finish this series do so because they can not even get started. The forums are a good source of information and help on stuff. I found them really important when I got stuck. The other down side was the peer review of your projects. I found few reviewers spent much time and effort on this part of the class, and their reviews were in many cases not helpful or just plain wrong. There was a case where I did a project incorrectly yet all my reviewers gave me full credit, and I had another project that I did differently but properly than many of the other students, but received poor reviews because what I did did not look like the projects of my reviewers.

The Data Camp courses are different from the Coursera classes in that you are running R in the Data Camp environment. This is a benefit because you do not have to go through the work of setting us all the things you need to do this work, but has the same down side that you really are only learning how to do this stuff on the data camp site and not in the real world. I did enjoy the interactive and step by step method of learning examples that is the core of the data camp method. I did not like that the interface really requires the work you do to be in the exact format that the teacher used. This could be very vexing at times.

At this stage I would more strongly recommend the Coursera class because they really get you ready to do real work. However, if you are frustrated or getting stuck with the Coursera series. Do some modules on Data Camp. It will function as a remedial trainer and up your skill and confidence to take on more challenging and more independent tasks.