This course has a number of components. Many things are optional, and some are required.
If you only do what is required you will pass the course, but if you push yourself further by taking on the optional projects you will leave here with a higher level of skill, and you will be able to make more use of our education staff and support.
There will be deadlines in this course. It’s important that you meet them.
If you are ahead of schedule we wont hold you back. You don’t need permission to read ahead or take on more advanced, optional projects.
Different people are here for different things and so our course content caters for the different strokes of the different folks.
Some people are here to get a big-picture and high level view of the different tools and concepts in play. Maybe they are simply curious about the subject. Or they aim to develop enough “literacy” of the subject that they know what is possible and are able to work effectively with people who are involved in the field. For example, you don’t need to be a data-scientist to be able to work with a data-scientist. But it is useful if you can speak the same language.
Other people might want to push themselves to higher levels of competence and mastery. We have included projects and coursework that will help get you to the next level.
When you pass this course you will not simply be given a pass or fail mark, or a percentage score. Rather, you will be given a level. The level will say what skills you have proven during the course.
You will be invited to take part in a number of workshops. You will be asked to complete some homework prior to those workshops. The workshops will be very interactive and you will be taking part in discussions with your peers.
It is important to meet your deadlines so that you can fully take part in these workshops.
You will be invited to attend hotseat sessions. In these sessions our subject matter expert(s) will be there to help out with specific problems on projects.
If you are struggling with anything at all it would be good for you to come to these sessions with your questions and problems so that you can get help.
Take advantage of the resources at your disposal and make yourself easy to help and you will go further in this course.
We don’t do lectures. Most good lecturers can be replaced with better Youtube videos and other online resources. We also don’t want to prevent people from reading ahead or referring back to past content.
We also have a help desk solution called Hesk. You will be given access to it separately.
If you need support or have questions outside of one of the workshops or hotseats then please ask your questions on Hesk. This allows us to route questions to the right person, and keep track of common problems so that we can improve things as needed.
We will aim to review the projects you hand in as quickly as possible. In a traditional education system (like a university) it is quite normal for a learner to wait for weeks on end to get feedback on an assignment.
We give people feedback in a matter of days instead. While this is leagues ahead of the industry standard, we do realize that delays of any kind do cause frustration for our learners. We request reasonable levels of patience.