datascientest

Wie kann man sich zum/r Data Scientist ausbilden lassen?

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Das allgegenwärtige Internet und die Digitalisierung haben heutzutage viele Veränderungen in den Geschäften überall auf der Welt mit sich gebracht. Aus diesem Grund wird Data Science immer wichtiger.

In der Data Science werden große Datenmengen an Informationen aus allen Arten von Quellen gesammelt, sowohl aus strukturierten als auch aus unstrukturierten Daten. Dazu werden Techniken und Theorien aus verschiedenen Bereichen der Statistik, der Informationswissenschaft, der Mathematik und der Informatik verwendet.

Datenexperten und -expertinnen, d. h. Data Scientists, beschäftigen sich genau mit dieser Arbeit. Wenn Du Data Scientist werden möchten, kannst Du eine große Karriere in der Data Science beginnen, indem Du Dich für eine beliebige geeignete Weiterbildung einschreibst, der Deinem Talent, Deinen Interessen und Deinen Fähigkeiten in einigen der wichtigsten Data-Science-Kurse entspricht.

Was machen Data Scientists?

Zunächst einmal ist es wichtig zu verstehen, was man eigentlich unter dem Begriff „Data Scientist” versteht. Data Scientist ist lediglich ein neuer Beruf, der in vielen Artikeln häufig zusammen mit dem der Data Analysts beschrieben wird, weil die erforderlichen Grundfertigkeiten recht ähnlich sind. Vor allem müssen Data Scientists die Fähigkeit haben, Daten aus MySQL-Datenbanken zu extrahieren, Pivot-Tabellen in Excel zu verwalten, Datenbankansichten zu erstellen und Analytics zu verwalten.

Data Scientists werden viele Stellen in Unternehmen angeboten, die mit der zunehmenden Verfügbarkeit von Daten konfrontiert sind und Personen brauchen, die ihnen bei der Entwicklung der Infrastruktur helfen, die sie zur Verwaltung der Daten benötigen. Oft handelt es sich um Unternehmen, die ihre ersten Schritte in diesem Bereich machen. Dafür benötigen sie eine Person mit grundlegenden Fähigkeiten in der Softwaretechnik, um den gesamten Prozess voranzutreiben.

Dann gibt es stark datenorientierte Unternehmen, für diejenigen Daten sozusagen Rohprodukt und Rohstoff darstellen. In diesen Unternehmen werden Datenanalyse und maschinelles Lernen recht intensiv betrieben, wodurch Personen mit guten mathematischen, statistischen oder sogar physikalischen Fähigkeiten benötigt werden.

Es gibt auch Unternehmen, die keine Daten als Produkt haben, aber ihre Zukunft auf sie und ihre Sinne planen und abstimmen. Diese Unternehmen werden immer mehr und brauchen sowohl Data Scientists mit grundlegenden Fähigkeiten als auch Data Scientists mit speziellen Kenntnissen, von Visualisierung bis hin zu Machine Learning.

Kompetenzen der Data Scientists

Die Grundlagen sind zunächst für alle, die im Bereich der Data Science arbeiten, dieselben. Unabhängig von den Aufgaben, die Data Scientists zu erfüllen haben, muss man grundlegende Softwaretechnik beherrschen.

Selbstverständlich müssen Data Scientists mit Programmiersprachen wie R oder Python und mit Datenbanksprachen wie SQL umgehen können. Sie bedienen sich dann statistischer, grundlegender Fähigkeiten um zu bestimmen, welche Techniken für die zu erreichenden Ziele am besten geeignet sind.

Ebenso sind beim Umgang mit großen Datenmengen und in sogenannten „datengetriebenen” Kontexten Techniken und Methoden des maschinellen Lernens wichtig: KNN-Algorithmen (Nächste-Nachbarn-Klassifikation für Mustererkennung), Random Forests oder Ensemble Techniken kommen hier zum Einsatz.

Entscheidend ist, die für den jeweiligen Kontext am besten geeignete Technik unterscheiden zu können, und dies bevor man die verschiedenen Werkzeuge beherrscht.

Die lineare Algebra und die multivariate Berechnung sind auch unerlässlich. Sie bilden die Grundlage für viele der oben beschriebenen Fähigkeiten und können sich als nützlich erweisen, wenn das mit den Daten arbeitende Team beschließt, intern eigene Implementierungen zu entwickeln.

Eins ist noch entscheidend. In einer idealen Welt werden die Daten korrekt identifiziert, da sie vollständig und kohärent sind. In der realen Welt muss sich der Data Scientist mit unvollkommenen Daten auseinandersetzen, d. h. mit fehlenden Werten, Inkonsistenzen und unterschiedlichen Formatierungen. Hier kann man von Munging sprechen, d. h. von der Tätigkeit, die sogenannten Rohdaten in Daten umzuwandeln, die ein einheitliches Format haben und somit in den Prozess der Aufnahme und Analyse einbezogen werden können.

Wenn Daten als wesentlich für Geschäftsentscheidungen sind, reicht es nicht aus, eine Person zu haben, die sie verarbeiten, analysieren und aufnehmen kann. Die Visualisierung und Kommunikation von Daten ist ebenso zentral. Daten zu visualisieren und zu kommunizieren bedeutet, anderen die angewandten Techniken und die erzielten Ergebnisse zu beschreiben. Daher ist es wichtig zu wissen, wie man Visualisierungswerkzeuge wie ggplot oder D3.js verwendet.

Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten und Bootcamps, um Data Scientist zu werden

Kurz gesagt gibt es zwei gängige Wege, um Data Scientist zu werden.

  • Auf der einen Seite kann man einen Universitätslehrgang absolvieren. Diese Art von Studiengang führt zu einem spezialisierten Abschluss, der nach einem dreijährigen Bachelorabschluss in Informatik, Mathematik oder Statistik absolviert werden kann. In den letzten Jahren wurden diese neuen Studiengänge an den europäischen Universitäten immer häufiger angeboten.
  • Auf der anderen Seite kann man sich für eine Weiterbildung zum/r Data Scientist anmelden, zum Beispiel eine Weiterbildung von DataScientest. Als national und international anerkannte Ausbildungsorganisation bietet DataScientest eine Weiterbildung zum/r Data Scientist an, die sich an Personen mit einem Bachelorabschluss und Kenntnissen in Kommunikation wendet. Ihr großer Vorteil ist die persönliche Betreuung, die allen Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen angeboten wird, sowie ein Fernstudium, das 85% individuelles Coaching und 15% Masterclasses umfasst. Alles läuft über eine sichere Plattform, damit jeder Teilnehmer und jede Teilnehmerin codieren, Daten erforschen usw. können.

Bei dieser DataScientest-Weiterbildung haben die Lernenden die Wahl zwischen einer weitgehenden Ausbildung (10 Stunden pro Woche) oder einer Bootcamp-Ausbildung (35 Stunden pro Woche). 

Das am Ende des Kurses erworbene Zertifikat wird von der Pariser Universität La Sorbonne anerkannt.   

Arianna Lupi

How To Perform High-Quality Data Science Job Assessments in 4 Steps

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In 2009, Google Chief Economist Hal Varian said to the McKinsey Quarterly that “the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians.”

At the time, it was hard to believe. But more than a decade later, we can’t get around the importance of data. Where once oil ruled the world, data is now catching up—quickly. That calls for more and better data scientists. In this article, we’ll explain to you how to find them.

Source: https://www.pexels.com/

Why is it so hard to find good data scientists?

The demand for data scientist roles has increased by 650 percent since 2012, and that number will continue to grow as the amount of data—and power it holds—grows steadily, too.

But unsurprisingly, there hasn’t been an increase of 650 percent in available data scientists on the job market. Even though the job is a lot sexier—and better paid—than ten years ago, many employers are still struggling to fill their empty seats with talented data scientists.

McKinsey predicted that there would be a shortage of between 140,000 and 190,000 people with analytical skills in the U.S. alone in 2018, and even in 2022 good data scientists, data analysts, forecasting analysts, modelling analysts, machine learning scientists, are hard to find.

Add to that another 1.5 million managers who will also need to at least understand how data analysis drives decision-making, and you can see how employers can be in a bit of a pickle.

Why thoroughly screening data scientists is still crucial

Even though demand is growing much faster than the number of data scientists, companies can’t simply settle for the first data lover who’s available from Monday to Friday.

It’s no longer the company with the most data that wins the game. The ones who are taking the lead are the ones that are able to get the most out of data. They can pull valuable information that helps with decision-making and innovation out of even the smallest pieces of data—and they’re right, over and over again.

This is why it’s vital to check if applicants have the skills you need to derive valuable input out of data. You’ll be basing a lot of business decisions on what these data scientists tell you, so best make sure they’re right.

But what makes someone a great data scientist? Some people turn their life around and go from being a maths teacher to following a 12-week data science boot camp or online data science course and quickly get the hang of it—others are top of their class, but aren’t confident enough data scientists to inform your business on its next big move.

The truth is that the skills a valuable data scientist has, will have to develop over the years. It’s not just the data literacy, hard skills and the brain for maths—they’ll also need to be able to present and communicate their findings the right way.

Finding the right data scientists using a data science job assessment

So, you’ll want to choose your data scientists carefully, but how do you do that? Resumes and portfolios might seem impressive, but how do you actually find out if someone has the skills you’re looking for—especially if you don’t have anyone on board yet that knows what to ask?

The easiest and most effective thing to do, is to screen candidates early in the process, using a data science test that’s been created by a real-life expert.

This will ensure that relevant questions are being asked, and you get a clear idea of who’s worth going through the hiring process with—and who isn’t.

In this article, we’ll walk you through four steps that will help you set up a data science job assessment that is of real value to your hiring managers. Let’s get started.


Source: https://www.pexels.com/

Step 1: Choose the right platform

You could, of course, draw up an online survey and create a test in there to send out to all applicants, but these might be hard to ‘grade’—although you’ll develop a tremendous respect for teachers along the way.

In many cases, it’s better to choose a dedicated platform that has tests available, and will help you swift through the results effortlessly.

Before you start looking for platforms, make a list of absolute needs that you won’t compromise on. Ask yourself at least the following questions:

  • What types of tests are you looking for? Only hard skills, or also soft skills? If you need both, look for a platform that offers both—mixing and matching can be time-consuming.
  • Will there be tests readily available, or are you looking for a platform that allows you to create your own tests?
  • Does the platform have experience with companies like yours?
  • How are the tests presented to candidates, and how do you want the test results presented to your hiring managers?
  • And last but not least: what are you willing to spend on a job assessment platform? Do they charge per candidate, a flat fee, or would you prefer an annual subscription?

Once you’ve chosen a platform that is right for you, the fun can begin.

Step 2: Start with a hard skills assessment

For roles like data scientists, you’ll be initially focusing on whether they possess the right hard skills. Depending on the specific role, you can test core data science topics such as:

Statistics

You’re expecting your future data scientist to be fluent in statistics. Depending on the level you’re hiring at, you might want to throw in a few questions that quickly test how fast someone can see through the woods in a mess of statistics, and if they can interpret them the right way.

Machine learning

For some more senior roles, machine learning is becoming increasingly important in the world of data science. If this is the case for the role you’re hiring for, test to see if someone knows how to use data to feed it to machine learning and build awesome products.

Neural networks

A big part of data science is knowing how to work with neural networks. Neural networks are a way to solve problems through trial and error, based on human and animal brains. It’s incredibly helpful if your data scientist’s brain can use them.

Deep learning

Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning that can be necessary in specific data science roles. It works more closely to the way the human brain makes decisions, so this will require a specific set of test questions.

Collecting data

All that data has to come from somewhere, right? Your data scientists should not only be able to read and process data, but also know where and how to get the most valuable input. For this, include some questions about data extraction, data transformation, and data loading. This can also include tests on Excel and querying languages like SQL.

Storing data

Databases should look nothing like the average teenage bedroom. Meaning that they should be nice and tidy, making it easier to extract valuable information from them. Since data isn’t just numbers, but can be anything from video to reviews, it’s crucial that you hire a data scientist who knows how to store this correctly.

Analyzing and modeling data

Data wrangling, data exploration, analysis, and modeling need in-depth understanding of math and programming, but luckily, even data scientists get some help.

Data scientists use analytical tools like Apache Spark, D3.js Python, and many, many more to analyze all that data. If you’re using a specific one in your company and want your data scientists to be able to hit the ground running, quickly test if they’re actually able to use the tools they list on their resume.

Visualizing and presenting data

At the end of the day, data scientists will have to be able to communicate their findings to other departments with people who are less data-savvy. For this, they often use tools that help them visualize data to explain it in a more easy-to-grasp way.

Test if your next data scientist is able to do that with a quick check on their skills in tools like Tableau, PowerBI, Plotly, Bokeh, or whichever one you use.

Step 3: Continue with a soft skill assessment

Your friendly neighborhood data scientist should not only be a math genius, they should possess the right soft skills too. If they’re impossible to work with, you won’t reap the benefits of their skill set. Productivity will suffer, and team morale might also take a hit. Here are some soft skills to test your candidates on:

  • Business-oriented: ultimately, your data scientist will be fueling your decision-making process. This means they’ll have to have a good head for business, on top of simply understanding the numbers.
  • Communication skills: sure, everyone in your company preferably has some of these, but since data scientists play such an important role in decision-making, you’ll want them to be able to express themselves well—and listen to what you’re asking from them.
  • Teamwork: your data scientists shouldn’t be on a little island somewhere in the company. The more they integrate with other departments, the easier it is for them to determine what your business needs from them.
  • Critical thinking skills: this one’s pretty self-explanatory, but the more critical your data scientist, the more reassurance you’ll have that data is correctly interpreted.
  • Creativity: data is less dry than it seems. From data storage to finding connections and problem-solving: it all requires some form of creative thinking.


Source: https://www.pexels.com/

Step 4: Follow up on the test results

If you want to make the most of your data science job assessment, it shouldn’t just be a test to see who goes through to the next round. For the candidates that ‘pass’, you can customize the questions in their follow-up interview based on the strengths and weaknesses they showed in their test.

Because the test they took says a lot, but at the same time—it’s just a snapshot. Did they score remarkably high on certain skills? Ask them how they got to be so experienced in that, and what projects contributed most to that.

Did you notice that they struggled with questions about X? Ask how they are planning to improve on that and how they make sure this doesn’t impact the quality of their work for the time being—are they calling in help from a peer, or do they simply take more time to figure things out?

These types of follow-up questions steer a job interview in a much more real-life direction: it’s not a generic set of questions that any company could ask any employee, but a real conversation between you and the candidate, in which you can evaluate if they fit in the future of the company—and if your company fits in theirs.

Ready to start the hiring process?

With these tips, we’re sure you’ll get some extra reassurance that your next hire will be a great fit—not just based on their previous experience and a couple of interviews. If you want, you can keep reading about data science jobs—or simply start hiring. Good luck!

https://unsplash.com/collections/28744506/work?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyTexthttps://unsplash.com/collections/28744506/work?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText
Arianna Lupi

How To Perform High-Quality Data Science Job Assessments in 4 Steps

/in , , /by

In 2009, Google Chief Economist Hal Varian said to the McKinsey Quarterly that “the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians.” At the time, it was hard to believe. But more than a decade later, we can’t get around the importance of data. Where once oil ruled the world, data is now catching up—quickly. That calls for more and better data scientists. In this article, we’ll explain to you how to find them.

Why is it so hard to find good data scientists?

The demand for data scientist roles has increased by 650 percent since 2012, and that number will continue to grow as the amount of data—and power it holds—grows steadily, too.

But unsurprisingly, there hasn’t been an increase of 650 percent in available data scientists on the job market. Even though the job is a lot sexier—and better paid—than ten years ago, many employers are still struggling to fill their empty seats with talented data scientists.  McKinsey predicted that there would be a shortage of between 140,000 and 190,000 people with analytical skills in the U.S. alone in 2018, and even in 2022 good data scientists, data analysts, forecasting analysts, modelling analysts, machine learning scientists, are hard to find.  Add to that another 1.5 million managers who will also need to at least understand how data analysis drives decision-making, and you can see how employers can be in a bit of a pickle.

Why thoroughly screening data scientists is still crucial

Even though demand is growing much faster than the number of data scientists, companies can’t simply settle for the first data lover who’s available from Monday to Friday. It’s no longer the company with the most data that wins the game. The ones who are taking the lead are the ones that are able to get the most out of data. They can pull valuable information that helps with decision-making and innovation out of even the smallest pieces of data—and they’re right, over and over again. This is why it’s vital to check if applicants have the skills you need to derive valuable input out of data. You’ll be basing a lot of business decisions on what these data scientists tell you, so best make sure they’re right.

But what makes someone a great data scientist? Some people turn their life around and go from being a maths teacher to following a 12-week data science boot camp or online data science course and quickly get the hang of it—others are top of their class, but aren’t confident enough data scientists to inform your business on its next big move. The truth is that the skills a valuable data scientist has, will have to develop over the years. It’s not just the data literacy, hard skills and the brain for maths—they’ll also need to be able to present and communicate their findings the right way.

Finding the right data scientists using a data science job assessment

So, you’ll want to choose your data scientists carefully, but how do you do that? Resumes and portfolios might seem impressive, but how do you actually find out if someone has the skills you’re looking for—especially if you don’t have anyone on board yet that knows what to ask. The easiest and most effective thing to do, is to screen candidates early in the process, using a data science test that’s been created by a real-life expert. This will ensure that relevant questions are being asked, and you get a clear idea of who’s worth going through the hiring process with — and who isn’t. In this article, we’ll walk you through four steps that will help you set up a data science job assessment that is of real value to your hiring managers. Let’s get started.

Step 1: Choose the right platform

You could, of course, draw up an online survey and create a test in there to send out to all applicants, but these might be hard to ‘grade’—although you’ll develop a tremendous respect for teachers along the way. In many cases, it’s better to choose a dedicated platform that has tests available, and will help you swift through the results effortlessly.

Before you start looking for platforms, make a list of absolute needs that you won’t compromise on. Ask yourself at least the following questions:

  • What types of tests are you looking for? Only hard skills, or also soft skills? If you need both, look for a platform that offers both—mixing and matching can be time-consuming.
  • Will there be tests readily available, or are you looking for a platform that allows you to create your own tests?
  • Does the platform have experience with companies like yours?
  • How are the tests presented to candidates, and how do you want the test results presented to your hiring managers?
  • And last but not least: what are you willing to spend on a job assessment platform? Do they charge per candidate, a flat fee, or would you prefer an annual subscription?

Once you’ve chosen a platform that is right for you, the fun can begin.

Step 2: Start with a hard skills assessment

For roles like data scientists, you’ll be initially focusing on whether they possess the right hard skills. Depending on the specific role, you can test core data science topics such as:

Statistics

You’re expecting your future data scientist to be fluent in statistics. Depending on the level you’re hiring at, you might want to throw in a few questions that quickly test how fast someone can see through the woods in a mess of statistics, and if they can interpret them the right way.

Machine learning

For some more senior roles, machine learning is becoming increasingly important in the world of data science. If this is the case for the role you’re hiring for, test to see if someone knows how to use data to feed it to machine learning and build awesome products.

Neural networks

A big part of data science is knowing how to work with neural networks. Neural networks are a way to solve problems through trial and error, based on human and animal brains. It’s incredibly helpful if your data scientist’s brain can use them.

Deep learning

Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning that can be necessary in specific data science roles. It works more closely to the way the human brain makes decisions, so this will require a specific set of test questions.

Collecting data

All that data has to come from somewhere, right? Your data scientists should not only be able to read and process data, but also know where and how to get the most valuable input. For this, include some questions about data extraction, data transformation, and data loading. This can also include tests on Excel and querying languages like SQL.

Storing data

Databases should look nothing like the average teenage bedroom. Meaning that they should be nice and tidy, making it easier to extract valuable information from them. Since data isn’t just numbers, but can be anything from video to reviews, it’s crucial that you hire a data scientist who knows how to store this correctly.

Analyzing and modeling data

Data wrangling, data exploration, analysis, and modeling need in-depth understanding of math and programming, but luckily, even data scientists get some help.

Data scientists use analytical tools like Apache Spark, D3.js Python, and many, many more to analyze all that data. If you’re using a specific one in your company and want your data scientists to be able to hit the ground running, quickly test if they’re actually able to use the tools they list on their resume.

Visualizing and presenting data

At the end of the day, data scientists will have to be able to communicate their findings to other departments with people who are less data-savvy. For this, they often use tools that help them visualize data to explain it in a more easy-to-grasp way.

Test if your next data scientist is able to do that with a quick check on their skills in tools like Tableau, PowerBI, Plotly, Bokeh, or whichever one you use.

Step 3: Continue with a soft skill assessment

Your friendly neighborhood data scientist should not only be a math genius, they should possess the right soft skills too. If they’re impossible to work with, you won’t reap the benefits of their skill set. Productivity will suffer, and team morale might also take a hit. Here are some soft skills to test your candidates on:

  • Business-oriented: ultimately, your data scientist will be fueling your decision-making process. This means they’ll have to have a good head for business, on top of simply understanding the numbers.
  • Communication skills: sure, everyone in your company preferably has some of these, but since data scientists play such an important role in decision-making, you’ll want them to be able to express themselves well—and listen to what you’re asking from them.
  • Teamwork: your data scientists shouldn’t be on a little island somewhere in the company. The more they integrate with other departments, the easier it is for them to determine what your business needs from them.
  • Critical thinking skills: this one’s pretty self-explanatory, but the more critical your data scientist, the more reassurance you’ll have that data is correctly interpreted.
  • Creativity: data is less dry than it seems. From data storage to finding connections and problem-solving: it all requires some form of creative thinking.

Step 4: Follow up on the test results

If you want to make the most of your data science job assessment, it shouldn’t just be a test to see who goes through to the next round. For the candidates that ‘pass’, you can customize the questions in their follow-up interview based on the strengths and weaknesses they showed in their test. Because the test they took says a lot, but at the same time—it’s just a snapshot. Did they score remarkably high on certain skills? Ask them how they got to be so experienced in that, and what projects contributed most to that.

Did you notice that they struggled with questions about X? Ask how they are planning to improve on that and how they make sure this doesn’t impact the quality of their work for the time being—are they calling in help from a peer, or do they simply take more time to figure things out?

These types of follow-up questions steer a job interview in a much more real-life direction: it’s not a generic set of questions that any company could ask any employee, but a real conversation between you and the candidate, in which you can evaluate if they fit in the future of the company—and if your company fits in theirs.

Ready to start the hiring process?

With these tips, we’re sure you’ll get some extra reassurance that your next hire will be a great fit—not just based on their previous experience and a couple of interviews. If you want, you can keep reading about data science jobs—or simply start hiring. Good luck!

Akash Tripathi

10 Best Resources To Learn Data Science Online in 2022

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Today, data science is more than a buzzword. To simply put it, data science is an interdisciplinary field of gathering data from various sources and channels such as databases, analysing and transforming them into visualization and graphs. This basically facilitates the readability and understanding of the data to aid in soft-skills like insightful decision-making for any organization or business. In short, data science is a combination of incorporating scientific methods, different technologies, algorithms, and more when it comes to data.

Apart from the certified courses, as a data scientist, it is expected to have experience in various domains of computer science, including knowledge of a few programming languages such as Python and R as well as statistics and mathematics. An individual should be able to comprehend the data provided and be able to transform it into graphs which help in extracting insight for a particular business.

Best Resources To Learn Data Science

For those pursuing a career in data science, it is not just technical skills that matter, in business settings an individual is tasked with communicating complex ideas and making data-driven insightful decisions. As a result, people in the field of data science are expected to be effective communicators, leaders, and team members as well as high-level analytical thinkers too.

If we talk about applications of data science, it is used in myriad fields, including image and speech recognition, the gaming world, logistics and supply chain, healthcare, and risk detection, among others. It remains a limitless world indeed. Data scientists will continue to remain in high demand, while at the same time there is a substantial skill gap that needs to be currently addressed in the industry.

Here’s the lowdown on a few of the online resources—in no particular order—which can be checked out to learn data science. While a few of these educational platforms have been launched a couple of years ago, they would continue to hold equal relevance when it comes to resources for seeking in-depth knowledge related to everything in the field of data science.

1. Udemy

Udemy is a site that offers hands-on exercises while extending comprehensive data courses. At last count, there were about 10,000 data courses and almost 500 of which are free of cost. An individual can discover specialisations, including Python, Tableau, R, and many more. While offering real-world examples, Udemy courses are quite well-defined when it comes to specific topics.
The courses are suitable for beginners as well as experts in the field of data science.

2. Coursera

Coursera is another online learning platform that offers massive open online courses (MOOC), specialisations, and degrees in a range of subjects, and this includes data science as well. Some of the courses hosted on the platform include top-notch names such as Harvard University, University of Toronto, Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan, and MITx, among others. Coursera courses can be audited for free and certificates can be obtained by paying the mentioned amount. The courses from Coursera are part of a particular specialisation, which is a micro-credential offered by Coursera. These specialisations also include a capstone project.

3. Pluralsight

Pluralsight remains an educational platform for learners through insights from instructor-led courses or online courses, which lay stress on basics and some straightforward scenarios. Courses taken online will require you to exert more effort to gain detailed insights, thus helping you in the longer run. Pluralsight introduces one to several video training courses for Software developers and IT administrators.

By using the service of Pluralsight, an individual can look forward to learning a lot of solutions. An individual can even get the key business objectives and even close the skill gaps in critical areas like cloud, design, security, and mobile data.

4. FlowingData

The website, which is produced by Dr. Nathan Yau, Ph.D., offers insights from experts about how to present, analyse, and understand data. This comes with practical guides to illustrate the points with real-time examples. In addition, the site also offers book recommendations, as well as provides insights related to the field of data science.
There are also articles which an individual can browse related to gaining more in-depth insight into the correlation between data science and the world around.

5. edX

edX is an online platform, which has been created as a tie-up between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This website has been designed with the idea to highlight courses in a wide range of disciplines and deliver them to a larger audience across the world. edX extends courses that are offered by 140 top-notch universities at free or nominal charges to make learning easy. The website includes at least 3,000 courses and has programs available for learners to excel in the field of data science.

6. Kaggle

Kaggle is an online learning platform that would be quite beneficial for individuals who already have some knowledge related to data science. In addition, most of the micro-courses require the users to have some prior knowledge in data science languages such as Python or R and machine learning. It remains an ideal site for upgrading skills and enhancing the capabilities in the field of data science. It offers extensive insights related to the field from experts.

7. GitHub

GitHub remains a renowned platform that uses Git, which is a DevOps tool used for source code management, to apply version control to a code. With over 40 million developers on its users list, it also opens up a lot of opportunities for data scientists to collaborate and manage projects together, besides gaining insights about the industry that continues to remain high in demand at the moment.

 

 

8. Reddit

This is a platform that comprises sub-forums, or subreddits, each focused on a subject matter of interest. Under this, the R/datascience subreddit has been titled the data science community, which remains one of the larger subreddit pages related to data science. Various data science professionals discuss relevant topics in data science. The data science subreddit remains insightful for individuals seeking a community that can provide related technical advice in the field of data science.

9. Udacity

Udacity Data Science Nanodegree remains an ideal certification program for those who remain well-versed with languages such as Python, SQL, machine learning, and statistics. In terms of content, Udacity Data Science Nanodegree remains quite advanced and introduces hands-on practice in the form of real-world projects. While Udacity doesn’t offer an all-inclusive course, it introduces separate courses for becoming an expert in the field of data science. Professionals who aspire to become data scientists are advised to take Udacity’s three courses namely Intro to Data Analysis, Introduction to Inferential Statistics, and Data Scientist Nanodegree. These three courses extend real-world projects, which are provided by industry experts. In addition, technical mentor support, flexible learning program, and personal career coach and career services are also offered to aspirants in the domain.

10. KDnuggets

KDnuggets remains a resourceful site on business analytics, big data, data mining, data science, and machine learning. The site is edited by Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, a co-founder of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Conferences. KDnuggets boasts of more than 4,00,000 unique visitors and has about 1,90,000 subscribers. The site also provides information related to tutorials, certificates, webinars, courses, education, and curated news, among others.

 

Ending Note

Increasing technology and big data mean that organizations must leverage their data in order to deliver more powerful products and services to the world by analyzing that data and gaining insight, which is what the term “Data Science” means. You can jumpstart your career in Data Science by utilizing any of the resources listed above. Make sure you have the right resources and certifications. Now is the time to work in the data industry.

 

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Edward Huskin

Mainframe Modernization: Making It Happen

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In the fast-paced world of technology and business, it can be hard to keep up with what’s new. What’s new today can be obsolete in a few weeks, and adapting to this ever-changing landscape can become a challenge if an organization isn’t well prepared or equipped. Modernization of systems doesn’t necessarily mean transitioning to an entirely new system or platform; often, all it takes is actual modernization of existing tools to help them adapt to new business demands and requirements.

The mainframe is one system that has stood the test of time. A number of naysayers taut the system as “legacy” or obsolete, but the fact that mainframes handle 68% of the world’s production IT workloads indicate otherwise. Mainframes are proof that the latest isn’t always the greatest, standing firm as one of the foundations of business systems in today’s most successful businesses around the world. What some don’t realize is that the race toward digital transformation is not reliant on the system or platform an organization has in place; digital transformation initiatives rise and fall depending on how they approach data. Regardless of the platform used, data analysts who work with irrelevant or stale data are prone to achieve false or misleading results. Access to real-time data is key, and data gathered days or hours—even minutes—ago isn’t a current representation of the current situation. This can lead to an organization acting on miscalculations and opportunities that no longer exist. Actionable insights need to come from real-time data to ensure that your organization can make sound business decisions in a timely manner.

The Old vs. the New

Conventional methodologies have kept mainframe data and real-time data separate due to issues with accessibility. Most businesses traditionally use Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes for data analysis, a logistically complex and time-consuming process that’s prone to errors and stale data because it’s performed only periodically. This can lead to hours or even weeks of delay that’s simply unacceptable in today’s always-connected, always-on digital business landscape. Today’s businesses depend largely on real-time business intelligence—and access to it—to get a competitive edge.

In light of this perceived separation between mainframes and real-time data analytics, data scientists have found that the creation of analytic models can be too slow at times due to the conventional process of offloading data from the mainframe to other platforms for analysis. Organizations should move away from ETL processes and find ways to make real-time data analytics from the mainframe quicker and more efficient for their business. Mainframe modernization is key in making mainframe systems work with modern solutions because it allows for data virtualization, integrating all disparate enterprise data into a logical data layer. This layer manages the unified data and provides centralized governance while delivering the required data in real-time to business users.

Depending on the industry, mainframe modernization can optimize key business processes like order processing, payment gateways, and internal business operations queries. Mainframes are known for performing high-volume transaction processing, and these transactions can make or break a business. Managed in real-time, it will help organizations battle fraud and manage business risks as they arise, or even before they do. The data gathered can also help paint a more accurate representation of who a company’s customers are, allowing them to better plan resources and come up with more personalized initiatives.

Making IT Happen

Mainframe modernization is a major undertaking that presents a host of options for every organization. These options will vary depending on a number of factors, including business size, tenure, and industry. The following, however, are a few of the key considerations in modernization.

  • Look for quick wins
    As all businesses know by now, time is of the essence in every undertaking, even mainframe modernization. Its success is dependent on how quickly it can deliver the desired results.
  • Automate migration to avoid disruption
    Accelerating modernization efforts means leveraging modern tools API’s. The platforms available today are designed to minimize the effects of the modernization process if not avoid disruption completely.
  • Focus on total cost of ownership (TCO)
    It’s a mistake to view the initial cost of modernization at face value. Amore accurate view of costs involves a focus on the total cost of ownership. Calculating the TCO, or the purchase costs plus operation costs, will help minimize it even before modernization initiatives commence.
  • Don’t just leave everything to IT
    The modern IT team is one that includes everyone in the organization. Mainframe modernization is more a business initiative than an IT concern, and as such, should involve decision makers and business leaders. System integrations and updates remain the responsibility of IT specialists, but choosing the appropriate modernization approach and ensuring that the initiative succeeds should be a responsibility shared by the entire organization.
  • Create business value
    Mainframe modernization isn’t simply the implementation of technology upgrades or migration to a new system; it should also be an opportunity to combine the old with the new. Improve existing business processes or create new ones accordingly while capturing institutional knowledge from mainframe systems to gain a competitive edge.

Options abound when it comes to mainframe modernization, but that doesn’t mean that you should apply them all or choose the latest and greatest. Choosing the right approach to modernization entails re-examining your business and its goals and deciding which solution will take you there—and take you there fast. There exists an “imaginary” gap between digital innovators and mainframes because of the challenges and costs in data accessibility and system availability. The goal of mainframe modernization is to bridge this gap in the best, and fastest, way possible.