The study of Coursera’s data science specialization

Abstract

Objective: To identify the characteristics of the specialization form of the massive open online courses. Research object: a learning process of the massive open online courses. Research subject: Data science specialization of Coursera. Research objectives: to participate as a student in the several online courses in “data science specialization”, to find the structure of this specialization, to determine its characteristics. Methods: participant observation, content analysis. Results: Data science specialization of Cousera project is a series of 9 courses covering concepts and tools of data analysis, from the research questions formulation to results publication. The implementation of a special Capstone Project has completed this sequence of courses. Сourses are repeated once a month during a year. The courses in the specialization are related with a hard and a soft dependences. Course structure consists of syllabus, short video lectures, tests, peer assessment, course projects, forum. The software R, RStudio, Git, GitHub are used for programming assignment. Conclusions and recommendations: there are next ways to aggregate this form in the traditional educational process of Ukrainian universities: developing training and methodological support of disciplines, the students work organization with course materials, including the topics in qualification works, using new data analysis tools and techniques in the post graduate and post doctoral studies.