Free Data Science Blogs, Books, and Courses

The process of learning isn’t exclusive to one class, one University, or one way to learn. I am an advocate of the pick and choose method between free and paid resources.

For the aspiring Data Science professionals, feel free to pick and choose from this compiled list of learning resources that includes free courses, books, and blogs.

Blogs

Here on the TechRoots blog we don’t get a chance often to dive into technical aspects of data science other than to tell you why Big Data jobs are some of the highest paid in the tech industry.

There exists a number of excellent data science focused blogs. Use this list of data science blogs available on Github to fatten up your Feedly.

Books

Go to the local library! The local library usually owns the books you need. I understand the pride behind book ownership, but the local library lets you borrow the same books for free.

Data Science, Data Mining, Business Analytics and Statistics Books

You could read through these online books to see if data science is the career path for you or use it as a precursor to an official college course or professional training.

• A Programmer’s Guide to Data Mining
• An Introduction to Statistical Learning
• Bayesian Reasoning and Machine Learning
• Data Mining and Analysis
• Data Mining and Business Analytics with R
• Data Science: An Introduction
• Gaussain Processes for Machine Learning
• Inductive Logical Programming
• Information Science and Statistics
• Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms
• Introduction to Machine Learning
• Machine Learning
• Machine Learning, Neural and Statistical Classification
• Machine Learning: The Complete Guide
• Mining of Massive Data Sets
• Modeling with Data
• Statistics
• Think Bayes, Bayesian Statistics Made Simple

If you know of books to add to the list, make a suggestion in the comments below.

Courses

• Data Mining from MIT OpenCourseware
  • Refer to the lecture notes to see all the course materials, assignments, and everything else.
• Data Science and Analytics
  • This UC Berkeley course addresses data science and analytics.
• Data Science and Machine Learning Fundamentals
  • edX brings experts from MIT and Microsoft together to teach this intermediate-level course that focuses on building and employing machine learning models.
• Data Structures
  • This course targets students new to algorithms, design structures, and data analysis.
• Introduction to Big Data with Apache Spark
  • This UC Berkeley course featured on edX could easily prepare you for an official Apache Spark training to advance your skills and career as a data scientist.
• Introduction to Data Science from Coursera
  • This Coursera free course covers the fundamental concepts and skills required for Data Scientists.
• Introduction to Data Science
  • UC Berkeley’s Jeff Hammerbacher and Mike Franklin taught skills pertaining to data science, including “web programming, statistics, and the ability to manipulate data sets with code.”
• Introduction to Computer Science and Python Programming
  • You’re never too old to retake an intro computer science course. Also, Python is one of the most widely used programming languages. Even if you don’t plan on becoming a programmer, understanding Python helps.
• Knowledge Management and Big Data in Business
  • Introductory course concentrating on data and knowledge management in a data intensive business world
• Machine Learning
  • Another Coursera product that addresses fundamentals of machine learning, including statistical pattern recognition and datamining.
• Statistics and R for the Life Sciences
  • R programming, data analysis and statistics all fused together in one course.

Data Science Training and Certifications

For those more advanced in their careers who want official proof of knowledge and skills through certification with Microsoft, Cloudera, or other relevant certifications, check out these official training courses.

• CCAH – Cloudera Certified Administrator for Apache Hadoop
• Introduction to Data Science – Building Recommender Systems
• Designing and Building Big Data Applications
• Data Analysis Level 2: Business Analytics and Decision Making
• MCSA – SQL Server
• MCSE – SQL SQL Server Data Platform
• MCSE – Business Intelligence

Entrepreneurs want information to analysis for their businesses. Companies in every industry need data science professionals and software to drive their business.