Welcome to DAT203.1x: Data Science Essentials. We’re very excited to have you join us to learn how to build predictive analytics solutions with Azure Machine Learning, and we hope you have an enriching and engaging learning experience.
To get started, open the Course page and view the topics in the Introduction section, which will help you get set up for the practical labs. We welcome your feedback, so if something is confusing or doesn’t work the way you expect, let us know and we’ll do our best to address it. Please use the Discussion page to introduce yourself and let us know how you’re doing.
The course is organized into modules that each contain one or more lessons, which in turn contain topics. The course is designed to be easy to navigate, but if you have not taken a course on edX.org before, we encourage you to check out the edX DemoX course to familiarize yourself with the course interface.
The course will take an estimated 3-4 hours per week for four weeks, including lecture, further reading, hands-on labs, and assessments. You have until the course end date listed in the Important Dates section to complete all graded coursework. Note that the course is scheduled to end at 11:59pm UTC, which is a minute before midnight at the end of the day in the UTC (or GMT) timezone. You can find out when this is in your local timezone at http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx.
The course is self-paced, so while staff will periodically check the discussion forums, you are expected to work through the materials and submit the graded assignments at your own pace. With so many students taking the course over a long period of time, it will be impossible for staff to answer every question individually; so please use the discussion forums to share questions and comments with your fellow students – the chances are, someone else taking the course will have encountered and resolved the issue you are having!
Module assessments account for 60% of the total grade, and the final assessment accounts for the remaining 40%. You must achieve an overall score of 70% to pass the course.
Again, welcome and thanks for taking this course from Microsoft.
