Enrolling in another Coursera Class – Data Analysis

I have been spending the last few weeks honing some of my math skills as we start to approach some data analysis tasks on the test team here. My degree is in math and this is particularly interesting for me since I get to use some of those ol' college skills in real life! That explains my book review from last month as well. (On a side note, I have been out on some overdue vacation for the last few weeks, so I have not been able to update here as often as I normally do. But now that our break is over I should be able to get back on track).

Additionally, some of the test team here are looking around for other resources to learn more about this. Coursera is offering a data analysis class starting today (https://class.coursera.org/compdata-004) into which a few folks around here have enrolled. We have a conference room booked to broadcast the video lectures and will complete most of the work here as a group. The full class name is "Computing for Data Analysis" and is produced by John Hopkins. It uses the "R" language which I have never used before (first naïve thought - that is a 1980s computer language) but I will give it a go.

Obviously, we will also use OneNote to take and share notes, etc… and generally get coverage on our student workgroup usage testing. The class is only 4 weeks long so I should be able to report back here how it goes.

Should be an interesting and informative month!

Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,

John