Data Analytics is the science of analyzing data to convert information to useful knowledge. This knowledge could help us understand our world better, and in many contexts enable us to make better decisions. While this is the broad and grand objective, the last 20 years has seen steeply decreasing costs to gather, store, and process data, creating an even stronger motivation for the use of empirical approaches to problem solving. This course seeks to present you with a wide range of data analytic techniques and is structured around the broad contours of the different types of data analytics, namely, descriptive, inferential, predictive, and prescriptive analytics.

This Big Data Analytics Course is for those new to data science and interested in understanding why the Big Data Era has come to be. It is for those who want to become conversant with the terminology and the core concepts behind big data problems, applications, and systems. It is for those who want to start thinking about how Big Data might be useful in their business or career. It provides an introduction to one of the most common frameworks, Hadoop, that has made big data analysis easier and more accessible -- increasing the potential for data to transform our world!