Data Academy edX Pilot Program

Data Academy is sponsoring a pilot program for City and County staff to take online courses through edX. Participants will choose from a curated list of courses to further their technical abilities and gain valuable professional development experience. Data Academy will pay for these self-paced courses, with the expectation that they will be completed by September 30, 2019 to receive a certificate of completion.

Participants will be chosen based on the following factors:

1. Reason for taking the class | How will it improve your current work or professional development goals?
   - Individuals who clearly explain how they will be able to improve their work based on a course will be given priority.
   - Course choice will not impact success of application.
2. Supervisorial support | Is your supervisor invested in your completion of the course?
   - Individuals with supervisor support, who have given permission to              complete the course on work time, will be given preference. However, having a clear plan for completion outside of work hours (see below) is a suitable substitute.
3. Course Completion | Have you identified time each week which you can dedicate to completing the course? This can be outside of work hours, or during work hours with supervisory approval.
   - Individuals with a clear plan to complete the course will be given priority.
4. Departmental Diversity | Are pilot program participants distributed among City departments?
   - Data Academy aims to have at least 10 departments as a part of the pilot. 

Please see the "Frequently Asked Questions" PDF at the bottom of this page for more information. 

List of Courses by subject (Please click on course names for more details, or see Excel attachment at the bottom of this page)

Subject: Data Analysis
Course Name	Estimated Hours to Complete	Level
Data Analysis: A Practical Introduction for Absolute Beginners	24	Introductory
Fat Chance: Probability from the Ground Up	35	Introductory
Data Visualization: A Practical Approach for Absolute Beginners	12	Introductory
Analytics Storytelling for Impact	24	Intermediate
Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel	24	Intermediate
Subject: R Programming
Course Name	Estimated Hours to Complete	Level
Data Science: Probability	16	Introductory
Data Science: R Basics	16	Introductory
Data Science: Visualization	16	Introductory
Data Science: Wrangling	16	Introductory
Introduction to R for Data Science	12	Introductory
Essential Math for Machine Learning: R Edition	48	Intermediate
Subject: Python
Course Name	Estimated Hours to Complete	Level
Analyzing Data with Python	20	Introductory
Foundations of Data Science: Computational Thinking with Python	30	Introductory
Introduction to Python for Data Science	24	Introductory
Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)	28	Introductory
Python Basics for Data Science	5	Introductory

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to DataAcademy@sfgov.org