Using Python to Access Web Data

This Specialization builds on the success of the Python for Everybody course and will introduce fundamental programming concepts including data structures, networked application program interfaces, and databases, using the Python programming language. In the Capstone Project, you'll use the technologies learned throughout the Specialization to design and create your own applications for data retrieval, processing, and visualization.

Created by: Charles Russell Severance

icon
Quality Score

Content Quality
/
Video Quality
/
Qualified Instructor
/
Course Pace
/
Course Depth & Coverage
/

Overall Score : 98 / 100

icon
Live Chat with CourseDuck's Co-Founder for Help

Need help deciding on a branding course? Or looking for more detail on Charles Russell Severance's Using Python to Access Web Data? Feel free to chat below.
Join CourseDuck's Online Learning Discord Community

icon
Course Description

This course will show how one can treat the Internet as a source of data. We will scrape, parse, and read web data as well as access data using web APIs. We will work with HTML, XML, and JSON data formats in Python. This course will cover Chapters 11-13 of the textbook "Python for Everybody". To succeed in this course, you should be familiar with the material covered in Chapters 1-10 of the textbook and the first two courses in this specialization. These topics include variables and expressions, conditional execution (loops, branching, and try/except), functions, Python data structures (strings, lists, dictionaries, and tuples), and manipulating files. This course covers Python 3.

icon
Instructor Details

Charles Russell Severance

Charles Severance (a.k.a. Dr. Chuck) is a Clinical Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, where he teaches various technology-oriented courses including programming, database design, and Web development. Chuck has written a number of books including Using Google App Engine, and Python for Everybody. His research field is in the building of learning management systems such as Sakai, Moodle, Blackboard, ANGEL, and others. He was the chief architect for the Sakai Project, a learning management system used at about 300 schools worldwide and wrote the book Sakai: Free as in Freedom, that describes his experiences as one of the leaders of the project. In the mid-1990s he was the host of Internet:TCI, a national television talk show about the Internet that ran for several years on the TCI cable system. He was long-time a columnist for the IEEE Computer Magazine writing a monthly column called "Computing Conversations" that features video interviews with famous technology leaders and innovators.

icon
Reviews

4.9

155 total reviews

5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete

By Anthony S on 1-Apr-18

So far courses 1 and 2 have been great with excellent explanations. I have no idea why, but that all changes for this course. The explanations are lacking and I'm left super confused. I ended up passing this class, but I feel I didn't get a good grasp and would need to take another "access web data" like class to actually have a grasp, even a basic grasp at that. This course should be revisited with better explanations.

By Christian W on 22-Jul-16

Unfortunately on the whole I was very disappointed with thisclass. I took the first two Python courses and found them manageable, but this thirdone was an unrealistic increase in difficulty from the previous two. I reachedout for help on the discussion board a number of times and saw many others werestruggling as well. Mentors who responded to some of the other students wereclearly getting defensive when those students were getting nowhere on the assignments.I think this program should reevaluate itself so students such as me can keepup with the assignments. On average I was spending about 10 hours per week juston the syntax for building the programs.A little about my background: I have 20 years of experiencein the private sector and am currently an analyst in cyber security. I have anundergraduate degree in finance, an MBA, and another masters degree in DataAnalytics. This 5 course program has been described and sold as beginner level,and given my background I should have handily been able to complete it, butthat was definitely not the case. Normally I dont leave feedback unless I feelstrongly about something, so I hope you take it seriously. Thanks.

By Alan M R on 10-Jan-18

As an experienced programmer, I am unimpressed. The assignments cover a good set of tools; web i/o. I would introduce classes before getting into web i/o; this would emphasize critical coding habits of productive programmers: modularity and reusability. Also, variables and files are poorly named. Comments are lacking. The exercises don't ask students to program; they ask students to tweak (at most) the example programs. Students are instructed to disable security features without sufficient discussion of the risks involved. Overall, the presentation looks rushed and unpolished. Code looks like it was hobbled together until it worked and never edited for clarity. If someone I cared about wanted examples of good programming, I would tell them to avoid this.

By Daniel H on 15-Jun-19

The assignments often go way beyond what is taught in the lectures or book. There was not a single assignment that I did not have to rely on reading tons of extra info from Overstack or other coding sites. I don't mind if the course is challenging, but it's challenging not because it's extremely difficult, but rather because it is testing things that weren't taught.

By Karunamoorthy M on 14-May-19

One of the Great Course on web Data Accessing through Python.Thank you for your friendly teaching method.

By Greg C on 8-Apr-19

Great material, but it feels a bit rushed, covering as many topics as it does, in such a short amount of time.

By on 5-Jul-19

The course materials provided are very clear and useful.

By Ichiro H on 8-Jul-19

Great course for introduction to parse Web Data. However, google map and twitter API seems to be changed a lot, so those examples won't work any more. It took me a few days to figure that out and felt a bit stressful. Hope re-recording take place soon so that many other students would not stuck there.

By Alexander B on 7-Jun-19

Getting a bit more challenging than the earlier courses in the specialization. The exercises require more struggle, but all the information is there. Another step along the way. Thank you, Dr. Chuck!

By Piyush J on 13-Jul-19

well this was a good course though but I didn't feel very connected with web services i.e. I couldn't understand each line of code written for APIs. I didn't understand the concepts used in geojson api and twitter api completely. I would recommend to add basic explanation about these as I was not able to write codes myself that are illustrated in the course. So that's the place where I lost connection with the course as these concepts are not explained at beginner level programmers who are listening terms like API, SOA, JSON, XML, Web Scraping etc first time. So please elaborate these topics more simply and in detail so that we can understand each line of code.

By Zach A on 2-Nov-19

Great up until Week 5 & 6. Probably needs to be a 7 or 8 week class at least. Some assignments basically require you to have previous programming experience, or else you will likely find yourself browsing the web looking for guidance and help.

By Raquel R G on 11-Dec-18

Doing this course is not so much related to Python but to othercomputer engineering topics.Network concepts are required, as well as knowing other programminglanguages such as HTML, XML or JSON, API or WebServices. Assignments requireparsing webpages in HTML, XML or JSON, so knowledge of the same is needed. Iwould not pursue this course unless having strong knowledge about those topicsIt is offered as part of a certification for people that know nothingabout programming, so between course 2 and 3 there is a huge conceptual gap(going from loops, if-else and defining variables to HTTPS protocols, JSON andService Layers). Keep your expectations right