Though they sound similar, data science certificates and certifications are actually different from one another.

Data science Professional Certificates are awarded to individuals who have completed a specific course of study. For example, once you complete the IBM Data Science Professional Certificate, you’ll be awarded a certificate that you can put on your resume to highlight your training and skills to potential employers.

Data science professional certifications, meanwhile, are awarded to individuals who have passed a specific exam like Microsoft’s Azure Data Scientist Associate certification. Usually, certifications are pursued by individuals with prior work experience and some may even require that test-takers have worked a certain number of years in the field to qualify. ‎

Obtaining a data science Professional Certificate can help you stand out to potential employers by highlighting your training and relevant job skills. As a holder of the IBM Data Science Professional Certificate, for example, you’d possess a certificate that shows you’ve completed a 10-course curriculum that covers such foundational concepts as Python, SQL, data analysis, data analytics, and machine learning models. ‎

Coursera offers a variety of data science courses, specializations, and Professional Certificates that each award a certificate upon completion.

The IBM Data Science Professional Certificate offers a beginner-friendly crash course in foundational data science topics like Python, SQL, data visualization, data analysis, and even machine learning. The University of Michigan’s Applied Data Science with Python Specialization, meanwhile, teaches intermediate-level learners how to use Python toolkits to apply statistical, machine learning, information visualization, text analysis, and social network analysis to their datasets. In the University of Colorado’s Data Science Graduate Certificate, finally, you’ll develop skills in data science and gain knowledge of statistical analysis, data mining, and machine learning from one of the nation’s top-ranked Tier 1 research institutions. ‎