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There are 3 modules in this course
The Preparing Text for AI Models course is designed for developers, engineers, and technical product builders who are new to Generative AI but already possess intermediate machine learning knowledge, basic Python proficiency, and familiarity with development environments such as VS Code, and who want to engineer, customize, and deploy open generative AI solutions while avoiding vendor lock-in.
The course equips learners with practical skills in dataset sourcing, preprocessing, and formatting for training large language models. Starting with the discovery of text datasets from repositories like Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Common Crawl, learners evaluate quality, relevance, and licensing considerations.
The course then covers preprocessing pipelines, including text cleaning, normalization, deduplication, and tokenization strategies, ensuring efficiency and compatibility with model training. Learners also design annotation schemas, apply semi-automated labeling techniques, and build validation workflows to maintain quality. The final module guides learners in constructing structured datasets for instruction tuning, fine-tuning, and benchmarking, supported by best practices in train-test splits and stratification. By the end of the course, learners will have created production-ready text datasets suitable for generative AI applications.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to key resources you can add to your toolkit for sourcing text datasets. You’ll navigate repositories like Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Common Crawl, and learn how to evaluate dataset size, quality, and relevance to your training goals. You’ll also cover legal and ethical considerations and practice importing and converting datasets between common formats, so you can confidently select and prepare text data for your projects.
What's included
3 videos3 readings1 assignment1 ungraded lab
Show info about module content
3 videos•Total 16 minutes
Podcast: Behind Every Great Model: Better Text Data•4 minutes
Importing and Converting Text Datasets•6 minutes
Preparing Text Datasets for LLM Training Pipelines•5 minutes
3 readings•Total 70 minutes
Code Demonstration Transcripts•10 minutes
Text Dataset Repositories and Quality Checks•30 minutes
When and How to Use Web Scraping•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 10 minutes
Evaluating and Preparing Your First Dataset•10 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 60 minutes
Find and Load Your First Dataset•60 minutes
Text Data Processing and Formatting
Module 2•2 hours to complete
Module details
In this module, you’ll apply text-cleaning techniques, compare different tokenization methods, and design preprocessing pipelines. You’ll also format data for instruction tuning and build batching routines, giving you hands-on experience with multiple approaches you can adapt to your own training workflows.
What's included
3 videos1 reading1 assignment1 ungraded lab
Show info about module content
3 videos•Total 20 minutes
Formatting for Instruction Tuning•4 minutes
Building a Preprocessing Pipeline•9 minutes
Advanced Formatting Patterns for Instruction-Tuned LLMs•7 minutes
1 reading•Total 30 minutes
Essential Preprocessing for Text Data•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
Preparing Text for LLMs•30 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 60 minutes
Clean and Format a Text Corpus•60 minutes
Advanced Annotation and Tagging
Module 3•2 hours to complete
Module details
In this module, you’ll learn how to turn raw text into structured datasets that are ready for training. You’ll design and apply annotation schemas, practice splitting datasets for training and evaluation, and compare approaches for organizing data. Along the way, you’ll see how different methods affect model performance, giving you the judgment to decide which structuring strategies work best for your projects.
What's included
2 videos1 reading1 assignment1 ungraded lab
Show info about module content
2 videos•Total 11 minutes
Podcast: The Human Touch in AI: Why Annotation Matters•4 minutes
Creating Splits for Model Generalization•7 minutes
1 reading•Total 30 minutes
Annotation and QA Best Practices•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 60 minutes
Preparing Text for AI Models in Practice•60 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 30 minutes
Annotate and Split a Sample Dataset•30 minutes
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