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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Using Python to Access Web Data by University of Michigan

4.8
stars
43,904 ratings

About the Course

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....
Highlights
High quality content

(256 Reviews)

Practical assignments

(217 Reviews)

Top reviews

SM

Jun 18, 2020

This course was really interesting and did a good job introducing complicated topics in usefully simplified form. It was a pleasure to listen to the instructor and I got everything I wanted out of it.

ML

Jun 16, 2017

Excellent course with in depth explanations. It is well structured. It learn to access Web Data from very basics to optimum level. It help me to understand details of using Python to Access Web Data.

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6401 - 6425 of 7,921 Reviews for Using Python to Access Web Data

By Dumidu H

Jun 21, 2017

A well thought out course which goes above and beyond just teaching you how to code python. You get to hear from some of the pioneers, shapers, and creators of network related technologies on how they were able to do the things they have done and how what they did changed the course of the technology. Pretty cool.

Tip: Avoid using an IDE if you want remember what you learn better. The chances of something blowing up in your face is more but because of it you will remember better.

By Joel T

Nov 14, 2015

This course is well-developed and well-delivered. If one is a complete novice, start at the beginning of this specialty on one's own schedule (on demand at the speed of light) and at an affordable price ($0) and be confident of significant advances in one's knowledge of internet function, in general, and Python, in particular. It is a brave new world. I often feel like Wylie Coyote staring through my toes. Suddenly realizing things have changed. This course fixes that feeling.

By Jeremy M

Jan 26, 2021

Interesting topic. There is a wealth of things to learn with respect to using Python to Access the Web. The materials presented here just scratch the surface. I enjoy the video lectures and book. The assignments in this course are interesting, but wonder a little from the presented materials. I am taking away 1 star due to a bug I encountered with the autograder in the final assignment and for the aforementioned discontinuities. Overall, a fun class and I learned a lot.

By Levi M

Jun 5, 2016

I really enjoyed this course and found that I am feeling more confident with my skills from the previous two. However, as a point of improvement I would suggest making the final module a bit more challenging. Perhaps this was intentional but, although the final module introduces JSON well, I don't feel as though my skills improved while doing it. (Then again, the counter argument could be that it is good practice and repetition before moving on to anything too much harder...)

By Yinglu W

Mar 24, 2020

This course is well structured. I really like how it introduces the high-level knowledge in the first 3 weeks and becomes more hands-on in the later of the class. My only complaint is some of the materials are out-dated. For example, lots of the tasks can be handled by urllib3 but urllib and urllib2 are heavily along the course. urllib3 is not just a simply upgrade from urllib2, it has a lot more functions. And the "bonus materials" section is bit lame to be honest.

By Santhosh C

Apr 16, 2020

I am an Electrical Engineer with some experience in coding using MATLAB. I have completed the two courses in this specialization before this one. A lot a material is covered and Dr Chuck has explained the important parts. Spending time on reading more material using the course syllabus as a guide would be very useful. Assignments in the middle of the course required plenty of time and effort, otherwise assignments are easy once you understand what is being asked.

By Johanna G

Feb 10, 2020

This course was a good as the first two. Charles Severance is really a great instructor. As a total beginner in programming, this course was a bit harder for me than the first two ones, but through a lot of reading and tasks, you can easily follow the course. I rate this course with 4 stars because I would have liked to have a few more examples to explain and deepen the new content. But, to sum up - I can really recommend this course and want to say thank you!

By Paul J M

Mar 3, 2016

This course covers a lot of ground at a pretty fast pace. It's not going to teach every aspect of the subjects covered--it couldn't possibly do so in the time--but it teaches enough to allow students to ask the right questions later.

I would like to see more searching practical exercises to cement the learning. The existing assignments follow quite closely the worked examples which means those coding along with Dr chuck aren't going to have too much more to do.

By Tushar s

Jun 20, 2018

This course is like, even if you are beginner you are brought to the advanced level learning materials easily. You wouldn't know that with such basic knowledge you can understand this course very well. You are honed with the skills with the excellent technologies and you will learn how to use it.Dr.Chuck and his team have done really a great job teaching stuff. They are absolutely great. His team is working hard to teach people stuff and correct their doubts.

By ふみたけ

Sep 27, 2021

I managed to pass the course all by myself (I am working full time in Tokyo, so I did not have enough time to search the forums), but I have to say that the assignments, especially the last several ones, were so difficult that I nealy failed. It would be much better if there are more practice problems or examples given and explained in the video or on the textbook. Nevertheless, Prof. Dr. Chuck is still a great lecturer, so the course earns a 4-star grade.

By RAJA G

Oct 5, 2019

Lecture videos were broken into small parts whereby it's easy to understand and digest. Assessment given were relevant to what was taught for each segment. Navigating around course contents were easy.But after i learned the course . it seems like a litter bit of difficult than previous two course. I commend that at the final of the course, the text should tend to more difficult so that people who learn this course can actually improve programming skill.

By Deleted A

Apr 10, 2020

Course is great! Good explanations and perfect slides. However at week 6 professor had some difficulty explaining twitter API. It was hard to understand even for students with experience in python. Also want to mention that course is for explanation purposes and for beginners. You will learn a lot and it is still not enough to go and get a job in this field. So after completing this course, you should take more advanced courses and learn more!

By Garth G

Sep 23, 2019

This is a great course to get you started on using Python to access web data. The course has lots of examples and Professor Severance breaks down the concepts into smaller components that are easy to learn. It is highly recommended that students download the course material and review the code examples along with the presentations. That pratical experience reinforced a deeper understanding that made the assignments much easier to complete.

By Cesar D

Dec 6, 2015

An amazing course content!! This is a very enjoyable course about Python language programming. Dr Chuck explains each topic with clarity, which facilitate the comprehension of Python from the beginning. In my personal point of view, I would like to have a more deeply exploration in topics. It could give more tools to learn and complexity to each assignment. The book as supported material is a very good resource for consult through all course.

By Elizabeth B

Nov 2, 2020

I found the worked examples to often be overly abstracted from the assignments. This resulted in me needing to look up how to do problems because I was stumped, only to discover that it was very easy and would have been solvable if some key information had been included in the lectures. I walked away feeling frustrated and incompetent despite completing the assignments because I was never able to figure out how to do them entirely on my own.

By VENKATASWAMY B S

Nov 9, 2022

I learnt very good things that Python can handle data mining from the web pages using the APIs. Parsing of data from the source code of web pages whether it is in the format of HTML or XML or JSON etc., using URL libraries is very much interesting. Once the underlying data is captures from the web pages, it can be interpretted and alalysed in way suitable to our application or requirements. I think it is major benefit of using Python code.

By David D R

Jan 12, 2016

The course is great although a little bit simple or slow-paced. But since it is for beginners I think it is Ok the way it is. You will learn the foundations of accessing the Web Data, so it is a really great starting point. You will enjoy and you will want to learn even more!

Dr. Chuck is a great teacher whom I would loved to have at class. He explains things quite clearly, in a funny way and he transmits passion in what he is teaching.

By Xiaorong L

Mar 31, 2019

In the last two weeks things started getting a bit too complicated and Dr. Chuck didn't actually explain everything a learner would need to understand what is going on there... While doing the assignment, yes, I admit that I finished all of them, but BASED ON SAMPLE CODES without a full understanding of some non-trivial details. Therefore I am pretty sure without those sample codes I would not be able to finish the assignments.

By Tanja Z

Oct 23, 2016

I found that some parts of the course were confusing. You really have to take the time to read documentation to do the assignments, which was difficult with my busy schedule. (And just because you read the documentation doesn't mean that you understand the code!) Overall, I learned a lot and still recommend the course - just wish there was less background and more explanation of the actual codes that you can use while parsing.

By Frank M

Nov 7, 2015

These courses are great introductions to python functionality. The workload is much more reasonable at 1-2 hours per week than many other Coursera courses that I have taken.

My only recommendation is to show more current libraries and methods than those presented in the lectures. Fundamentals are important to understanding concepts, but if there are newer and better ways of doing things, they should be presented as well.

By Gustavo H C

Jan 22, 2020

Great course, very interesting, but I find this part of the program should be optional, since not all the people is interested in retrieveing data from the internet; besides, these are controlled practices. In the real world it's a little bit more tricky to obtain information from an API and extracting data from a website. Perhaps, this module should be in a different course of its own. That'd be quite interesting to see.

By Rafael R d L

Aug 11, 2020

Another great course by Dr. Chuck. This one I think it started in a good way, but in the end it got a little superficial. It looked like we've got to take those ready codes and just make some modifications - looking at the "logical" side, it may be a good idea, but I missed some "code from the zero".

Despite that, I would like to thank Dr. Chuck, the greatest educator I know.

sorry for my bad English :) (or not hahaha)

By Raushan K

May 27, 2020

Everything looks perfect but when it comes to xml,json and api, you need to explain it really in detail. That's a bunch of codes and you are explaining very less. I need to study it thoroughly with the help of internet. But, thanks to the instructor atleast he has exposed me to the hidden world of web. I can read it on internet after knowing these terms. Atleast now i have feel for these hidden world of web services.

By Hok S C

Aug 29, 2018

A few parts are not explained clearly as the Lecture materials were going really deep. However, the assignment was not covered that much. Sometimes I just want to know more about that topic but I don't know how to. I know there's an E-book in py4e.com, but I think it will be better to put some non-compulsory materials in the related weeks. Just a little thought and thanks for making suck a good course.

By Deanne Z

Feb 28, 2016

It's a very practical course. The course is in a good pace. The contents are broken into smaller pieces. Thank you Dr. Chunk for making Python+WebData easy and fun to learn. One little thing I wish was the slides and code could be shown for a longer time, or constantly showing on the screen as the two earlier python course. Currently I had to pause the video couple times to digest the slides or code.