Top 10 Analytic Concepts That Data Science Courses Must Cover in 2021-22
How Do Data Scientist Courses Sit Well with Today's Technologies?
In today's world, data is surplus, and modern businesses generate truckloads of data to perform their inherent tasks. With ever-growing technologies and technical practices, the data produced needs to be treated for analysing further information.
Fortunately, the last ten years have seen ample innovations in data-based domains to render useful technologies that offer credible insights. The world of data science and its closely associated fields have been instrumental in rendering practical tools and techniques that allow humans to configure their data and use it to their advantage.
A typical data scientist course furnished by a leading institute can teach how the mechanics of data collection, gathering, and analytics can be performed in corporate settings.
Data in itself is a complex amalgamation of different attributes and analytically challenging to work on. Therefore, engineers who have proven experience in filtering, sorting and decluttering data sets must perform analysis.
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A data
analytics course that provides learners with various concepts, exposure to real-life applications, and a deep understanding of analytical computation can prepare them to take up these challenging roles.
What Scientific Practices can be Learned via Data Scientist Courses?
Most of the aspiring data scientists and engineers must be wondering:-
How does data analytics work?
What are the different steps that constitute a typical analytical process?
How to conclude analytical techniques?
The answers to the questions can be formed by understanding the essential components that drive data analytics.
The internal processing of data analytics can be further understood by looking at the following steps:-
Step 1: Data Collection
There can be no analytics without "data", and hence the first phase of any given analytical process involves collecting data sets from different sources. No two organisations have the same parameters for data collection since they are used for other reasons.
By rendering today's modern technological infrastructure solutions, data engineers can gather structured and unstructured data from several sources. With cloud storage to mobile applications encompassing in house IoT services and sensors, businesses can utilise several techniques for achieving their objectives.
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The plethora of business intelligence tools and software can be studied in detail by enrolling in the best data science programs offered by some of the well-established universities.
These practical solutions can be kept in organisational data warehouses and databases, which helps in its quick access for further studying. The data deemed too cluttered, unfiltered, or complex to use needs to be vetted through metadata practices and stored for further analysis.
Step 2: Data Processing
Once data has been collected, stored, and sorted as per corporate standards, it needs to be appropriately organised to deliver accurate results for upcoming analytical queries, more so when data is large and unstructured.
Leading data scientist courses
devised by experienced professionals that offer a holistic view over separate operational practices can help clarify any doubts that young learners might have regarding data processing.
With data growing every day at an exponential rate, it is all the more challenging to carry out data processing. Therefore, organisations need to take practical measures for computing and rendering insights from various data environments.
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One of the plausible solutions for dealing with such intense data sets can be done through batch processing. As the name suggests, batch processing performs analytics by looking at large data sets at a given time.
It comes to the fore when there is a longer than expected turnaround time between collection and data analysis. There is another pathway for addressing confusing data trends; it's called steam processing that works contrary to batch-based practices.
There's a significant drawback linked with stream processing since it is both expensive and more complex to perform. Steam processing works with small batches of data sets for surveying integrations and associations. Once the relationships have been developed, the time delays between collection and analysis are shortened to make effective decisions.
Step 3: Data Cleaning
Just like once clothes have been sorted and processed, they need to be cleaned for processing; the same can be said about data sets. The data sources involved in analytics, irrespective of their size, need to be scrubbed, cleaned, and polished to improve their quality and get more robust results.
With precise formatting for each instance of data occurring in various processes, any repetitive or duplicate entries must be eliminated immediately.
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Data that is dirty or doesn't match organisational needs can significantly hinder providing more nuanced insights, misleading, obscure, and creating poor results.
Step 4: Data Analysis
The culmination of different data procedures ultimately brings them to the last phase collectively referred to as "data analysis". It's the stage where the magic happens.
Once the stage is set, data engineers carry out advanced analytical processes to turn seemingly bid data into meaningful insights.
There are different types of data analytics methods that form a place in the last stage; these include the following:-
Data Mining
Like coal mining, wherein miners sift through rocks for unearthing iron ores, the same strategies are applied in the data sense.
It's the process where data science practitioners sort through large databases to identify patterns and relationships by recognising anomalies and putting them into different data clusters.
Predictive Analytics
As the name suggests, predictive analytics utilise past historical data gathered by organisations to make future predictions regarding strategy performance, identify upcoming risks and hazards, and look at trends that can benefit corporations.
Deep Learning
Deep learning is the name of the data science field given to human behaviour and functionality that are imitated by powerful machines. Deep learning works in unison with neural networks to canvas algorithms used by machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies.
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Knowledgeable data scientist programs
connect with various underlying concepts of these technologies to give young learners better reasoning for these models.
Deep learning works primarily towards recognising patterns from complex and abstract data sets.
Breakdown of Steps for Understanding Data Analytics
In business terms, data has found a new meaning since it possesses the power today to make or break an organisation's fortunes. The data used by corporate businesses works extensively to oversee past historical trends, insights, and other significant information.
This comes in handy while developing future projects, policies and bringing out any structural changes. The various steps mentioned above highlight how intricate and complex the data analytics process is. Still, if done right, it can help in generating more revenues and more profits for companies.
Therefore, new and upcoming engineers need to have their basics cleared to get hired by leading corporations and take up these high-paying career roles. Undertaking data analytics courses
developed by some of the top leading institutes across the country can help future model careers.
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Starting from ground root levels and building on these concepts, and assisting budding engineers in their respective journeys. Luckily for emerging scientists, robust data scientist courses
are available to users that can be utilised to build a solid foundation for over-analytical particulars.
Top 10 Concepts of Analytics that Young Professionals Need to Know
In simplified terms, the data analytics domain seeks in finding answers to questions regarding "what has happened?" "what is currently happening?" and "what events are likely to happen in the future?" for corporations.
Data analytics offers a systematic approach for finding answers to these questions backed by data practices. The active utilisation of strategic principles and technologies that oversee data journeys are vital for seeking comprehensible insights from information gathered by a given organisation.
The resources offered to new engineers from the best data science courses
can help them become masters in fundamentals of data analytics, and they would be able to use them in real-life scenarios.
Data bears a lot of potentials to take an average industry to a top revenue-generating giant given that they take care of basics and apply practical models strategically.
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The influx of several data scientist courses
fabricated by some of the well-known institutes have focused on developing teaching frameworks that build a strong foundation of rudimentary elements which comprise analytics.
Here's a list of these top ten concepts that every future data engineer must know about:-
Dataset
The origins of any data-powered technology or software begin from a grass root level of analysing wherever every instance of a data value is observed in storage systems.
It's similar to how chromosomes play an important role in deciding a human's gender and even a small occurrence of "X" or "Y" value can lead to drastic changes. Data set forms a key component in any data science field.
Modern data sets consist of different attributes and hence have several different forms such as numerical, categorical, text, image, voice, and video data. A surveyed data set can be either static or dynamic and displays its individualistic traits.
Data set is an entity in a given database that is subject to changes and is also dependent on geographical locations, demographics, etc.
Mastery over Programming Languages
When it comes to data analytics, the interaction and exchange with machines are nuanced by inputting commands into the system. The computer then studies, analyses, and carries out its tasks as delivered by programming languages and displays outputs accordingly.
The entire dynamics of the programming world lies in understanding which set of commands to provide the machines with for achieving optimal results.
Professionals entering these career domains need to be well-versed with Java, Python, C++, etc., and also have a grip over backend database software such as SQL.
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Most of the engineer's time and energy is spent towards surveying databases and looking at values that point out anomalies, predictions and other trends.
Knowledge of Data Engineering
Data engineering is the umbrella term given to the sourcing, preparation, treatment, and deployment of data that fits the organisational structure. Moreover, the developed data engineering models help give shape to a company's algorithms used by machines.
The biggest advantage of a data scientist course
is that it offers all the theoretical knowledge of setting up robust engineering practices for a given organisation.
Three phases undergo data engineering, these include- data extraction which focuses on getting values from a source, next up is data transformation that deals with the conversion of data sets as per their destination databases and lastly, loading, which refers to getting into the system used for analysis.
Upcoming engineers need to be able to wrangle data for concluding, especially for unclean and raw values.
Learning the Concept of Data Visualisation
Data visualisation refers to the representation of information in workplace settings. The insights gathered from different data sources and their analytically driven procedures need to be augured in a comprehensible manner.
Data engineers are responsible for developing interactive charts, graphs, and other tools that help in giving a context of things that have come out as a result of data analytics.
The art of data visualisation or story telling is technical skill and one of the basics of analytics. Data scientists and engineers need to be well-versed in creating knowledgeable visual tools that can help other employees from not-so-technical backgrounds gather a grip over information generated.
Data Wrangling
The process of data wrangling highlights the essence of converting raw data into its refined and tidy form. Data wrangling is an important process of data preprocessing that comes handy while segregating data sets for generating meaningful insights.
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Data wrangling comprises several inherent steps like data importing, data cleaning, structuring, and string processing schemas, parsing of HTML-based websites, handling dates, missing data, and setting out procedures for text mining.
The data wrangling is a crucial process that can be understood better by looking at the following flow diagram:-
| Data Wrangling Process |
| Step 1 — Importing Raw Data |
| Step 2 — Cleaning Raw Data |
| Step 3 —Evaluating its Usability |
| Step 4 —Segregating Usable Data |
| Step 5 —Analysing and Visualising Data |
| Step 6 — Generating Reports |
Every data scientist needs to be well aware of the different phases involved in the data wrangling process and it comes with its own set of challenges. Therefore, enrolling in the best data science courses
that teach about its minute practices is vital for young engineers.
Getting Familiarised with Outliers
Outliers are the descriptive data points that are unique and different from the usual data sets. Outliers, as the name suggests are just bad observations of data either caused by human errors or through malfunctioned machinery.
The utilisation of outliers is essential for companies since they help point out any zero errors, impaired devices, and other mechanical issues. The occurrence of outliers are quite common in corporational settings and are often expected to exist in large datasets.
By using a box plot and drawing coordinates for outliers, engineers can figure out errors in readings, faulty devices, etc. A regression model also helps address these issues prevalent in data sets that simplify tasks by removing data points.
Data Scaling
Data scaling works in identifying features that can help engineers enhance the quality of the deployed predicted models. It's a statistical tool that takes two or more variables for describing the ideal features that a data set must possess.
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Data scaling is influenced by two concepts, namely- standardisation and normalisation. Standardisation techniques set up ideal and favourable conditions wherein data is normally distributed across the observed charts.
However, this is not the case more often than not since data is sparsely populated and incorporates several variances. Therefore, it's essential to understand the local features and their statistical distribution with trends before taking sides.
Upon getting the results, if the features seem to be uniformly distributed, then normalisation is used; otherwise, if they are observed to be Gaussian, then standardisation procedures are followed.
Engineers need to employ these practices with caution since they both are approximation techniques and contribute to the overall errors in judgements.
Descriptive Analytics
Descriptive analytics refers to analysing historical trends and using them correctly for finding patterns that offer insights into customer behaviour. The concept of data analytics answers "what has happened in the past?" and renders solutions for the same.
One of the most extensively used procedures by organisations today, businesses must update their machinery to better their daily functioning and solve complex tasks without fuss.
This analytical model also extensively uses basic mathematical and statistical techniques to derive key historical trends' key performance indicators. The sole purpose of descriptive analytics is not to estimate a value but to give insight into the underlying behaviours.
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Some of the standard tools used for running descriptive analytics include MS Excel, SPSS, and STATA. One of the modern-day examples of descriptive analytics includes customer segmentation by marketing companies.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics is another critical facet of data-based analytics that considers the probability of a future event happening or a probable situation occurring in the near future. It highlights the answers to questions such as "what could happen?".
Predictive models build on their descriptive patterns described above for arriving at conclusions by looking beyond historical data. The predictive models analyse data based on structured and unstructured sources.
One of the main advantages rendered by predictive models is that they enable decision-makers to make informative decisions backed by sound reasoning and documenting the likelihood of an event transpiring.
The tools and techniques deployed by predictive models include- RapidMiner, R, Python, SAS, Matlab, Dataiku DSS, and several others. Upcoming professionals can find resources for the same via enrolling in a data scientist course
curated by an esteemed institution.
Prescriptive Analytics
The most sophisticated type of analytics leveraged by data-backed technologies takes care of stochastic optimisation and simulation to explore a set of practical options that can churn major benefits, revenues for end-users.
This type of analytics delves into finding solutions for "what should be done?" and seeks answers for the same. These processes go beyond descriptive models for addressing the complexities that an organisation might be facing at a particular period in time.
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They work towards developing strategies as to what needs to be done in the predicted future to give an advantageous position for corporations. Several areas of prescriptive analytics work towards quantifying future actions that affect vital business metrics.
These models need to work on big data and canvass algorithms to compare the likelihood of an event happening. The by-product of these activities leads to the creation of optimal actions that drive business objectives.
The different concepts discussed above help new and emerging data engineers build successful and rewarding careers.
Conclusion
The article shows how data scientist courses
' different analytical concepts can help professionals leapfrog in their careers.
Modern data analytics is all about working on numerous data sets and understanding their role in developing better future policies and assisting managers in making well-informed decisions. The industrial requirements are such that data needs to be surveyed deeply and closely for understanding different market behaviours, trends, and competitor analysis.
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Data in the digitised world has become a beacon of opportunities and offers a look into the different customer-related insights, implement advertising campaigns, content personalisation, and improve the company's bottom lines and ROIs. The inception of data analytics in mainstream processing can only be used if sufficient tools are in place to garner insights.
FAQS Associated with Concepts Learnt in Data Scientist Courses
Q. Which institutes provide the best data science courses available today?
Ans: Elite universities such as XLRI and IIM offer credible courses in data science.
Q. Which type of analytics uses statistical & Machine Learning techniques?
Ans: Descriptive analytics uses statistical and machine learning techniques.
Q. Is data analytics and machine learning the same?
Ans: Data analytics focuses more on generating and gathering meaningful insights. ML is involved with developing algorithms that help in achieving a firm's objectives.
Q. Is data analytics a promising career?
Ans: Yes, data analytics is amongst the top paying careers today that offer several growth opportunities.
Q. How does data analytics utilise business intelligence tools?
Ans: Business intelligence comes to the fore in offering solutions in data visualisation and descriptive analytics.
Q. What are data-driven decisions?
Ans: Those decisions are taken by combining analytical facts, metrics, and data to help them come to a strategic business decision that allows firms to achieve their objectives and initiatives.
Q. What sort of data is required for data analytics?
Ans: Data that is composed in a structured and refined manner is used for analytics.
Q. How can data analytics help corporations?
Ans: It can help corporations by understanding the needs of consumers, improving customer satisfaction, etc.
Q. What are different data analytics tools used by companies?
Ans: Modern corporations use software like SAS and SPSS for carrying out data analytics.
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