Udacity: Time Series Forecasting Review

Udacity's Time Series Forecasting is a short primer on common predictive analytics techniques for data with a time dimension . The free, self-paced course takes approximately 3-weeks to complete and as a part of Udacity's Business Analyst nanodegree program, it has no real prerequisites outside of downloading the Alteryx data analysis software to follow along with demonstrations.


Time Series Forecasting consists of 4 lessons: an introduction to time series, ETS models, ARIMA models and analyzing and visualizing results. The course and the models it covers focus on decomposing time series data into underlying components--overall trends, seasonal patterns, remaining residual patterns--to better understand and model the data. Each lesson consists of 10 to 20 segments featuring short lecture videos, quizzes or readings. Most segments only take a minute or two to complete, so you can reasonably expect to complete each lesson in an hour. The videos, while very short on average, have high production value and clear instruction. As a short business-oriented course, it favors hitting on key concepts at a high level, eschewing technical and mathematical details.


Time Series Forecasting is an accessible intro to time series data analytics with good production value that requires a minimal time commitment. It is a good course for a first brush introduction to time series concepts, but it's too short to gain much practice actually carrying out time series analytics yourself.


I give Time Series Forecasting 4 out of 5 stars: Very Good.