Coursera - Building a Data Science Team Review

Building a Data Science Team is the second course in “Executive Data Science” specialization offered by John Hopkins University on Coursera. It is a one-week course that defines the different data science roles in an organization, what to look for in data scientists and strategies for managing and communicating with data scientists. The course has no prerequisites and grading is based on a handful of multiple-choice quizzes.


The content in Building a Data Science Team is similar to the first course in the specialization: it is geared toward a non-technical people who have to manage data scientists. The video quality is good and the instructor is personable, easy to understand and knowledgeable. There’s not too much to dislike about this course apart from its brevity. All of the courses in the Executive Data Science track are only a week long, so they can be completed in one or two learning sessions. This is not necessarily a bad thing: I find it refreshing to get a high-level overview of a topic in a short course, but it may not deliver the amount of content that paying students expect.


Building a Data Science Team is a good course for what it is: a succinct primer how to assemble and manage a data science team.


I give this course 4 out of 5 stars: Very Good.