Big Data: How Data Analytics Is Transforming the World

By: Tim Chartier, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Tim Chartier

In our age of accelerating progress in so many fields, it’s easy to lose sight of the underlying innovation that makes the data analytics revolution possible. These 24 lectures introduce you to the key concepts, methods, and accomplishments of this versatile approach to problem solving. You need no expertise in mathematics to follow this exciting story.

Tim Chartier, professor of mathematics and computer science, explains the basic computational techniques used in data analytics, but his focus is on how these ideas are applied and the amazing results they achieve. His case histories make these lectures both accessible and entertaining. He takes you behind the scenes to review many examples of data analysis in action, including the pitfalls and potential of Internet traffic analysis, algorithms that aim to predict what customers want, some of the best defenses for keeping your personal data private, how methods for filling out March Madness game brackets can be applied to other problems, and much more.

Professor Chartier is a champion of the fun, challenge, and breathtaking power of mathematics - qualities that are accessible with data analytics. And with his enjoyable lectures, you’ll discover concepts and tools that are transforming the world - and that you can use to transform your own life. It’s like watching a thrilling spectator sport that invites you to suit up and join the action!

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2014 The Great Courses (P)2014 The Teaching Company, LLC

Big Deal

Some math included. A little dry but important for how data can affect your life.

Decent but publisher didn’t edit this audiobook

This audiobook was irritating. First, writer gave a 1st grade class lecture on what is data. Second, publisher didn’t edit this audiobook. You can hear the narrator backtracking what he said then went back again to reverse that backtrack. This was boring. Hard to keep track what the author is saying.

Not much meat on the bones

This course can be summed up by, “Yay, Big Data!” There’s a lot about interesting discoveries made by data analytics, but not much detail about specifics of techniques. Bear in mind, I’ve been a professional software developer for over thirty years, and I still came away without learning actual algorithms deeply enough to attempt to implement any of them.

So if you are just looking for a basic, “what can data analytics do?” this course will probably suffice. But if you want to actually DO data analytics, you’ll need much more.

visual book..

good narrative and details, but this is a visual book where formulas and charts are part of the narrative making it hard to follow

Great course for data science novices

Great and inter course for novices in data science. Covers common and well know material for those in the field, but does offer some clear explanations and examples of complex concepts. The sports data science examples are fantastic.