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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Building Data Visualization Tools by Johns Hopkins University

4.0
stars
156 ratings

About the Course

The data science revolution has produced reams of new data from a wide variety of new sources. These new datasets are being used to answer new questions in way never before conceived. Visualization remains one of the most powerful ways draw conclusions from data, but the influx of new data types requires the development of new visualization techniques and building blocks. This course provides you with the skills for creating those new visualization building blocks. We focus on the ggplot2 framework and describe how to use and extend the system to suit the specific needs of your organization or team. Upon completing this course, learners will be able to build the tools needed to visualize a wide variety of data types and will have the fundamentals needed to address new data types as they come about....

Top reviews

SM

Jun 18, 2021

Great course - learned a lot. Excellent instruction

One downside.. Peer review can be a blocking issue to moving forward. If no one is around to peer review, you wait, and pay while you wait.

M

Jul 19, 2022

Coding project was quite useful. Got my submission peer-graded much sooner than I had expected (in about a week).

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1 - 25 of 42 Reviews for Building Data Visualization Tools

By Rebecca G

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Jul 23, 2017

This course was not good at all. Almost all of the information is a screen scrape from a book and peer-evaluated, so you may be better off just getting the book and going through it. Neither the mentors nor the authors ever participated. The assignments are poorly written and missing too much detail. Ending up bailing on the course and the final capstone as I'm simply not learning anything and the projects are too frustrating to work on.

By João G C

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Jun 1, 2020

The course is just a dump of the recommended reading book. There are zero videos, zero walkthroughs and zero interaction with the instructors. The final project is over-demanding for the level of the content provided. I don't recommend this course to anyone.

By Susan M

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Jun 19, 2021

Great course - learned a lot. Excellent instruction

One downside.. Peer review can be a blocking issue to moving forward. If no one is around to peer review, you wait, and pay while you wait.

By Maurizio C

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Oct 12, 2017

Great gap between teaching and what is required to pass the course. Unnecessarily difficult.

The didactic material is not compelling.

Not recommended.

By Shawn M

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Feb 28, 2019

I have been progressing through all the courses in this specialization and, overall, the courses have been of tremendous value to me. However, it's really not the courses themselves but the book that goes along with the courses that deserves the four and five star ratings I have previously given (these courses are really nothing more than "read the book" and "take the assignments"). Nevertheless, the knowledge gained is not easily available elsewhere. 80% of this visualization course (i.e. the book) was excellent and I give it top marks. The other 20%, starting with the grid system section to the end of the book, was terrible. These sections need a complete rewrite as they are barely comprehensible and certainly not comprehensive. The final assignment does not test you on how much you learned in the course, rather it tests you on how much time you spend on your own finding other relevant sources of information on the internet to figure it out. Also, I don't understand why creating a custom geom would be a more important software development skill than R Shiny for example, given that having the ability to develop interactive apps is critical to visualization. I will give this course 3 1/2 stars, rounded down to 3 since coursera won't allow a half star. I hope the authors take what I have to say as an opportunity for improvement since I have benefited tremendously from this specialization so far and I would like to see it improved in certain areas.

By Youdinghuan C

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Jan 7, 2017

The first three weeks of this course is ok. The last assignment is very poorly structured with uninformative instructions.

By Hugo N

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Mar 21, 2023

Challenging to put everything together!

It was not easy to understand my errors and fix them quickly. It took me too long to understand clearly how ggproto: Stat, Geom and layers connect and work together. I have now perfected the project i have submitted. I have been able to add default aesthetics such as alpha , linewidth, linetype to produce the plots exactly as required in the assignment. I have learned so many new things

I am very grateful to my professors Roger Peng and Brooke Anderson for this beautiful and exciting learning journey!

By Conner M

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Sep 21, 2017

I could plot in R before and many of the topics discussed in this course I already had a working grasp on. Still, the course helped me really gave me a whole new depth of knowledge on the packages that plotting is build around in R. Highly recommended!

By Mio R

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Jul 20, 2022

Coding project was quite useful. Got my submission peer-graded much sooner than I had expected (in about a week).

By José E L

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Jun 18, 2017

Good material. Thanks a lot for this course.

By Andreas P

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Sep 28, 2019

Thank you very much for that lesson.

By Kunasekaran N

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May 19, 2017

Last assignment is hard but enjoyed.

By José A G R

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Mar 5, 2017

the last task is very challenging

By Gopal S

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May 28, 2017

Excellent course.

By Yaakov M

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May 2, 2017

good challenges

By Oswaldo N C

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Jul 26, 2017

A nice course

By JEEWESH K J

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Nov 1, 2017

Great course

By Ganapathi N K

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Jun 6, 2018

Nice

By Prakhar P

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Aug 5, 2019

This course introduced to me the advanced capabilities of data visualization in R, especially using GGPLOT. It was bit of a struggle in the course project as the examples in the Mastering Software development e-book were little simplistic in nature. Overall, very satisfied that I can create my own geom. The key learning was on creating visualization using spatial data.

By Daniel F S

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Apr 20, 2020

Like other courses in this mastering, it is a little bit outdated and the practical tests proposed are way harder than examples presented before, but still worth doing because of book, "getting hands dirty" and forum.

By Antonio G

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Nov 17, 2018

Great course! You'll learn a lot about the graphic capabilities of R. However, I think there are some things that need to be explained before one goes on to complete the final project.

By Mridul M

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Jun 23, 2020

It is a good course. The only downside is that if you are a beginner level R programmer and want to upskill, you will need to do an extensive search to complete this course.

By Sandjaja B

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May 1, 2018

It is a very good course, but feels a bit more hands-off than the other 3 preceding courses in the Mastering Software Development in R certificate.

By Francesco D Z

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Aug 1, 2017

very useful, especially the final practical exam.

not 5 score because I think more time should have been spent in more modern interactive charts

By Ruoding W

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Sep 18, 2017

the course content is just copy from the book