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The third part of the course is a good introduction to the capability of Python in writing search codes and in scraping the web and other applications. Assignments are more difficult to tackle than in the previous two courses probably because the materials needed to solve them were either not well explained or were explained in later lessons. For example, the instruction for a particular assignment gave a starting sample code that was claimed to be the closest to the code to do the assignment, a statement that turned out to be wrong. It was not close to it at all. This area should be looked into for future learners. The learners' minds should be prepared from the beginning that there might be a need to go outside the course materials to tackle some assignments.

Overall, again, the course is an excellent introduction to what Python can do in search programs using regular expressions and in scraping the web and other applications. To be very good at these topics, like any other courses, learners will need extensive practice on their own, as most of the assignments were completed through a hand-holding technique using the provided sample codes. 

Overall, I am happy with what I am learning in python programming, and perhaps, I would use this new knowledge to work as a web developer someday. Thank you, Dr Charles, University of Michigan, and Coursera. Keep up the good work of providing affordable and accessible education.

This is the third of 5 courses in Python 2.7, so the full 5 courses are excellent for a Beginner to become a solid Intermediate, this Web Access course alone should only be taken by those with some Python programming experience (like the prior 2 beginning courses on programming and data structures in Python). I did the course using Python 3.5, from Anaconda, after starting the more challenging MIT 6.00 courses (2 of them), which use 3.5 but are faster paced yet with more challenging problems. [Some issues switching from 2.7 to 3.5 -- there now is a revised Open Source book using py3x] Dr. Chuck's course offers true high quality learning but allowing me to work my 40 hrs /week and do the course, altho it took me two sessions to finish. Now fully completed after switching to the next later session. NOTE - these MOOCs allow one to switch to the next session when one falls behind; this is better for getting TA help in the forums when there is a problem. Thanks!

(above is same as Class Central, below is new)

How could it be improved? By having for each required assignment a similar but more difficult optional assignment, which can be further discussed in the forums. I'd expect that switching auto-grade assignments & sample code to be py3.5, especially the print() change, would be fairly easy and allow students to choose which version to do the assignment it.

I really appreciate all of Dr. Chuck's lectures and courses. On this one though, I missed the 'picture in picture' feature of the slides- in courses 1 & 2 the slide content was always visible (with Dr. Chuck lecturing in a split screen), but in this course the content is interlaced with the video of Dr. Chuck, and it makes it harder to see what's going on with the code and his annotations when it's flipping back and forth between his face and what he's doing. I didn't know how much I appreciated that slide format until it was gone! I also prefer the long (40min/lecture) format, as opposed to all these short units as separate video things-- it made it much harder to go back and find/rewatch something because I couldnt remember what short segment the topic was covered in, as opposed to just searching a giant transcript. Also (maybe this is just me?) the links to navigate within the course aren't there (just below the floating 'coursera' header), so I had to constantly go to the home page and re-find my place after submitting assignments- extra aggravating with the increased number of shorter videos. But, I felt content is 5/5 as always- just didn't like the new presentation format. I write this only as feedback, not a complaint, I'm truly very grateful and pleased with the courses.

Although considerably harder than the first two courses, it is still mostly well explained and worthy of 4 stars. Where it falls down is in the JSON section I think. Although I agree that XML is richer, it is not harder to use: in fact, I think it is easier (but that may be my bias of 25 years' exposure to SGML/XML with a language that processes SGML/XML *brilliantly* but is almost exclusive to publishing (OmniMark). The JSON nested dictionaries and lists are just plain confusing and hard to read IMHO and if you did not have the sample code it would be very hard to complete the first assignment of Week 6. The bit that Chuck fails to point out about XML is that it has an inherent bias to handling complex *documents* rather than extracts of repetitive data. It is impossible to mimic Docbook or any other complex document with JSON, and it was a bit annoying that this key point was omitted (or at least I don't recall it being pointed out - all that was said was JSON is better, easier, preferrable, etc.). Overall though, this was a very good course again, though if you had little expeience of either XML or JSON, you could struggle and/or will take longer to fathom this course.

This was my third course within the Python for Everybody Specialization. I must say that I really enjoy Professor Severance's classes --and I started from zero knowledge on coding/python to a point where I'm retrieving and parcing data from the web! However, this course was somehow much more full of "gaps" and "jumps"---diferently from the previous two, in which I could follow what was happening (and undertand what we were doing), here it was more like copy and paste feeling. In many moment the "classes" and explanations was far to difficult to follow --as if we were jumping. What makes this specialization so interesting is tha fact that it takes very complex processes and make it understandable ----but not in this third course. And I don't think its only because certain "coding" "parts" had to be like that---I felt it was rushed and much less carefully delivered. That's my sincere and constructive (I hope) review!