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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Using Python to Access Web Data by University of Michigan

4.8
stars
44,198 ratings

About the Course

This course will show how one can treat the Internet as a source of data. We will scrape, parse, and read web data as well as access data using web APIs. We will work with HTML, XML, and JSON data formats in Python. This course will cover Chapters 11-13 of the textbook “Python for Everybody”. To succeed in this course, you should be familiar with the material covered in Chapters 1-10 of the textbook and the first two courses in this specialization. These topics include variables and expressions, conditional execution (loops, branching, and try/except), functions, Python data structures (strings, lists, dictionaries, and tuples), and manipulating files. This course covers Python 3....
Highlights
High quality content

(256 Reviews)

Practical assignments

(217 Reviews)

Top reviews

SM

Jun 18, 2020

This course was really interesting and did a good job introducing complicated topics in usefully simplified form. It was a pleasure to listen to the instructor and I got everything I wanted out of it.

AK

Aug 19, 2022

Interesting course, I consider information about XML and JSON as very informative. I will continue specialization "Python For Everybody". Thanks for Dr. Chuck and everyone, who created this material.

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6451 - 6475 of 7,958 Reviews for Using Python to Access Web Data

By Xiaorong L

Mar 31, 2019

In the last two weeks things started getting a bit too complicated and Dr. Chuck didn't actually explain everything a learner would need to understand what is going on there... While doing the assignment, yes, I admit that I finished all of them, but BASED ON SAMPLE CODES without a full understanding of some non-trivial details. Therefore I am pretty sure without those sample codes I would not be able to finish the assignments.

By Tanja Z

Oct 23, 2016

I found that some parts of the course were confusing. You really have to take the time to read documentation to do the assignments, which was difficult with my busy schedule. (And just because you read the documentation doesn't mean that you understand the code!) Overall, I learned a lot and still recommend the course - just wish there was less background and more explanation of the actual codes that you can use while parsing.

By Frank M

Nov 7, 2015

These courses are great introductions to python functionality. The workload is much more reasonable at 1-2 hours per week than many other Coursera courses that I have taken.

My only recommendation is to show more current libraries and methods than those presented in the lectures. Fundamentals are important to understanding concepts, but if there are newer and better ways of doing things, they should be presented as well.

By Gustavo H C

Jan 22, 2020

Great course, very interesting, but I find this part of the program should be optional, since not all the people is interested in retrieveing data from the internet; besides, these are controlled practices. In the real world it's a little bit more tricky to obtain information from an API and extracting data from a website. Perhaps, this module should be in a different course of its own. That'd be quite interesting to see.

By Rafael R d L

Aug 11, 2020

Another great course by Dr. Chuck. This one I think it started in a good way, but in the end it got a little superficial. It looked like we've got to take those ready codes and just make some modifications - looking at the "logical" side, it may be a good idea, but I missed some "code from the zero".

Despite that, I would like to thank Dr. Chuck, the greatest educator I know.

sorry for my bad English :) (or not hahaha)

By Raushan K

May 27, 2020

Everything looks perfect but when it comes to xml,json and api, you need to explain it really in detail. That's a bunch of codes and you are explaining very less. I need to study it thoroughly with the help of internet. But, thanks to the instructor atleast he has exposed me to the hidden world of web. I can read it on internet after knowing these terms. Atleast now i have feel for these hidden world of web services.

By Hok S C

Aug 29, 2018

A few parts are not explained clearly as the Lecture materials were going really deep. However, the assignment was not covered that much. Sometimes I just want to know more about that topic but I don't know how to. I know there's an E-book in py4e.com, but I think it will be better to put some non-compulsory materials in the related weeks. Just a little thought and thanks for making suck a good course.

By Deanne Z

Feb 28, 2016

It's a very practical course. The course is in a good pace. The contents are broken into smaller pieces. Thank you Dr. Chunk for making Python+WebData easy and fun to learn. One little thing I wish was the slides and code could be shown for a longer time, or constantly showing on the screen as the two earlier python course. Currently I had to pause the video couple times to digest the slides or code.

By ABHAY R K

Jul 18, 2023

would love to have practice examples other than just the assignments if possible. That way we get the confidence to write the code without having to refer to the code shared. Additionally, it would be nice if an editor with intellisense is recommended. This otherwise feels like writing in notepad for C Programming language where you had to know each and every library detail and syntax was unforgiving.

By Jehan F K

Aug 22, 2021

Compared to the rest of the courses, I felt this one was the hardest, that I was somewhat booted into the deep end and had to figure out how to make things work on my own as compared to the others where what to do and what was being taught was very obvious, nonetheless it's still good

It would be much better if you could go into greater depth and explain more about using Python to access the web

By Haoming L

Dec 9, 2019

Pretty challenging course and it is really a harsh but precious experience to understand the key concepts, what the relationship between different syntaxs and the server is, and deal with the assignments. The only problem is that the gap between this course and the previous course is so large that I was even confused by huge amount of new terms and programs and did not know what to do at first.

By Pradhuman S

Mar 18, 2020

We were provided with codes after week 5 in which we had to make changes. It made the assignment easy. I would have loved the course if the parts of code which were provided in last were explained properly instead of giving just a brief idea. For others who are opting this course i would advice them to search the net for the parts which were not explained in the video for better understanding

By Ana L d M R

Feb 19, 2019

I love the short lecture videos, as well as the worked exercises one. They are very insightful. I also find it interesting that the professor takes time to explain other concepts like the HTTP protocol, xml, json and APIs. I just got a little frustrated about the amount of times we are just asked to copy and paste some sample code without understanding how it works (e.g. ssl, api keys).

By Roberto “ Z

Jan 20, 2016

This is a simple, practical course that will teach the basics of how to access web resources with python programs.

The goal is not teaching you how to write nice programs, but just enable you to write something working to pull interesting data out of existing data sources like files and web services providing text, XML and JSON data.

The videos also feature some interesting background.

By Jerry T

Feb 7, 2023

Lots of ambiguity at some points. Very helpful info though. Some of the discussion forum questions could have been answered in more helpful tone. I didn't write anything but read thru to get tips on assignments.

Moderator needs to understand people are taking this course after 8 hours of work, spending time with family and stopping and going. The retention and pick up is a challenge.

By Miloš T

Jan 11, 2016

Very good course for beginners. I liked the lectures, they were engaging and bonus videos are nice addition. Exercises were maybe too easy, but still for a beginners course just right. The only problem is there is less practical work than it should be, adding more exercises would be nice, and adding more difficult ones would help better grasp the material. That's why only 4 stars.

By Syed M F J

Jun 18, 2017

I was looking for a web scrapping kick off in python and come across this one of its own kind course. It is really a very good course not only focusing on practical and applied side but also giving a good start/refresher of internet technology, making a good good background. Interviews of relevant major break throughers are also on spot. A highly recommended course for starters.

By Julian M

Dec 5, 2016

This course was very well set up, and easy for a person with a reasonable knowledge of Python basics to understand.

I would have appreciated a little more in-depth assignments, or perhaps two-stage assignments that delved a little more deeply into JSON and XML use, to expand upon the concepts learned in the first.

Overall a fantastic intro to interacting with web data with Python.

By Mohaimenul I

Jun 16, 2023

As usual, I love Dr. Chuck's courses. But this course felt a lot harder to understand for me. Personally, I still couldn't get a grasp of those URLLIB, JSON-type things properly. It's maybe my fault, but still I couldn't understand properly when to import what. This would be a lot more helpful if I could understand some complex principles about importing these and some headings.

By Shivkumar U

Mar 9, 2017

An excellent course, Dr. Chuck manages to put various things with ease. Material as well as teaching is excellent. However, I found the necessity of having more programming exercises with more difficulty than what course presently offers. More exercises with higher difficulty are needed to emphasize the material we have learnt. Apart from that, this is an excellent course.

By Philipp D

Feb 18, 2020

I liked the course, but somewhat less than the first two from this specialization and I was undecided for a while whether to give 3 or 4 stars. I would have appreciated more background on urllib, API, or ssl, at least in the (admittedly free) text book. I also think that the part on the Service Oriented Approach in its current form is too condensed to be really helpful.

By Xinlun Z

Sep 13, 2019

This course may be hard for laymen who only know a little about Internet. I will recommend people who has a hard time initially to watch some intro video about Internet on YouTube and then come back. Anyway, if you see this informative course through to the very end, you're gonna have a strong understanding about the regular expression, Internet, HTML, XML JSON and API.

By Leonas M

Jan 23, 2016

Loved it, it was hard, but i completed. Course needs some updates, there are few mistakes that took me longer time to complete tasks. And i liked the videos when it was Dr Chuck and desktop video in same video, it was more easy to keep along. Now it is harder when you concentrate on the code and then suddenly you lose your concentration when you see Dr. in full screen.

By Abdur R

Feb 7, 2016

I found it to be a very useful class on important topics in web analytics. The homework assignments are not very difficult and encourage learning instead of grade-seeking. Plus, Dr. Chuck is an engaging instructor!

P.s. I gave it 4 starts because the assignments were a bit too easy at times. My feedback is to include advanced but optional assignments in future sessions.

By Sebastián G P

Feb 26, 2019

A very good course explaining the fundamentals of data analysis using python. The course is a little dense, and goes a little to fast if you are a beginner, but it will let you explore the most important elements for accessign web data. The teacher is one of the bests that I have seen in Coursera, and the bonus materials are incredible.

The previous courses are a must.