Resources

We are building an annotated list of useful online resources for people who would like to learn more about data science, no matter what their discipline is.

If you are aware of good online resources that you think we should include, please email us.

The following websites are useful for people interested in machine learning with Python.

Python

Below we provide a selection of resources for Python, a general purpose programming language that has become popular for use in data science. One reason for that popularity is the existence of a number of packages for Python that implement various mathematical, statistical, and machine learning-related functions. Another attractive feature of Python is the widespread use of Jupyter notebooks that allow for interactive programming in Python (as well as other languages). Jupyter notebooks are also an easy way to share code and to create tutorials for various programming tasks. Of course, Python programs can also be created using standard editors used for programming languages. There will be more on this below.

General Python background

Getting Started with Python

The first task in getting started with Python is to get access. You can do this by installing it on a machine you have access to, such as your personal computer, or you can get access through a computing facility in your organization.

Access Python without installing it on your personal machine

Option 1: Google Colab
This puts you directly into a Python notebook. It looks like a webpage and has links to videos, but if you follow the instructions in the getting started video, Introduction to Colab, you can get started with coding in Python right away. Access to Python's packages and GPUs is provided in this environment, but it is not intended for running computer intensive programs.

Option 2: Code in the Cloud from Anaconda
Anaconda also provides an environment that you can use to install and use Python and its packages. If you just want to have access to a Jupyter notebook and play around with learning and light use of Python, this could be a possibility. You will have to create an account with Anaconda.

Option 3: MSI Jupyter Notebook Server
Those who have have an account at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute can go directly to their Jupyter notebook server. You must have an MSI account to use MSI resources. You must also connect either from a machine on a UMN network or via VPN. See the MSI website for additional documentation. You can perform significant computation using this option, but for programs that use significant resources, you should create and submit jobs via the batch system at MSI.

Install Python on your personal machine

We recommend installing Anaconda as it will install Python and also install other regularly used packages for scientific computing and data science. It will also help make sure all your packages remain compatible with one another. Much of the functionality of Python, like R, Matlab, and other languages, comes from the packages.

This YouTube video will help you install Anaconda Python.

Anaconda takes a fair amount of space on the disk and time to install, so if you have an older computer with limited disk space or have a limited internet connection, you should consider lighter weight options such as Miniconda.

Learning to program in Python

For those unfamiliar with Python 3 and Jupyter notebooks, this is a relatively easy environment to learn. Learning Python 3 will help you advance your knowledge of data analytics as most big data platforms and data mining/machine learning projects require a working knowledge of Python. The following resources can help you learn Python and get started in using Python for machine learning.

Learn Python (book wesbite)
Google's Python Class (website and videos)
Python for Data Analysis, 3E (book website)
W3Schools Python Tutorials (a collection of short Python tutorials on various aspects of the Python language)
Data Analysis with Python and Pandas (videos) Pandas is a Python package for handling and analyzing data.
Learn to Program with Python (videos)

Running Jupyter Notebooks

How to Use Jupyter Notebook: A Beginner's Tutorial (webpage)
Jupyter Notebook Tutorial (video)

General Machine Learning

An introduction to machine learning with the Python library, scikit-learn
Introduction to Machine Learning, 3e, Ethem Alpaydin, webpage that has slides and pdf files for the textbook, which is widely used. The 4th edition is not available online.
Introduction to Data Mining, by Tan, Steinbach, Karpatne and Kumar, which has three of its chapters available online.
Stanford machine learning playlist on YouTube by Andrew Ng

Deep Learning with Python

Deep Learning. An online book that gives a various good, although demanding, introduction to deep learning.
Neural Networks and Deep Learning. A more introductory online book for deep learning.
Dive into Deep Learning. This interactive online book includes concepts, exercises, and code.
Practical Deep learning for Coders. This interactive online book also includes concepts, exercises, and code.
Deep Learning. This website features instructors Yann LeCun and Alfredo Canziani teaching a course on deep learning in Spring 2020 at the NYU Center for Data Science. It includes YouTube videos, slides, and Jupyter notebooks. The course concerns the latest techniques in deep learning and representation learning.
Welcome to the IvA Deep Learning Tutorials! The University of Amsterdam has a set of Python notebook tutorials for deep learning. These tutorial notebooks are accompanied by videos.