Data Science in Real Life
Johns Hopkins University · View on Coursera ↗
Taught by Brian Caffo, PhD, Jeff Leek, PhD, Roger D. Peng, PhD
Data ScienceBusiness
About the course
Have you ever had the perfect data science experience? The data pull went perfectly. There were no merging errors or missing data. Hypotheses were clearly defined prior to analyses. Randomization was performed for the treatment of interest. The analytic plan was outlined prior to analysis and followed exactly. The conclusions were clear and actionable decisions were obvious. Has that every happened to you? Of course not. Data analysis in real life is messy. How does one manage a team facing real
The dissent
The most-upvoted critical review (2 votes, 3.0★).
“Brian, Jeff, and Roger: Thank you very much for all the data science courses, really great. I generally rate them 5 stars. But for this one, I'm giving 3 stars, not because the content is not good (it is; it provides good practical and experiential information), but rather because the material seems repetitive at times either within the same course or with topics in the other courses. Also, the sequencing and lectures seem sometime a bit disjointed.”
Coursera's 4.5 comes from 2,390 ratings. Of those, 3.1% are 1–2★.
Starisk reads the reviews learners voted most helpful, and weights each by the square root of its votes: a review with 80 upvotes counts about five times one with 2. Unvoted reviews are not skipped out of laziness — by this model they carry no evidence that other students endorsed them.
That measures what the most-endorsed reviews say, not “true quality.” The rating distribution above is the whole population, so you can see the sample next to it.
Reviews read on 23 Oct 2026.Read them on Coursera ↗