Data Literacy Essentials (Coursera)

Offered by SAS,
Data Literacy Essentials (Coursera)

In this course, you learn the foundational knowledge and skills you need to engage with data in meaningful ways. This is an introductory data literacy course, starting with the basics: what is data, what does it mean to be data literate, and why is it important in today’s world.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

You will build data skills by following the journeys of a concerned parent, a small business owner, and a public health expert, all of whom rely on data to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of this course, you will be able to see the utility and interrogate the reliability of data, discover meaning in data by looking for patterns and trends, use data insights to make informed decisions, communicate data insights to others, and understand how bias impacts your work with data. If you are new to analyzing data, this course is for you. The focus in this course is on practical understanding while avoiding complicated statistical terminology to help you feel supported and encouraged throughout the process. Anybody can be successful in this course regardless or background.
This course is part of the Data Literacy: Exploring and Visualizing Data Specialization.

Syllabus

Welcome to the Data Literacy: Exploring and Visualizing Data Specialization
In this module you learn about the scope and structure of the courses in this Data Literacy: Exploring and Visualizing Data Specialization.

Data Literacy Essentials
In this course, you learn the foundational knowledge and skills you need to engage with data in meaningful ways. This is an introductory data literacy course, starting with the basics: what is data, what does it mean to be data literate, and why is it important in today’s world. You will build data skills by following the journeys of a concerned parent, a small business owner, and a public health expert, all of whom rely on data to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of this course, you will be able to see the utility and interrogate the reliability of data, discover meaning in data by looking for patterns and trends, use data insights to make informed decisions, communicate data insights to others, and understand how bias impacts your work with data. If you are new to analyzing data, this course is for you. The focus in this course is on practical understanding while avoiding complicated statistical terminology to help you feel supported and encouraged throughout the process. Anybody can be successful in this course regardless or background.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

How Science Turns Data Into Knowledge (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

How Science Turns Data Into Knowledge (Coursera)

How Science Turns Data Into Knowledge teaches you how to evaluate scientific claims critically, address experimental limitations, and recognize the roles of trust and responsibility within research. During the course, you’ll explore the nuances of significance testing, scientific research methods, and science communication, emphasizing the importance of carefully interpreting statistical results.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Introduction to Business Analytics: Communicating with Data (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Introduction to Business Analytics: Communicating with Data (Coursera)

This course introduces students to the science of business analytics while casting a keen eye toward the artful use of numbers found in the digital space. The goal is to provide businesses and managers with the foundation needed to apply data analytics to real-world challenges they confront daily in their professional lives.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Data – What It Is, What We Can Do With It (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

Data – What It Is, What We Can Do With It (Coursera)

This course introduces students to data and statistics. By the end of the course, students should be able to interpret descriptive statistics, causal analyses and visualizations to draw meaningful insights. The course first introduces a framework for thinking about the various purposes of statistical analysis. We’ll talk about how analysts use data for descriptive, causal and predictive inference. We’ll then cover how to develop a research study for causal analysis, compute and interpret descriptive statistics and design effective visualizations. The course will help you to become a thoughtful and critical consumer of analytics.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Data Literacy Capstone – Evaluating Research (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

Data Literacy Capstone – Evaluating Research (Coursera)

This is the final course in the Data Literacy Specialization. In this capstone course, you'll apply the skills and knowledge you have acquired in the specialization to the critical evaluation of an original quantitative analysis. The project will first require you to identify and read a piece of high-quality, original, quantitative research on a topic of your choosing. You’ll then interpret and evaluate the findings as well as the methodological approach. As part of the project, you’ll also review other students’ submissions. By the end of the project, you should be empowered to be a critical consumer and user of quantitative research.

Nov 2nd 2026
3 Weeks
Data Management for Clinical Research (Coursera) Coursera
Vanderbilt University

Data Management for Clinical Research (Coursera)

This course presents critical concepts and practical methods to support planning, collection, storage, and dissemination of data in clinical research. Understanding and implementing solid data management principles is critical for any scientific domain. Regardless of your current (or anticipated) role in the research enterprise, a strong working knowledge and skill set in data management principles and practice will increase your productivity and improve your science. Our goal is to use these modules to help you learn and practice this skill set.

Nov 9th 2026
5-12 Weeks
The Data Scientist's Toolbox (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

The Data Scientist's Toolbox (Coursera)

In this course you will get an introduction to the main tools and ideas in the data scientist's toolbox. The course gives an overview of the data, questions, and tools that data analysts and data scientists work with. There are two components to this course. The first is a conceptual introduction to the ideas behind turning data into actionable knowledge. The second is a practical introduction to the tools that will be used in the program like version control, markdown, git, GitHub, R, and RStudio.

Oct 26th 2026
4 Weeks
Measurement – Turning Concepts into Data (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

Measurement – Turning Concepts into Data (Coursera)

This course provides a framework for how analysts can create and evaluate quantitative measures. Consider the many tricky concepts that are often of interest to analysts, such as health, educational attainment and trust in government. This course will explore various approaches for quantifying these concepts. The course begins with an overview of the different levels of measurement and ways to transform variables. We’ll then discuss how to construct and build a measurement model. We’ll next examine surveys, as they are one of the most frequently used measurement tools.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Prepare Data for Exploration (Coursera) Coursera
Google

Prepare Data for Exploration (Coursera)

This is the third course in the Google Data Analytics Certificate. These courses will equip you with the skills needed to apply to introductory-level data analyst jobs. As you continue to build on your understanding of the topics from the first two courses, you’ll also be introduced to new topics that will help you gain practical data analytics skills. You’ll learn how to use tools like spreadsheets and SQL to extract and make use of the right data for your objectives and how to organize and protect your data. Current Google data analysts will continue to instruct and provide you with hands-on ways to accomplish common data analyst tasks with the best tools and resources.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Storytelling and Persuading with Data and Digital Technology (Coursera) Coursera
University of Maryland, College Park

Storytelling and Persuading with Data and Digital Technology (Coursera)

Decisions made by humans are rarely made by data alone. Human decision-makers have cognitive biases, are affected by emotions, and make conceptual leaps beyond what the data may suggest. The best way to educate and persuade decision-makers is through stories. Stories built by good data analysis. In this course, you will learn how to create stories based on data - data storytelling - by using the ABT (“And, But, Then”) Narrative Framework. We will start by using powerful data science techniques to explore and refine your data. We shape a compelling narrative out of the data findings using brain-friendly storytelling techniques.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks