Python Basics: Retrieving Online Data (Coursera)

Python Basics: Retrieving Online Data (Coursera)

Python doesn't just represent numbers, but also text and other kinds of things. In technical terms, the parts of Python you'll learn are strings, lists, Booleans, errors, lists, and list manipulation. At a higher level you will learn how people use code to represent real-world ideas. In the process you'll use Python to automatically read Wikipedia and Twitter.

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

Course 2 of 4 in the Python Basics for Online Research Specialization.

What You Will Learn

  • Learn strategies for getting coding help and run code to automatically access thousands of pages on Wikipedia.
  • Practice playing with text, numbers, true/false values in Python and learn how to handle error messages and ask for help.
  • Learn how Python lets us change, grow, access, and play with lists.
  • Run code that accesses Twitter from Python, interact with virtually every aspect of Twitter, and learn about social media bots.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Your Chances of Becoming Famous Using Python
What do you think, is it easier to become famous than it used to be or harder? In this module, you will run code to automatically access thousands of pages on Wikipedia and calculate your probability of becoming famous over time. Let's get started!

WEEK 2
Representing Ideas in Python
There is more to programming than reproducing your calculator. In this module, we learn how to play with text, numbers, true/false values in Python, all towards analyzing a popular pop song. We also learn how to handle error messages and ask for help.

WEEK 3
Representing Collections in Python
Sometimes we deal with individual things in the world, sometimes collections of things. Python represents this idea with collections such as lists. We learn how Python lets us change, grow, access, and play with lists. We'll see how this is useful by reconstructing the Western history of the months of the year.

WEEK 4
Course Summary & Honors: Interactive Demo
In the honor's section of this module, you will run code that accesses Twitter from Python. You have to jump through a few hoops to get it set up, but once it's running you can interact with virtually every aspect of Twitter via Python. If you've ever wondered how social media bots work, this is precisely how.

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

Related Courses

Llama for Python Programmers (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Llama for Python Programmers (Coursera)

Llama for Python Programmers is designed for programmers who want to leverage the Llama 2 large language model (LLM) and take advantage of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. In this course, you’ll learn how open-source LLMs can run on self-hosted hardware, made possible through techniques such as quantization by using the llama.cpp package.

Aug 17th 2026
3 Weeks
Design Computing: 3D Modeling in Rhinoceros with Python/Rhinoscript (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Design Computing: 3D Modeling in Rhinoceros with Python/Rhinoscript (Coursera)

Why should a designer learn to code? As our world is increasingly impacted by the use of algorithms, designers must learn how to use and create design computing programs. Designers must go beyond the narrowly focused use of computers in the automation of simple drafting/modeling tasks and instead explore the extraordinary potential digitalization holds for design culture/practice.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Applied Text Mining in Python (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Applied Text Mining in Python (Coursera)

This course will introduce the learner to text mining and text manipulation basics. The course begins with an understanding of how text is handled by python, the structure of text both to the machine and to humans, and an overview of the nltk framework for manipulating text. The second week focuses on common manipulation needs, including regular expressions (searching for text), cleaning text, and preparing text for use by machine learning processes. The third week will apply basic natural language processing methods to text, and demonstrate how text classification is accomplished. The final week will explore more advanced methods for detecting the topics in documents and grouping them by similarity (topic modelling).

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Accounting Data Analytics with Python (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Accounting Data Analytics with Python (Coursera)

This course focuses on developing Python skills for assembling business data. It will cover some of the same material from Introduction to Accounting Data Analytics and Visualization, but in a more general purpose programming environment (Jupyter Notebook for Python), rather than in Excel and the Visual Basic Editor. These concepts are taught within the context of one or more accounting data domains (e.g., financial statement data from EDGAR, stock data, loan data, point-of-sale data).

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Introduction to Software, Programming, and Databases (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

Introduction to Software, Programming, and Databases (Coursera)

There are many types of software and understanding software can be overwhelming. This course aims to help you understand more about the types of software and how to manage software from an information technology (IT) perspective. This course will help you understand the basics of software, cloud computing, web browsers, development and concepts of software, programming languages, and database basics.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Learn HTML and CSS (Coursera) Coursera
Scrimba

Learn HTML and CSS (Coursera)

This course is perfect if you want to learn how to code websites from scratch. You will learn the basics of HTML and CSS through interactive challenges. Along the way, you will build multiple projects, like a Google.com clone, a Space Exploration page, and a fun birthday site filled with GIFs. While most of the challenges are done in Scrimba's interactive editor, you will also learn how to use professional tools like VS Code for code editing, GitHub for hosting your code, and Netlify for deploying your projects to the world wide web.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Programming and Application Foundations (Coursera) Coursera
Illinois Tech

Programming and Application Foundations (Coursera)

This course introduces the students to the creation and deployment of modern, standards-compliant web pages written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the context of the client-server architecture of the web. The course also covers the fundamentals of programming in a modern programming language, basic data modeling, database design, implementation, and administration of single-user and shared multi-user database applications using a contemporary relational database management system.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Learn Imba (Coursera) Coursera
Scrimba

Learn Imba (Coursera)

In this class, you'll dive into Imba, the programming language used to build scrimba.com. Imba, a compile-to-JavaScript language, packs a punch with nifty features for whipping up web apps, including built-in tags and styles. We'll cover the ABCs of Imba syntax and work on creating a Dopamine Box app. By the finish line, you'll be armed with the skills to construct your very own web app UI using Imba.

Aug 17th 2026
1 Week