The data-related skills are becoming more cross-cutting. The data analytics has become essential for take decisions in organisations of all sizes and sectors. But to communicate the results of the analytics to the different interlocutors, it’s necessary to work with graphics, visualisations and narratives that allow a simple and easy appreciation of the conclusions. As a result of this, the search for profiles capable of working with the most important data visualization tools has grown.

To develop in this area, it’s necessary to have a miminum knowledge of statistics and analytics, but also to know the trends in design and in visual communication. On the market, we can find a lot of courses or MOOC that could help us to learn more about this skills in a online and flexible way.

General courses about data visualization

There are many schools that offer courses for those people who don’t want to specialise in a particular tool, but they prefer to get an overview of the data visualization.

Big Data: data visualization

• Imparted by: the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in Coursera.
• Duration: 9 hours, in 4 weeks.
• Language: spanish
• Price: free

This MOOC is an introductory course that explain the key concepts of the massive data visualization, through examples in different contexts. The aim of this course is that the students could learn to formulate the problem and choose the best tool. It has 4 modules, one per week: the context for the present data visualization, analitycs tools and data visualization, the creation process of the data visualization and others issues about data visualization.

Fundamentals of data visualization

• Imparted by: Marco Russo (In Udemy)
• Duration: 2 hours
• Language: English
• Price: Free

This course is designed to teach the students how to create modern and complete data visualizations. This MOOC starts with a basic notions about the application of data visualization and what it is used for. After a simple introduction, the students will learn how to interact with the different graphics, how to differentiate between Bussiness Analitycs and Data Analytics, or how to understand data visualization through practical examples.

Data journalism and visualization with free tools

• Imparted by: Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
• Duration: 30 hours (6 weeks)
• Language: Spanish
• Price: Free

This course is available for free to anyone who is interested in data journalism, visualisation and the tools that the market offers for free. Thanks to this course, the students can learn how to search and collect data, how to find stories inside them, how to prepare data and how to make visualisations.

Specific course about different visualization tools 

On the other hand, those who want prefer more specific training in one of the most popular data visualization tools, can find a lot of options on the internet.

Fundamentals of Data Visualisation with Tableau

• Imparted by: University Austral (In Coursera)
• Duration: 8 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Price: Free

Tableau mixes a graphical interface with common elements of Business Intelligence tools. This course is for users who have never worked with this tool or want to learn more about it, without previous technical or analytical knowledge. It explains fundamental concepts of data visualisation and how to use the various tools offered by Tableau.

Create and share reports with Tableau Public!

• Imparted by: Adrian Javier Tagüico (through Udemy)
• Duration: 1,5 hours
• Language: English
• Price: requires payment of a fee.

This course shows you how to create dynamic and intuitive reports, dashboards and stories step by step thanks to Tableau Public. The students will learn how to import data sources (using example public data), how to prepare the data, how to model the data and how to create visualisations, using filters (data segmentation, interaction of visualisations or different options in each visualisation). In this case, you will need a basic knowledge of data types.

Google Data Studio – Data Visualization and Dashboards

• Imparted by: Start-Tech Academy (In Udemy)
• Duration: 4 video hours. You could do it in 6 hours.
• Language: Spanish
• Price: requires payment of a fee.

Data Studio is a free tool from Google to make very visual reports with analytical data, and it allows their automation. The aim of this course is that the students learn how to create all kinds of graphics in Google Data Studio, as well as to learn more about the specific advanced characteristics of the tool. This is a start course for preople who don’t have previous knowledge.

Data Visualization with Kibana

• Imparted by:  Start-Tech Academy (in Udemy)
• Duration: 5.5 hours
• Language: English
• Price: requires payment of a fee.

Course to learn the basic skills of Kibana, an open software code that is part of the Elastic Stack product pack. The students can learn from basic security issues (users, roles and spaces), to how to create advanced visualisations or dashboards, using the Kibana Query Language (KQL).

Grafana

• Imparted by: Sean Bradley (In Udemy)
• Duration: 6 hours
• Language: English
• Price: requires payment of a fee.

Grafana began as a part of Kibana, but now is a completely independent tool. In this course you will learn how to explore graphic panels, statistics, indicators, bars, tables, text, heat maps and logs. It includes everything from installing different data fonts (MySQL, Zabbix, InfluxDB, etc.) and the creation of dynamic dashboards with automatic display placement, the installation the server SMTP, or the configuration notification channel by email or Telegram

Data visualization library courses

In addition to the previous generic tools, there are also more specific visualization libraries on the market. These libraries are more versatile, but require that the students know the programming language where the library is implemented. Some examples of courses in this area are:

Data visualization course with Python

• Imparted by: Abraham Requena (In Open webinars).
• Duration: 3 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Price: for free

This course focuses on two Python’s libraries: Matplotlib and Seaborn. The course starts with an introduction where is discussed the importance of visualisation and graphic types. Then, the work with each of the libraries, including exercises, is discussed.

Data Visualization with Python

• Imparted by: Complutense University of Madrid
• Duration: 40 hours (8 weeks)
• Language: Spanish
• Price: requires payment of a fee.

This course focuses on the development of visualizations using Python. After an introduction about the key aspects for create and effective data visualisations, the course focuses on the development of data visualizations in Python using Matplotlib and Plotly. The course uses the Jupyter Notebook environment. You will need a minimum knowledge of Python and data analysis with Pandas.

Bid Data: data visualization. Introduction to R and ggplot2

• Imparted by: Autonomous University of Barcelona (in Coursera).
• Duration: 9 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Price: Free

This is the fourth course of the specialised programme "Big Data - Introduction to the practical use of massive data". This programme has been designed to motivate and teach the students key concepts about data visualisation, as well as to provide them with criterium for formulating problems and choosing the correct tool for each visualization. This course is divided into four main modules with different subjects, for example, contexts, tools or creation processes for data visualizations.

All this courses are just an example of all the offer in the market. If you know any other that you would like to recommend us, please send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es or leave a comment.

What cannot be denied is that with these types of courses you will improve your professional profile and you will expand your competitive skills in the labour market.

Some time ago we presented you some interesting courses about R. On this occasion, we are giving a second article on online training, but this time on another of the most popular programming languages in the world of data science: Python.

Python is a high-level programming language used to develop applications of various kinds. This language presents a big difference with respect to other languages such as Java or .NET, since Python is an interpreted language.

Python is a language that is easy to read and write thanks to its similarity to the human language. It is a free and open source cross-platform language, which encourages the possibility of developing software without limits.

In recent years, this language has gained followers thanks to its simplicity and the wide possibilities it offers to collaborate with other fields such as artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning or data science, among others.

Below is a selection of courses and training based on the recommendations of the experts who collaborate with datos.gob.es and some user communities such as Python Canarias that have collaborated in the creation of this list.

Online courses

Python Programming: Learn Python from scratch (May 2021)

• Taught by: Santiago Hernández (Udemy)
• Duration: Not specified
• Language: Spanish
• Price: 94,99€

An eminently practical course aimed at anyone who wants to get started in the world of programming language with Python. It also addresses the application of Python to different disciplines such as machine learning, cybersecurity or video game development.

Complete course on Machine Learning: Data Science in Python (November 2021)

• Taught by: Juan Gabriel Gomila, Frogrames SL (Udemy)
• Duration: 50 hours (approximately)
• Language: Spanish
• Price: 99,99€

Aimed at all types of users who are interested in learning more about Python, this course addresses the mathematics and algorithms behind this programming language, as well as Python programming libraries. Its practical approach allows students to work with real-life examples, as well as practice building their own machine learning models.

Python for Data Science, AI & Development  (December 2021)

• Taught by: Coursera (IBM)
• Duration: 20 hours
• Language: English
• Price: Free

Thanks to this course you will be able to start learning Python for data science, as well as programming in general. You will start from scratch to program in Python, without previous programming experience.

Python for Beginners (January 2020)

• Taught by: Microsoft Developer (YouTube)
• Duration: 5 hours
• Language: English
• Price: Free

This online course, available for free on YouTube, provides the basics of Python programming, starting with code and common everyday scenarios.

Anylize data with Python

• Taught by: Codecademy
• Duration: 10 weeks
• Language: English
• Price: Free basic content and full content subject to subscription

Thanks to this course you will be able to enhance and perfect the basic fundamentals of data analysis while developing skills in the Python programming language. Upon completion of the course, you will be able to use the acquired Python skills to better present data through visualizations, among many other aspects.

Learn Python (2020)

• Taught by: Sergio Delgado Quintero
• Duration: Not specified
• Language: Spanish
• Price: Free

Free course that allows you to learn the Python programming language with a practical approach. Includes exercises and coverage for different levels of knowledge.

Get started in Python

• Taught by: Andalusian Government
• Duration: 20 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Price: Free

With this free Python course, you will be able to get started with this tool and have the basic programming knowledge. If you don't have much experience with Python, don't worry. This course starts from a zero level.

Masters

Not all Python training is offered in the form of courses. More and more study centers offer masters or programs related to data science that include Python knowledge in their agenda. Here are some examples:

• Master's Degree in Data Science with Python (120 hours): Offered by the Spanish Association of Computer Programmers, this master's degree provides students with knowledge of modeling and technology to support data-driven decision making.

• Master's Degree in Big Data, from the National University of Distance Education (UNED) (Duration not specified): one of its objectives is for students to learn to program in Python and to store in Hadoop or in NoSQL databases.

• Master's Degree in Big Data and Data Science Applied to Economics (12 months): from the National University of Distance Education (UNED), introduces Python concepts as one of the most widely used software programs.

• Master Big Data - Business - Analytics (520 hours): from the Complutense University of Madrid, includes a topic on Introduction and basics of Python programming, as well as another on Machine Learning with R and Python.

• Master in Big Data and Data Science applied to Economics and Commerce: (520 hours) also from the Complutense University of Madrid, includes a module on programming languages in Python and R.

• Master in Digital Humanities for a Sustainable World (Duration not specified): from the Autonomous University of Madrid, where students will be able to program in Python and R to obtain statistical data from texts (natural language processing).

• Master in Advanced Python Programming for Hacking, Big Data and Machine Learning (1,500 hours): taught by the European University Miguel de Cervantes, this master's degree will prepare students to perform programming work in Python specialized in important areas such as Big Data, Hacking and Machine Learning.

• University Expert in Python Programming (4 months): this Course in Python Programming, given by the International University of Valencia, offers its students a complete training in the field of programming, starting from the most basic fundamentals to the most demanded specializations.
• Master in Data Science (14 weeks): offered by the European University, it is aimed at students who want to learn how to develop data-driven projects. The first module is focused on learning Python. The European University also offers a 10-month Master in Big Data Analytics, an 8-month master's degree in Business Analytics and an online course on the fundamentals of Big Data.

If you want to know more, in the Pyhton España website, they have a section with tutorials, books and courses, sorted by levels. They also include the link to several Python communities in Spanish (Discord , Telegram and Stack Overflow)where you can solve your doubts with this powerful tool.

This has been just a small compilation of training courses related to the Python language that we hope will be of interest to you. If you know of any other course that you would like to recommend, you can leave us a comment or send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Over the last decade we have seen how national and international institutions, as well as national governments and business associations themselves have been warning about the shortage of technological profiles and the threat this poses to innovation and growth. This is not an exclusively European problem - and therefore also affects Spain – but, to a greater or lesser extent, it occurs all over the world, and has been further aggravated by the recent pandemic.

Anyone who has been working for some time, and not necessarily in the technology world, has been able to observe how the demand for technology-related roles has been increasing. It's nothing more than the consequence of companies around the world investing heavily in digitization to improve their operations and innovate their products, along with the growing presence of technology in all aspects of our lives.

And within technology professionals, during the last few years there is a group that has become a kind of unicorn due to its particular scarcity, data scientists and the rest of professionals related to data and artificial intelligence: data engineers, machine learning engineers, artificial engineering specialists in all areas, from data governance to the very configuration and deployment of deep learning models, etc.

This scenario is especially problematic for Spain where salaries are less competitive than in other countries in our environment and where, for starters, the proportion of IT workers is below the EU average. Therefore, it is foreseeable that Spanish companies and public administrations, which are also implementing projects of this type, will face increasing difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent related to technology in general, and data and artificial intelligence in particular.

When there is a supply problem, the only sustainable solution in the medium and long term is to increase the production of what is in short supply. In this case, the solution would be to incorporate new professionals into the labour market as the only mechanism to ensure a better balance between supply and demand. And this is recognized in all national and European strategies and plans related to digitalization, artificial intelligence and the reform of education systems, both higher education and vocational training.

Spanish Strategies

The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy dedicates one of its axes to the promotion of the development of digital skills with the aim of putting in place all the means to ensure that workers have an adequate mastery of digital skills and capabilities to understand and develop Artificial Intelligence technologies and applications. The Spanish government has planned a wide range of education and training policies whose basis is the National Digital Skills Plan, published in January 2021 and aligned with the Digital Agenda 2025.

This plan includes data analytics and artificial intelligence as cutting-edge technological areas within specialized digital skills, that is, "necessary to meet the labor demand for specialists in digital technologies: people who work directly in the design, implementation, operation and/or maintenance of digital systems".

In general, the national strategy presents policy actions on education and digital skills for the entire population throughout their lives. Although in many cases these measures are still in the planning phase and will see a major boost with the deployment of NextGenerationEU funds, we already have some pioneering examples such as the training and employment guidance programs for unemployed and young people tendered last year and recently awarded. In the case of training for unemployed people, actions such as the Actualízate program and the training project for the acquisition of skills for the digital economy are already underway. The actions awarded that are aimed at young people are scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2022. In both cases the objective is to provide free training actions aimed at the acquisition and improvement of ICT skills, personal skills and employability, in the field of transformation and the digital economy, as well as orientation and job placement. Among these ICT skills, those related to data and artificial intelligence will undoubtedly have an important weight in the training programs.

The role of universities

On the other hand, universities around the world, and of course Spanish universities, have been adapting curricula and creating new training programs related to data and artificial intelligence for some time now. The first to adapt to the demand was postgraduate training, which, within the higher education system, is the most flexible and quickest to implement. The first batch of professionals with specific training in data and artificial intelligence came from diverse disciplines. As a result, among the veterans of corporate data teams we can find different STEM disciplines, from mathematics and physics to virtually any engineering. In general, what these pioneers had in common was to have taken Masters in Big Data, data science, data analytics, etc. complemented with non-regulated training through MOOCs.

Currently, the first professionals who have completed the first degrees in data science or data engineering, which were reformed by the pioneering universities - but which are now already implemented in many Spanish universities - are beginning to reach the labor market. These professionals have a very high degree of adaptation to the current needs of the labor market, so they are in great demand among companies.

For universities, the main pending challenge is for university curricula in any discipline to include knowledge to work with data and to understand how data supports decision making. This will be vital to support the EU target of 70% of adults having basic digital skills by 2025.

Large technology companies developing talent

An idea of the size of the problem posed by the shortage of these skills for the global economy is the involvement of technology giants such as Google, Amazon or Microsoft in its solution. In recent years we have seen how practically all of them have launched large-scale free materials and programs to certify personnel in different areas of technology, because they see it as a threat to their own growth, even though they are not exactly the ones having the greatest difficulty in recruiting the scarce existing talent. Their vision is that if the rest of the companies are not able to keep up with the pace of digitalization this will cause their own growth to suffer and that is why they invest heavily in certification programs beyond their own technologies, such as Google's IT Support Professional Certificate or AWS's Specialized Program: Modern Application Development with Python.

Other multinational companies are addressing the talent shortage by retraining their employees in analytics and artificial intelligence skills. They are following different strategies to do this, such as incentivizing their employees to take MOOCs or creating tailored training plans with specialized providers in the education sector. In some cases, employees in non-data related roles are also encouraged to participate in data science training, such as data visualization or data analytics.

Although it will take time to see their effects due to the high inertia of all these measures, they are certainly going in the right direction to improve the competitiveness of companies that need to keep up with the high global pace of innovation surrounding artificial intelligence and everything related to data. For their part, professionals who know how to adapt to this demand will experience a sweet moment in the coming years and will be able to choose which projects to commit to without worrying about the difficulties that, unfortunately, affect employment in other areas of knowledge and sectors of activity.

Content prepared by Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation & Digitalization.

The contents and views reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

The collaborative project Ciudades Abiertas organize a workshop cycle to disseminate the results obtained throughout the execution of this project. Throughout the project, various tools and solutions have been developed that are to be made known so that other regions can implement them.

What is Ciudades Abiertas?

Ciudades Abiertas is a collaborative project led by four municipalities (A Coruña, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Zaragoza) in collaboration with Red.es.

Its main objective is to offer city councils technological tools that allow the development of new reusable initiatives by other organizations. In this way, they seek to facilitate interoperability between administrations, the publication of open data, transparency and the participation of citizens.

Among its lines of action is the promotion of open data. The project provides the technical and conceptual means necessary for the “management of shared unique data, open by default, georeferenced and semantically annotated by the city”. It also offers a vocabularies catalog and common and open data structures on Github for free use. You can learn more about their performances at this article and on their own Web page.

Who are the workshops aimed at?

The workshops are aimed both at representatives of different organizations and at all citizens interested in attending.

In the case of organizations, they will be provided with the necessary information so that they can implement the solutions in their own initiatives.

When will the cycle of workshops be held?

The cycle organized by Open Cities consists of 6 workshops that will be held throughout the month of October, the first beginning on the 6th. All of them will be held virtually. To be able to attend, it is essential to make a prior registration individually in each of the workshops in which you want to participate.

In the first workshop there will be a presentation of the project and the lines of action carried out within it. The rest of the workshops will address specific aspects, linked to the different lines of action.

Next, we show you the complete calendar of workshops:

Workshop 1: Open Cities, a boost for open government policies

Date: 10/06/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 2: Standardization in access to open data

Date: 10/07/2021

Hour: 16:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 3: Vocabularies, a key element of interoperability

Date: 10/14/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 4: Development of visualizations on open data

Date: 10/19/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 5: Transparency from the perspective of open data

Date: 10/21/2021

Hour: 16:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 6: Methodology for the implementation of participatory processes in cities

Date: 10/27/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

If you need more information about the cycle organized by Ciudades Abiertas or about the project, you can contact the organization through the email address contacto@ciudadesabiertas.es

Summer is just around the corner and with it the well-deserved holidays. Undoubtedly, this time of year gives us time to rest, reconnect with the family and spend pleasant moments with our friends.

However, it is also a great opportunity to take advantage of and improve our knowledge of data and technology through the courses that different universities make available to us during these dates. Whether you are a student or a working professional, these types of courses can contribute to increase your training and help you gain competitive advantages in the labour market.

Below, we show you some examples of summer courses from Spanish universities on these topics. We have also included some online training, available all year round, which can be an excellent product to learn during the summer season.

Courses related to open data

We begin our compilation with the course 'Big & Open Data. Analysis and programming with R and Python' given by the Complutense University of Madrid. It will be held at the Fundación General UCM from 5 to 23 July, Monday to Friday from 9 am to 2 pm. This course is aimed at university students, teachers, researchers and professionals who wish to broaden and perfect their knowledge of this subject.

Data analysis and visualisation

If you are interested in learning the R language, the University of Santiago de Compostela organises two courses related to this subject, within the framework of its 'Universidade de Verán' The first one is 'Introduction to geographic and cartographic information systems with the R environment', which will be held from 6 to 9 July at the Faculty of Geography and History of Santiago de Compostela. You can consult all the information and the syllabus through this link.

The second is 'Visualisation and analysis of data with R', which will take place from 13 to 23 July at the Faculty of Mathematics of the USC. In this case, the university offers students the possibility of attending in two shifts (morning and afternoon). As you can see in the programme, statistics is one of the key aspects of this training.

If your field is social sciences and you want to learn how to handle data correctly, the course of the International University of Andalusia (UNIA) 'Techniques of data analysis in Humanities and Social Sciences' seeks to approach the use of new statistical and spatial techniques in research in these fields. It will be held from 23 to 26 August in classroom mode.

Big Data

Big Data is increasingly becoming one of the elements that contribute most to the acceleration of digital transformation. If you are interested in this field, you can opt for the course 'Big Data Geolocated: Tools for capture, analysis and visualisation' which will be given by the Complutense University of Madrid from 5 to 23 July from 9 am to 2 pm, in person at the Fundación General UCM.

Another option is the course 'Big Data: technological foundations and practical applications' organised by the University of Alicante, which will be held online from 19 to 23 July.

Artificial intelligence

The Government has recently launched the online course 'Elements of AI' in Spanish with the aim of promoting and improving the training of citizens in artificial intelligence. The Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence will implement this project in collaboration with the UNED,  which will provide the technical and academic support for this training. Elements of AI is a massive open educational project (MOOC) that aims to bring citizens knowledge and skills on Artificial Intelligence and its various applications. You can find out all the information about this course here. And if you want to start the training now, you can register through this link. The course is free of charge.

Another interesting training related to this field is the course 'Practical introduction to artificial intelligence and deep learning' organised by the International University of Andalusia (UNIA). It will be taught in person at the Antonio Machado headquarters in Baeza between 17 and 20 August 2021. Among its objectives, it offers students an overview of data processing models based on artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques, among others.

These are just a few examples of courses that are currently open for enrolment, although there are many more, as the offer is wide and varied. In addition, it should be remembered that summer has not yet begun and that new data-related courses could appear in the coming weeks. If you know of any other course that might be of interest, do not hesitate to leave us a comment below or write to us at contacto@datos.gob.es.

The Transparency Portal of the Generalitat Valenciana has just announced the course "Open data in local councils: transparency, data protection and openness of information" which will be held online on 18, 21, 25 and 28 May. The course will introduce open data, its benefits and opportunities, as well as its relation to data protection and transparency.

Who is organising this course?

The Open Data and Transparency Observatory is in charge of organising and delivering this training within the framework of the agreement between the Regional Ministry of Participation, Transparency, Cooperation and Democratic Quality and the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

When will this course be held?

The course "Open data in local councils: transparency, data protection and openness of information" will be offered in webinar format and will have a total of 20 hours spread over 4 sessions in the morning (from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm).

What is the agenda?

The programme is divided into 2 blocks, each of which will be covered in two sessions.

BLOCK I. Transparency and data protection.

• 18 May. The first session will deal with the legal regime of transparency. The principles of transparency and publicity will be explained, as well as how the subjective right of access to information works, among other concepts. The day will end with a series of case studies.
• 21 May. The second session will focus on the protection of personal data. It will begin by analysing the general regulatory framework, to then approach the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679/EU and Organic Law 3/2018, on Personal Data Protection and guarantee of digital rights. Finally, the principles of consent, purpose and fair processing will be addressed through practical cases.

BLOCK II. Open Data.

• 25th May. The third session will consist of an introduction to open data and the opportunities in the reuse of public sector information. The difference between open data and transparency, licences and the 5-star quality model, among other issues, will be discussed. In the section on the publication of data, they will focus on the guidelines set out by the Aporta Initiative and the FEMP.
• 28th May. The last session will focus on the re-use of public sector information. The legal framework will be addressed and practical examples will be shown.

You can consult the full programme here.

What do I have to do to attend?

Registration is completely free of charge. You can do it from this link.

If you find this training interesting, don't forget to consult other activities on transparency organised by the Generalitat Valenciana and other institutions in the agenda of activities on the GVA Oberta transparency portal.

During the second quarter of 2020, humanity was forced to improvise a large-scale experiment in distance education due to the need to close schools at all levels to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other sectors and activities, whose face-to-face formula has been abruptly disrupted, the entire education community has worked against the clock to improvise solutions to  solve the immensity of the challenge.

A little bit of history

Distance learning is by no means a new concept and the first correspondence courses in the modern sense were created in the United Kingdom and the United States as early as the mid-19th century. Later on, radio and television were also used as a vehicle to bring various forms of distance learning to the public. The main objective of these early experiences was to bring education to less densely populated areas rather than to completely replace the dominant model of classroom education.

Since the beginning of the large-scale deployment of the internet and the web in the 1990s, education has been one of the sectors in which revolutionary advances were most expected. However, the truth is that the solutions available today are limited, especially when compared to the scale of the challenge of keeping the education system functioning in a non-face-to-face way.

During this period organizations such as Unesco have listed educational technology solutions to help the educational community adapt its programmes to the distance education formula. Perhaps the best known of the solutions that facilitate self-learning is Khan Academy, which provides free classes in mathematics, science and humanities. Khan Academy won the Princess of Asturias Award for international cooperation in 2019.

MooCs courses for a more equitable education

The field of educational technology (edTech) has been proposing solutions for decades to facilitate learning and improve academic performance with the incorporation of information and communication technologies to enhance educational theories at different stages, cycles and circumstances. Education through mass and open online courseware platforms (MOOCs) is perhaps the most popular innovation in educational technology in terms of its worldwide adoption.

The idea behind MOOCs is to educate a number of students that would be physically impossible to reach with a traditional course (M for Mass), to offer them learning materials structured as complete courses, not as individual lessons (C for Courses), and of course completely distance learning via the internet (O for online).

Although the concept was proposed earlier, it was not until the beginning of the 2010's that the large MOOC platforms that currently dominate the market, such as Coursera, edX or Udemy, heirs to MIT's pioneering MitOpenCourseWare project, became popular. Its growth was so explosive that The New York Times declared 2012 the "Year of the MOOC". In just one year, it went from one university offering three courses to 300,000 students to 40 universities offering more than 250 courses to 4 million students.

During the months of strictest confinement in the world, MOOC's platforms have seen their enrolment growth soar. Coursera announced at its annual conference that enrolment in its courses grew by 644% over the previous year between mid-March and mid-April 2020, from 1.6 to 10.3 million. Enrolment at Udemy also increased by more than 400% between February and March compared to 2019.

The role of open data in MooCs

The fact that the birth and development of MOOCs' platforms comes from the environment of large American academic institutions (Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and large technology companies means that their impact has mainly been in the field of higher and professional education with a certain bias towards training in STEM subjects.

This makes open data play a prominent role in courses offered in disciplines such as data science, data analysis, artificial intelligence, machine learning or big data in general. For example, the most widely used programming languages in these disciplines such as R or Python include both structured and unstructured datasets that are available either directly with the initial installation or with the inclusion of specialised packages. In the context of online training and practical projects, these datasets serve to introduce, test, experiment and understand concepts ranging from basic statistics to the most advanced artificial intelligence techniques.

A well-known example is the Iris dataset that is included in many packages of the main programming languages and has become a common example to explain and test various statistical classification techniques in machine learning. In other cases, public or private data portals are the source used by trainers to customize the education of learners and even to motivate them with examples that may be closer to their interests.

Although not available on major platforms, some companies such as Esri, which provide mapping software, have published MOOCs to help anyone learn about topics including spatial imaging, geospatial analysis and mapping using open data sets.

A few years ago some universities were concerned that MOOCs would become competitors for their face-to-face Bachelor or Master programmes, but now they seem to have found their niche in professional and complementary training for people looking to improve their skills, change careers or simply enjoy the process of learning. In this sense, the pandemic has once again highlighted the opportunity for MOOCs to "democratise" higher education by providing cheap or free access to anyone in the world.

Content prepared by Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation & Digitalization.

The contents and points of view reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of its author.

Datos abiertos, open data, linked open data, big data, data scientist, data… Lo relacionado con los datos, y especialmente con los datos abiertos en el sector público, está adquiriendo una gran relevancia en los últimos tiempos. La oferta formativa sobre el ámbito de los datos abiertos está creciendo de manera progresiva y, junto a los másters, postgrados y ciclos formativos especializados, los cursos de verano son una opción interesante para iniciar o ahondar en la formación de materias específicas.

Exponemos algunos de los cursos de verano open data que se ofertan durante el verano de 2017. La Universidad Complutense de Madrid ha colgado ya el cartel de completo en la cuarta edición del curso Big and Open Data. Análisis y programación con R y Python que se imparte del 3 al 21, en horario de 9 a 14 horas. Enmarcado en la Escuela de Ciencias Experimentales, la Complutense ofrece también el curso Big Data en diferentes escenarios enfocado al manejo de bases de datos. La Universidad de Alicante imparte Big Data: fundamentos y aplicaciones prácticas, un curso práctico centrado en técnicas de almacenamiento y procesamiento utilizadas para el trabajo con datos masivos, en el que se abordan tecnologías punteras en entornos Big Data como Spark y herramientas para el análisis de datos (estructurados y textuales) como R. La fecha es del 17 al 21 de julio y ofrece becas.

Del 3 al 5 de julio, la UNED ofrece el curso Tecnologías semánticas y herramientas lingüísticas para humanidades digitales en el que se abordan los datos enlazados, metadatos, modelos de datos y Linked Open Data. Asimismo,Rainer Open School organiza un ciclo de formación en modalidad semipresencial en torno al data scientist (científico de datos) - Curso de verano semipresencial: Certificación EMC Data Scientist- en el que se acredita la certificación EMC-DS con validez internacional. El curso puede hacerse casi en su totalidad en la distancia. Esta misma semana, la sede de los cursos de verano de la Universidad de El Escorial (Madrid) acoge el curso Fórmulas de éxito del periodismo de datos. Diseño, programación, Internet y multimedia que se realiza del 26 al 28 de junio.

Asimismo, Iniciativa Barcelona Open Data ha organizado este verano una semana formativa en datos abiertos, concretamente los días 11, 12 y 13 de julio. Esta iniciativa se enmarca en la Escuela Ciudadana Open Data Lab y pretende aproximar esta materia a ciudadanos y pequeñas y medianas empresas.

De modo paralelo a la oferta de cursos de verano recordamos también la oferta de cursos en línea sobre datos abiertos en datos.gob.es. Desde este mismo portal puedes acceder libremente a unidades formativas sobre datos abiertos, herramientas, marco normativo, la reutilización, APIs y Linked Data, etcétera.