Learning Outcome
How to use Unix/Linux to manage your file system
Individual Course
Data Science: Productivity Tools
Course Length
8 weeks
1-2 hours a week
Featuring faculty from:
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Enroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 149
Enroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 149
In this online course taught by Harvard Professor Rafael Irizarry, learn to keep your projects organized and produce reproducible reports using GitHub, git, Unix/Linux, and RStudio.
A typical data analysis project may involve several parts, each including several data files and different scripts with code. Keeping all this organized can be challenging.
Part of our Professional Certificate Program in Data Science, this course explains how to use Unix/Linux as a tool for managing files and directories on your computer and how to keep the file system organized. You will be introduced to the version control systems git, a powerful tool for keeping track of changes in your scripts and reports. We also introduce you to GitHub and demonstrate how you can use this service to keep your work in a repository that facilitates collaborations.
Finally, you will learn to write reports in R markdown which permits you to incorporate text and code into a document. We'll put it all together using the powerful integrated desktop environment RStudio.
Self-Guided
EDX
Learning Outcome
How to start a repository on GitHub
Learning Outcome
How to leverage the many useful features provided by RStudio
- Learn from Harvard faculty
- Do it on your own time
- Get a certificate, add it to your resume
- Be part of the Harvard Community
Faculty
Your Instructor
Rafael Irizarry
Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Rafael Irizarry is a Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. For the past 15 years, Dr. Irizarry’s research has focused on the analysis of genomics data. During this time, he has also taught several classes, all related to applied statistics. Dr. Irizarry is one of the founders of the Bioconductor Project, an open source and open development software project for the analysis of genomic data. His publications related to these topics have been highly cited and his software implementations widely downloaded.
Read full bio.
Complete your journey with this Professional Certificate Series
These courses can be bundled together to receive a professional certificate at a discounted price.
Learn More- 9 Courses
- 1 Year & 5 Months
- Earn Your Certificate
Data Science: Capstone
15-20 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: Visualization
1-2 hours a week • Starting Oct 25, 2025
Data Science: Inference and Modeling
1-2 hours per week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: Probability
1-2 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: Machine Learning
2-4 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: Wrangling
1-2 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: Linear Regression
1-2 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Data Science: R Basics
1-2 hours a week • Starting Oct 15, 2025
Ways to take this course
Audit or Pursue a Verified Certificate
A Verified Certificate costs $149 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.
Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.
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