I finished a MOOC!

I’m feeling really chuffed with myself, I got to the end of a MOOC.

So what did I learn from the experience? If you haven’t already guessed I picked up a little bit about Weka.  Still, I don’t  feel much like a Weka expert, I’m not even sure I can remember where all the buttons are. What was more important for me was getting involved in learning new stuff with people who are outside of my usual work circle. I picked up lots of little habits, phrases and best practice tips about data mining that I wasn’t picking up from my immediate colleagues. That’s not to say that my colleagues aren’t any good at data mining, it just isn’t our background and I really benefited by listening to those who are more in touch with its origins. I found the insight in to some of the basic classifiers very useful and I feel like I know just enough  about classification methods to research on my own. I didn’t pay any attention to the message boards or email lists during the MOOC and I’m being to wish that I had. Data Mining is being used everywhere and it would have been useful to get a feel for how people in other domains found the material.

If you are interested in using Weka to come up with classification methods I’d recommended when the course is run again in March next year. The course material was very high quality and Ian’s dry sense of humour helped you stick with it.

I’m just so pleased to have actually finished a MOOC. I’m off to get my certificate framed.