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Juan H Klopper +1 more instructor

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Julia Scientific Programming

University of Cape Town

About this Course

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This four-module course introduces users to Julia as a first language.  Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language developed specifically for scientific computing. This language will be particularly useful for applications in physics, chemistry, astronomy, engineering, data science, bioinformatics and many more. As open source software, you will always have it available throughout your working life. It can also be used from the command line, program files or a new type of interface known as a Jupyter notebook (which is freely available as a service from JuliaBox.com).
Julia is designed to address the requirements of high-performance numerical and scientific computing while also being effective for general-purpose programming. You will be able to access all the available processors and memory, scrape data from anywhere on the web, and have it always accessible through any device you care to use as long as it has a browser.  Join us to discover new computing possibilities. Let's get started on learning Julia.

By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Programme using the Julia language by practising through assignments
- Write your own simple Julia programs from scratch
- Understand the advantages and capacities of Julia as a computing language
- Work in Jupyter notebooks using the Julia language
- Use various Julia packages such as  Plots, DataFrames and Stats

The course is delivered through video lectures, on-screen demonstrations, quizzes and practical peer-reviewed projects designed to give you an opportunity to work with the packages.

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 18 hours to complete

English

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Skills you will gain

Julia (Programming Language)
Computer Programming
Ipython
Data Visualization (DataViz)

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 18 hours to complete

English

Could your company benefit from training employees on in-demand skills?

Try Coursera for Business

Instructors

Instructor rating

4.48/5 (77 Ratings)

Juan H Klopper

Department of Surgery

177,740 Learners

3 Courses

Henri Laurie

Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics

34,478 Learners

1 Course

Offered by

University of Cape Town

The University of Cape Town is the oldest university in South Africa and is one of the leading research universities on the African continent. UCT has over 25 000 students, of whom 30% are postgraduate students. We offer degrees in six faculties: Commerce, Engineering & the Built Environment, Health Sciences, Humanities, Law, and Science. We pride ourself on our diverse student body, which reflects the many cultures and backgrounds of the region. We welcome international students and are currently home to thousands of international students from over 100 countries. UCT has a tradition of academic excellence that is respected world-wide and is privileged to have more than 30 A-rated researchers on our staff, all of whom are recognised as world leaders in their field. Our aim is to ensure that our research contributes to the public good through sharing knowledge for the benefit of society. Past students include five Nobel Laureates – Max Theiler, Alan Cormack, Sir Aaron Klug, Ralph Bunche and, most recently, J M Coetzee.

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Syllabus - What you will learn from this course

Content Rating94%(3,996 ratings)

Week

Week 1

7 hours to complete

Welcome to the course

A warm welcome to Julia Scientific Programming. Over the next four weeks, we will provide you with an introduction to what Julia can offer. This will allow you to learn the basics of the language, and stimulate your imagination about how you can use Julia in your own context. This is all about you exploring Julia - we can only demonstrate some of the capacity and encourage you to take the first steps. For those of you with a programming background, the course is intended to offer a jumpstart into using this language. If you are a novice or beginner programmer, you should follow along the simple coding but recognising that working through the material will not be sufficient to make you a proficient programmer in four weeks. You could see this as the ‘first date’ at the beginning of a long and beautiful new relationship. There is so much you will need to learn and discover. Good luck and we hope you enjoy the course! Best wishes, Henri and Juan

7 hours to complete

16 videos (Total 145 min), 6 readings, 7 quizzes

16 videos

Introduction to Julia scientific programming2m

Julia version 1.048s

Programming languages and why Julia is special6m

Getting Ready: Julia programming environments11m

The Julia REPL - Read, Evaluate and Print Loop9m

Arithmetical expressions10m

Logical expressions12m

Julia's Type System17m

Variables in Julia16m

Functions in Julia17m

User-defined functions - part 19m

User-defined functions - part 26m

Week 1: Getting Practice3m

Installing IJulia (using Jupyter Notebook)2m

Installing Juno using Julia (*as of 2022 Juno support has been discontinued - we recommend either Jupyter Notebook or Julia VS Code Extension)9m

Installing Julia Pro (*as of 2022 Juno support has been discontinued - we recommend either Jupyter Notebook or Julia VS Code Extension)8m

6 readings

How this course works10m

What to expect from Week 110m

Using Jupyter Notebooks10m

Logical expressions10m

Multiple Dispatch in Julia15m

Approach to assessment in course10m

7 practice exercises

Is this course right for me?30m

Julia REPL and the notebook30m

Arithmetical and logical expressions in Julia30m

Types and Arrays in Julia30m

Julia functions30m

Week 1 - Graded Quiz30m

What makes Julia special?30m

Week

Week 2

4 hours to complete

A context for exploring Julia: Working with data

In our case study we use Julia to store, plot, select and slice data from the Ebola epidemic. Taking real data, we explain how to work in Julia using arrays, and for loops to work with the structures. By the end of this module, you will be able to: create an array from data; learn to use the logical structures IF and FOR ; conduct basic array slicing, getting the incidence data and generating total number of cases; use Plots to generate graphs and plot data; and combine the Ebola data outputs to show a plot of disease incidence in several countries.

4 hours to complete

9 videos (Total 74 min), 1 reading, 4 quizzes

9 videos

Introduction to Week 240s

The Ebola Epidemic of 20148m

Loading data using Julia8m

Creating .csv from data tables4m

For Loops and Date-Time Formats18m

Simple plots with the Plots package9m

Multiple curves in a single diagram13m

Week 2: Getting Practice2m

How to do a Peer Graded Assignment8m

1 reading

What to expect from Week 210m

3 practice exercises

Data and Loops in Julia30m

Plots in Julia30m

Week 2 - Graded Quiz20m

Week

Week 3

3 hours to complete

Notebooks as Julia Programs

in this week, we demonstrate how it is possible to use Julia in the notebook environment to interpret a model and its fit to the data from the Ebola outbreak. For this, we apply the well-known SIR compartmental model in epidemiology. The SIR model labels three compartments, namely S = number susceptible, I =number infectious, and R =number recovered. By the end of this module, you will be able to: understand the SIR models; describe the basic parameters of an SIR model; plot the model-predicted curve and the data on the same diagram; adjust the parameters of the model so the model-predicted curve is close (or rather as close as you can make it) to the data.

3 hours to complete

9 videos (Total 76 min), 1 reading, 3 quizzes

Week

Week 4

4 hours to complete

Structuring data and functions in Julia

As a scientific computing language, Julia has many applications and is particularly well suited to the task of working with data. In this last module, we will use descriptive statistics as our topic to explore the power of Julia. You should see this week as offering you a chance to further explore concepts introduced in week one and two. You will also be introduced to more efficient ways of managing and visualizing your data. We have also included additional, honors material for those who want to explore further with Julia around functions and collections. By the end of this module, you will be able to: 1. Practice basic functions in Julia 2.Creating random variables from data point values 3. Build your own Dataframes 4. Create a variety of data visualisations 5. Conduct statistical tests 6. Learn how to export your data.

4 hours to complete

9 videos (Total 62 min), 4 readings, 4 quizzes

9 videos

Using Julia for descriptive statistics3m

Installing packages for this lesson4m

Creating simulated data7m

Descriptive statistics4m

Creating a dataframe7m

Descriptive statistics9m

Visualizing data10m

Inferential statistics11m

Exporting data as a csv file2m

4 readings

What to expect from Week 410m

Package installation and troubleshooting in Julia10m

Week 4: Wrap-up10m

Honors material10m

3 practice exercises

Week 4 - Graded Quiz10m

Collections30m

Functions30m

Reviews

4.4

145 reviews

5 stars
61.68%
4 stars
26.26%
3 stars
7.46%
2 stars
1.68%
1 star
2.89%

TOP REVIEWS FROM JULIA SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMMING

by GDDec 14, 2020

Really great pacing, practical examples and quizzes without being overwhelming. Great for both beginners in programming and statistics, and for those with some experience. Awesome lesson, thank you!

by RRNov 20, 2016

Good and enthusiastic teachers. I found the difficulty a bit too easy but it was a good introductory course and I was new to Julia, so it served its purpose.

by YYJan 19, 2019

It is very simple to get hands on with examples and practice quizzes. However, it will be so much better if updated with Julia v. 1.0+.

by MSNov 21, 2017

The course was excellent. Thank you for all the work that has gone into this. I recommend it for anyone who wishes to start using Julia or is simply curious about Julia.

View all reviews

Frequently Asked Questions

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:
The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.
The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?
When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.

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Julia Scientific Programming

Julia Scientific Programming

About this Course

Skills you will gain