Week 1) Getting started

Learning Goals

• Get to know Python
• Launch Jupyter Notebook and run code in Visual Studio Code
• Know when it’s useful to use Google Colab in the cloud (vs. Jupyter Notebook)
• Understand basic programming concepts in Python and their applications to collecting web data
• See your first web scraper and make connections to an API (and know the difference between websites and APIs)

Preparation before class

• Ensure you have completed all preparations, including software installation at Datacamp licenses, before the lecture.

Opening lecture and Python Bootcamp

• Introduction to the course
• In-class tutorial: Python Bootcamp for web data

Note

Downloading to and starting the tutorial on your computer

• Right-click on the download link and select “download linked file as…”.
• Move the file to a convenient file location (e.g., somewhere in your course folder)
• If the downloaded file is a .zip (compressed) file, unzip it.
• Open Jupyter Notebook (e.g., using the terminal or the Anaconda Navigator), navigate to the folder where you stored the downloaded files, and open the .ipynb file from within Jupyter Notebook.
• Start with the tutorial!

After the lecture

• Work through the tutorial at your own pace.
• Watch “What is web scraping and what are Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)?” (30 minutes)
• Deepen your understanding of basic programming concepts by completing “Intro to Python for Data Science” (about 3 hours; work on the first three chapters only)