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Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI)

BDTI Essentials Course

Do you want to support the development of a data-informed public sector and learn more about how to derive insights from public sector data? This course is for you.

Enabling a Data-informed Public Sector: An Introductory Course to BDTI Essentials

This live version of this course has finished, but you now take the course in your own time by accessing all recordings, slides and course materials in the course repository here. Stay tuned for future editions by subscribing to our newsletter.

 

This free course aims to help public administrations explore the free-of-charge data analytics playground the Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI) offers through a practical use case. After this course, you will be ready to apply for BDTI and build a public sector data use case using the platform.

Who is this course for?

This course is taught in English and is for people (public servants, professionals, and students) supporting the public sector in exploring how to derive insights from data. In terms of the level of knowledge required for this course, this series of courses is accessible to all levels as it starts with foundational courses.
 

We created this series of courses to help you:


1.    Become familiar with open-source tools for public sector innovation
Through our stack of tools, we aim to promote the use of open-source tools in the public sector due to their various benefits, from transparency to cost efficiency to vendor independence. Many administrations have embraced open-source solutions, contributing to the improvement of their services (see a list of use cases here).

With this course, you'll have the opportunity to explore the BDTI stack of open-source tools through a hands-on use case for you to not only be able to replicate it but also to lay the foundations for you to be able to start using BDTI within your own organisation.

2.    Use open-data sources for public sector innovation
This course will show you how to harness open data sources to address a real-world application by leveraging the resources offered by data.europa.eu. During the course, you will learn how to analyse funding allocated for research and innovation to universities across EU nations with high carbon emissions. Through this use case, you'll be able to localise and better understand green initiatives and how future partnerships can be developed.

3.    Contribute to the Digital Europe Program
The Digital Europe Programme (DEP) is an EU funding programme focused on bringing digital technology to businesses, citizens, and public administrations. Part of the European Year of Skills (which runs from May 2023 to May 2024), the DEP provides strategic funding in five crucial areas: high-performance computing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, the advancement of digital skills, and the deployment and wide use of digital technologies. As the BDTI is funded by the DEP, this initiative aims to further contribute to this program by focusing on developing digital skills. 


With this training, we aim to contribute to developing digital skills in the public sector by introducing new competencies and helping you become more agile in your work.

This course has finished. Stay tuned for future editions by subscribing to our newsletter.

Take this course on-demand

What can you expect?


This series of e-learning courses is organised into five courses covering the list of topics below. Each session lasts 1 hour 15 minutes. Participants will enjoy access to:

Session

Description

Session 1: Data Access and Exploration

Lay the foundation for data analysis by loading and exploring the relevant datasets.

In this first session, we'll present the use case, introducing BDTI and one of our data analysis tools.

You'll learn to download, load and access data in different formats.

You'll begin your first exploration of the data and decide what data are useful to complete this task during the following sessions. 

This session has already taken place. Watch the recording and visit the session repository to catch up and follow along.

Session 2: Data Cleaning and Transformation

Prepare the data for analysis by cleaning and transforming it.

This week, you'll clean your data by addressing data quality issues like missing values.

You'll learn specific techniques for data cleaning and transformation.​ And you'll prepare the datasets for further analysis.

This session has already taken place. Watch the recording and visit the session repository to catch up and follow along.

Session 3: Data Blending and Storage

Learn techniques for automating data blending and storage.

This week, you’ll identify when multiple data files have the same structure (columns) and can be concatenated.

This session has already taken place. Watch the recording and visit the session repository to catch up and follow along.

Session 4: Analytics

Begin the analytical process by addressing the core objectives.​

This week, you’ll be learning how to get insights from the data and build a report.

This session has already taken place. Watch the recording and visit the session repository to catch up and follow along.

Session 5: Advanced Module: Gathering Data from the Web and Geo Visualisation​

Enhance data analysis capabilities by connecting to external data sources. 

You'll learn how to tell your data's story using more advanced data visualisation techniques using data visualisation tools from BDTI.

This session has already taken place. Watch the recording and visit the session repository to catch up and follow along.

 

We'll use the following open data:

  • Horizon Europe: projects and their results funded by the European Union under the Horizon Research and innovation funding programme from 2021 to 2027. Access the data here.
  • Country EU vocabulary: the controlled vocabulary that lists concepts associated with names of countries and territories. Access the data here.
  • CO2 emissions, CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions dataset: a collection of key metrics maintained by Our World in Data. Access the data here.
  • Open API from open data (e.g., open street map, Wikipedia, Wikidata). 

 

This course has finished. Stay tuned for future editions by subscribing to our newsletter.

The the course on-demand

 

FAQs

What level of time commitment should I expect?

The courses last one hour and are delivered over five sessions. We'll share some further reading in each session, but any commitment beyond these 5 hours is entirely up to you.

Is this course free?

It certainly is.

How is the course delivered?

Online via Webex, on the dates and times listed above.

I can't attend these dates. Will there be other dates added?

Yes. To be notified when dates are announced, be sure to subscribe to the BDTI Joinup page and our newsletter.

Resources

KNIME Learning Resources

Jupyter Notebooks

R Studio

SQL

Statistical learning