Coursolve: Free data analysis for your organization from students!

If your organization could use help in refining social media strategy, web presence, or other data-related endeavors, be sure to sign up for Introduction to Data Science through the University of Washington. Nonprofits and other organizations will have the opportunity to recruit students for data analysis or visualization projects, potentially generating key insights to drive future progress. Over 55,000 students are registered for the course, which began on May 1.

Sample projects could include:

1. Targeting your social media strategy. Have students use Google Trends information to discover what people are searching for during different times of the day or week. Or have them use Twitter's API or Facebook's graph API to discover common words in popular tweets / posts within your field, determine the messages / key words that resonate most with thought leaders in your domain, and uncover the types of content that your audience engages most with.
2. Using broad demographic trends to improve your impact. Have students use data from the World Bank to better understand correlations between key demographic and social indicators worldwide. Or have them use Pew Research data to extract insights about American policy debates across domains such as education, healthcare, and technology.
3. Gaining insights into your web presence. Have students use the Google Analytics API and historical data, including log files or other metadata, to discern patterns in website hits and predict which types of users will visit most frequently in the future.

For more information and guidelines, please visit: http://coursolve.org/courses/datascience/

Questions? Email hello@coursolve.org and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.