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Research Software Learning Online: Home

About this guide

Monitors with data analysis This guide is for staff and students who want to access online courses to learn to use a wide range of programming, data analysis and data visualisation languages and platforms. The majority of these platforms are available to students on the University-managed computers across campus, and remotely via UniApps and UniDesk. 

MATLAB, Microsoft Excel, SAS, SPSS and Stata are all data management, data analysis and data visualisation platforms that are used by departments across campus. Your lecturer or supervisor can advise you on which of these you will use for your course or for your research. 

SQL, R and Python are programming languages can be used for a range of programming, data management, data analysis and data visualisation functions; RStudio is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for R. There are a number of open-source and proprietary GUIs for SQL and for Python. 

LaTeX is a document writing system that is widely used in disciplines where equations are regularly embedded into the document. 

Git is a version control system that is useful for those managing large numbers of text files. GitHub is a code repository system whereby users can share and contribute to source code.

Please note that O'Reilly deletes content in December and June. If you are linking to courses on this platform we advise that you check that they are still running in January and July of each year. 

O'Reilly Learning Online

O'Reilly Learning combines learning resources from a number of publishers, including O'Reilly Media and Pearson.  There are over 300 Learning Path courses and over 7500 video courses on topics including data science, data engineering, software development, business, career development, hardware, design, and web and mobile development. There are also over 40,000 books available through O'Reilly Learning. 

You can view the content on your laptop / PC, or there is a mobile app that you can use to access content.

Searching for content on O'Reilly Learning

The video below shows you how to find courses on O'Reilly Learning. There are two types of online courses - Learning Paths and Videos. These differ slightly in their delivery and their availability. We recommend that you filter results both by 'Format' (i.e. Learning Path / Video) and by 'Topic' in order to find the right courses for you. Information on how to search is also available on the O'Reilly website under 'Support'. 

Support

If you need any further help with the maths covered in these resources and would like to speak to a human, why not try MASH?

For more information please visit the link below.

Linking to courses or course modules on O'Reilly

If you would like to use any content on O'Reilly Learning to provide online teaching, you can link directly to a course, video within a course, book chapter or playlist whilst preserving the requirement to complete the University of Bath Single Sign-On. The video below provides instruction on how to prepare the URL to allow this deep linking. 

Format types

There are a number of different resource formats within O'Reilly Learning: 

Learning Path 

Learning paths are self-paced courses that are taught using a mixture of video and text content divided into modules. Many include exercises for you to do independently. The duration of the learning path is given in the course description and your progress is saved so that next time you open the course you can pick up where you left off. 

 

Video

Video courses are self-paced courses that are taught using videos that are generally divided into modules. Video course duration is given in the course description and ranges from 1 hour to over 20 hours. Your progress is saved so that next time you open the course you can pick up where you left off. 

 

Playlists

Playlists have been put together by experts in the field and by general users. You can also make your own playlists and keep them private, or make them public. Playlists are generally a combination of learning path modules (or entire learning paths), video course modules (or entire video courses) and books or book chapters. 

 

Live online trainings

These are scheduled live webinars that you can sign up to. Places are limited so if you sign up and then are unable to attend the training event do make sure that you cancel your place. 

 

Books

There are over 40,000 online books available through Safari Learning. You can add books or book chapters to a new playlist if you find useful content that you can return to when you are browsing.