What Is the Final Open Source Data Science Project on Open Source Data Science Masters?
Updated
The final project on Open Source Data Science Masters is a dynamic website built with the JavaScript library D3.js. It was published on November 23, 2014 by Fras and Sabine, and it serves as the capstone of their six-month intensive online data science curriculum. The site is designed to explain three things: what it is like to study data science online intensely for six months, how a learner's skill set can change and grow over that period, and which topics the curriculum covered and how those topics connect to one another.
What the Project Actually Is
It is not a dataset, a model, or a GitHub repository of notebooks. It is a dynamic website — a visual, interactive web page — created with D3.js, a JavaScript library commonly used for data-driven documents and interactive visualizations.
The choice of D3.js is itself part of the message. Rather than writing a summary blog post, the authors turned their learning journey into a visual artifact, which lets a reader explore the curriculum structure and the progression of skills instead of just reading about them.
What the Site Tries to Explain
The project addresses three questions directly, as stated on the site:
- What is it like to study data science online, intensely, for six months? — the experience of the program itself.
- How could your skill set change and grow over this time? — the progression from start to finish.
- What topics did the curriculum cover, and how are these connected? — the structure and relationships between subjects.
The third point is where the D3.js format earns its place. Showing how topics connect is a graph and network problem, and an interactive visualization communicates those relationships far better than a flat list.
Key Facts at a Glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Project type | Dynamic website |
| Technology | D3.js (JavaScript library) |
| Published | November 23, 2014 |
| Authors | Fras and Sabine |
| Purpose | Explain the 6-month online data science learning experience, skill growth, and curriculum connections |
| Access | Available on the site, with a "Continue reading" link and a comments section |
How to Use It
If you are considering a self-directed data science path, this project is useful in two ways:
- As a curriculum map — the topic-connection view can help you see which subjects depend on others, which is useful when planning your own study order.
- As a project example — it shows one way to present a learning journey as a finished, shareable artifact rather than a private set of notes.
To view it, go to the site and follow the "Continue reading" link from the project post. The post also has a comments section, so you can see how others responded to the project.
What to Keep in Mind
The project was published in 2014, so the specific tools and curriculum topics reflect what was current then. D3.js itself remains in wide use, but the data science landscape has changed considerably since. Treat the project as a model for how to document and visualize a learning path, not as an up-to-date syllabus.
The site also shows subscription-related signals, but no pricing details are provided in the available information, so no conclusion can be drawn about cost or access terms beyond what is described here.