This was a challenging yet relevant capstone course. The assignment really pushes you to understand the course material, and to go back and review it if not.

I recommend using tools other than the Analytical Solver Platform if you know how, e.g. Jupyter. The data set will absolutely not work on the cloud version of the solver (the VM/server hangs and crashes with every operation). The Mac version of the solver is useless for the second week, but does the third week of the assignment just fine (simulation & optimization). The Windows version of solver works flawlessly on Excel - I wasted so much time getting it to run on the Mac, don't even bother.

I've harped on ASP in previous reviews, so I won't score the course down again, since I took it of my own volition knowing I'd have to use the software. This course deserves a full 5 of 5 stars!

New content and forum help are poor, but my main complaint is that there's not a free alternative for the software required, not proposed at least.

I dont like that we only can finish the course using a paid software.

This is a very poorly structured course. Assignments are not clear. The grading rubrics have multiple errors.

For example, week 1 Assignment: "Data visualization - part A. Create a plot to illustrate the distribution of interest rate (int_rate). Make sure to use a plot appropriate for illustrating distribution."

Distribution plots are histograms, density plots and dot plots. The rubric first asks if one of those plots was used. Then the next question grades THIS SAME PLOT based on relationship between two variables (scatterplot), NOT distribution. I correctly plotted a histogram, but lost a point because it was not a scatterplot?! It's not supposed to be!

Another example from the same assignment: "Are there columns that have rows with missing values or outliers? The missing values are tagged as NA in the dataset. Suggest strategies to handle them."

4 points

8 correct columns identified as having outliers (installment, annual_inc, revol_bal,revol_util, total_acc, acc_open_past_24mths, and total_pymnt) and strategies to handle them suggested

3 points

At least 6 correct columns identified

etc.

There are only 7 columns with outliers!!! You list them and only them in the first answer choice. Yet I lost a point because it's not 8 columns!!!

The ASP is a joke. It is SLOOOOW. Like, the assignment that should have taken me an hour to do turned into 6 because the platform would crash every 30 seconds. I can't believe anyone actually pays to use it. We'd be much better off using a programming language like R or Python to do these assignments.

Also, the assignments that depend on running a model in ASP should specify what random seed to use in partitioning the data, what exact classification tree type to use, so that we would all get same answers, and it would be easier to grade other people's work.

The rest of this specialization was great, but this last course just ruined the whole impression for me.

I took the Advanced Business Analytics Specialization as a full time student. I finished the first four courses in more or less 3 weeks. In the last course needed to take the Specialization Certificate, the Advanced Business Analytics Capstone, the assignments of the course during the 2nd-3rd-4rth week were locked until 20 December - 5 January. That means that I had to wait more than one month, and pay 2 more subscriptions to Coursera!!! In the forum of the class there are more than 20 moderators, none of them has even one reply in anything. I made a thread, nonone replied to me. I contacted the customer service, they told me that they are sorry and they cannot change it.

This is not a policy of an educational institute, this is an attitude that wants to take only your money. If you want your certificate, come back after two months AND KEEP PAYING!! I canceled my subscription, I do not want the certificate, I want to cooperate with organization that respect my effort, my time, my money, to respect me.

very bad learning experience

It's been a great opportunity to practically apply knowledge I got over the specialization. Highly recommended.

Very appreciate the guidance and support from professors and students during this special time. I took much time to review what i learned from previous sessions, and better understand the connection of data and use the tools and models. It will be a new start for my journey.

Stay safe, healthy and happy!!!

Great List of Courses for People who are interested

Was a great capstone!

excellent course!

Great Course!!!

The course design is fine. It's very helpful to put the knowledge learnt into real problem. However, the software functions strangely. It sometimes doesn't work without any reason. A better software should be chosen in future.

I enjoyed plenty learning about so many interesting tools and models available. Thank you!

in week 3 analysis it was not taught during the course

Only posible to be acomplished by having ASAP software. The guidelines are not enough.