Certification Requirements
DataCamp's Data Scientist Associate Certification is awarded to individuals who successfully complete two timed exams (DS101 and DS102) and one practical exam.
The DS101 is a 2-hour exam where you'll choose either R or Python to work through the questions. Most candidates typically complete it in 45 minutes. This exam assesses your abilities to use R or Python for exploratory analysis and statistical experimentation. To successfully pass this exam, you should be able to:
- Calculate metrics to effectively report characteristics of data and relationships between features
- Create data visualizations in Python or R to demonstrate the characteristics of data
- Create data visualizations in Python or R to represent the relationships between features
- Describe statistical concepts that underpin hypothesis testing and experimentation (i.e., statistical distributions, power analysis, parameter estimation and confidence intervals)
- Apply sampling methods to data
- Implement methods for performing statistical tests
The DS102 is a 2-hour exam where you'll choose either R or Python to answer questions about data management, modeling, and programming for data science. Most candidates typically complete it in one hour. To successfully pass this exam, you should be able to:
- Perform standard data import, joining, and aggregation tasks
- Perform standard cleaning tasks to prepare data for analysis
- Assess data quality and perform validation tasks
- Prepare data for modeling by implementing relevant transformations
- Implement standard modeling approaches for supervised learning problems
- Use suitable methods to assess the performance of a model
- Implement approaches for unsupervised learning problems
- Use common programming constructs to write repeatable production quality code for analysis (i.e., functions, control flow, loops and iterations)
What to expect on the practical exam
The final step in this certification is a practical exam. The practical exam assesses your skills in data management and exploratory analysis as well as model development. You'll review a business problem, validate data, calculate metrics and fit models. The practical exam is graded automatically, you will need to get all elements of the practical correct to pass.
To pass the practical exam, you'll need to be able to:
- Perform standard data extraction, joining and aggregation tasks
- Assess data quality and perform validation tasks
- Perform standard cleaning tasks to prepare data for analysis
- Calculate metrics to effectively report characteristics of data and relationships between features
- Implement standard modeling approaches for supervised learning problems
How long do I have to complete the practical exam?
You’ll have a total of 30 days from the time you register for certification to the time you must complete all requirements, including the exam(s) and practical exam. If you complete the exam(s) right away, then you’ll have the remaining time to work on the practical exam. However, if you take longer to complete the exam(s), you’ll have less time to complete the practical exam. Visit the Practical Hub in the Get Started pages for additional resources.
Re-taking your exam
Candidates who are unsuccessful in any component will have to wait 14 days before they can attempt the certification again. Upon retaking the exam, you will be required to complete all exams again, including any that you may have passed on a previous attempt.
If you have questions or feedback related to certification, please submit your inquiry here.