Our mission at Sysabee Learning is to make the datasphere more accessible by “atomizing” existing learning material, And our mission can include you.

One of the best documented mechanisms for learning is teaching what you have learned. And one of the best proofs of learning is authorship on teaching material. By contributing to Sysabee Learning, you will gain both of these benefits.

Contributing to Sysabee Learning

There are two main ways to contribute to Sysabee Learning.

• Micro-course maker
• Blogger

If you want to be a contributor, we’re eager to hear your micro-course or blog description. See below for more details. Once the description is accepted, you’ll submit your draft material. If there are zero to minor edits required, you are sole author; if there are substantial edits and additional work needed, then the material will likely be published under joint authorship between you and the website editor.

Micro-Course Making

Course makers will design courses within the constraints of the atomic learning approach. These specifications include:

• The topic is substantively related to data science (e.g., APIs, tabular data, statistical methods), not tangentially related (e.g., average salaries for data scientists, effective morning routines, etc., this is what the blog is for)
• The whole course can be completed, in principle, in the span of a lunch break (aim for 45 mins);
• The course delivers either:
  • Conceptual knowledge of the topic; or
  • Practical know-how of the topic.

The best way of getting a feel for how the course should be structured is to take or review a course that we currently offer.

The Course Description

Your description will include a brief email containing:

• an explanation of the topic,
• whether you will be taking the conceptual or practical approach; and,
• how you are planning to carve up the course into units (although the whole course is itself a mini-course, it is helpful to have units within this course for a variety of pedagogical and practical reasons.)

Once the description is accepted, the next step would be to submit your draft.

The Draft

Once your description is accepted, we will send you detailed instructions on how to format and submit your draft materials. But in essence, what you will send is a text file that contains:

• Your learning material separated into units;
• Questions and Answers (if applicable) for a small 1-3 question quiz. Note that if you are submitting a practical course, that an acceptable quiz item is to request that the quiz taker upload proof of completion (e.g., a text file with code, a screen shot of visualization, etc.)

Also note that if you have your own blog, there is nothing stopping you from linking to your own blog as the source of your learning material! This is a fantastic way to grow your portfolio of experience.

Blogging

Bloggers have far more flexibility. The blog is a place to include all kinds of helpful material that does not meet the atomic learning criteria.

Blogs can be articles on substantive topics or tangential topics – the floor is yours. Possible blog articles would include:

• Deep dives on topics of interest (e.g., an interesting analysis of a particular dataset);
• Interesting stories or biographies;
• Advice, tips, and tricks, etc.

The Draft is the Description

Because the quality of a blog article largely depends on the quality of the writing, while you may wish to send us a description first, ideally if you want to publish something to our blog then please send it along when it is read-ready, at which point the website editor will decide whether or not to publish. If for whatever reason it is not accepted, you will likely be strongly encouraged to start your own blog and post it there! The art of blogging is a practice that you need to work on over time. More than that, it is a very effective learning tool and proof of commitment to future employers, if thats your motivation. Blog articles do not need to be perfect to be posted! But on this website, we need to ensure a certain level of quality for the community of readers.