Dive Brief:

• BerkeleyX, the massive open online course arm of the University of California-Berkeley, is launching two MOOCs focused on a big data processing engine.
• The free courses will focus on Apache Spark, an open-source project touted by Databricks — its creator  — as the most active engine in big data.
• BerkeleyX, working with the edX online platform, will offer the five-week courses starting on Feb. 23 and April 14.

Dive Insight:

The first course will be an introduction to big data, teaching students to apply data science techniques using parallel programing with Apache Spark. The second course will teach the statistical and algorithmic principles used to develop scalable machine learning pipelines and how to solve real-world problems using statistical modeling. Databricks also offers Apache Spark trainings with certifications — one for system integrators and one for developers.