INFOs: About Us

Who we are

SoBigData Academy is the training hub of the SoBigData Research Infrastructure, a distributed pan-European infrastructure for social mining and big data analytics. We bring together researchers, professors, and professionals from many European universities and research organizations to co-create open online courses in Big Data, Social Mining and Artificial Intelligence. Our goal is to transform the expertise of the SoBigData community into accessible, high-quality learning experiences for students, professionals, and curious citizens.

What we offer

We provide free, self-paced MOOCs on data science, artificial intelligence, and social mining. Each course is co-designed by a learning designer and domain experts from the SoBigData network and follows a common structure with two learning paths (Beginner and Expert), so that both newcomers and experienced participants can learn at their own pace. Courses combine theory, real case studies, and hands-on practice with real datasets and tools from the SoBigData Research Infrastructure, including Jupyter notebooks for coding activities. Learners who complete a course receive a SoBigData Academy certificate that can be added to their CV or professional profile.

Teaching & learning strategies

Self-paced learning
Personalized paths
Micromodules & Differentiation of the learning materials
Forums for community creation and deepening the topics
Games, gamification methods, quizzes and coding challenges
Badges and certificates
Accessibility-aware design

Our mission

Our mission is to promote responsible data science and help people understand and shape an increasingly data-driven society. As part of the SoBigData Research Infrastructure, we connect open education with cutting-edge research, offering training that is aligned with European values of fairness, transparency and privacy. Through our courses and collaborations, we support a new generation of researchers, professionals, and policymakers who can use Big Data and AI in an ethical, sustainable, and socially aware way.