Professional Development Courses

Overview of the Courses

From Electronic Health Records and medical imaging to wearable devices and remote monitoring, technology enables healthcare providers to collect and examine vast amounts of data to gain insights. However, as data becomes increasingly pervasive in medicine, it has become more critical for health professionals and clinicians to have the skills to automate analyses using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

T-CAIREM is pleased to offer three standalone 5-week professional development courses to participants who would like to learn more about the fascinating field of data science in medicine. These self-directed online courses will provide learners with a comprehensive introduction to using data science in the Python programming language for medical applications.

This content for all three courses is unique. They are specifically designed for people looking to use data science in healthcare. All of the programming is done in Python, but the concepts covered in these parts should be applicable to other popular programming languages. Most of the lectures centre around interactive Jupyter notebooks hosted on Google Colab, allowing learners to work with real-time code with minimal setup requirements on their computers.

Course Delivery

To accommodate learners of different levels, there are three separate courses available. Each course has assignments and takes place over a five-week window. Participants can complete each course on their own time at their own pace.

All three self-directed courses will be taught asynchronously via pre-recorded video lectures that will be released weekly every Wednesday from January 14, 2025 to May 6, 2025. Students will be able to ask questions about the materials through the University of Toronto's Quercus system and weekly live office hours with the instructor.

You don't need to take all three courses if you don't want to. Each course is treated as a separate standalone component for learners at different phases of their educational journey.

We will be using Google Colab for most of the lecture materials, in-class exercises, and assignments which the instructor will explain in the first session. All that is required to participate in the course is internet access and a Google account.

Course Descriptions

By the end of the three-part series, participants will have the skills and mindset needed to delve into tasks ranging from speech analysis to image classification. To reach this point, each course has its own objectives:

COURSE 1: Basic Programming

Participants will learn basic programming concepts like variables, functions, conditionals, and iteration.
Dates: January 14, 2025 to February 11, 2025
Syllabus: What you'll learn in the Basic Programming course
Course 1 Registration deadline: January 7, 2025 (Tues.) at 5pm ET

COURSE 2: Data Science

Participants will learn how to visualize and manipulate time-series and image data.
Dates: February 25, 2025 to March 25, 2025
Syllabus: What you'll learn in the Data Science course
Note: Course 2 participants are expected to be familiar with programming in Python.
Course 2 Registration deadline: February 18, 2025 (Tues.) at 5pm ET

COURSE 3: Machine Learning

Participants will learn how to train and evaluate machine learning models on real-world datasets.
Dates: April 8, 2025 to May 6, 2025
Syllabus: What you'll learn in the Machine Learning course
Note: Course 3 participants are expected to be familiar with programming in Python.
Course 3 Registration deadline: April 1, 2025 (Tues.) at 5pm ET

Expectations

• A Certificate of Completion and pass/fail grades will be issued for each online self-directed course to participants who complete the required assignments in the allotted five-week period.

• A Certificate of Completion and pass/fail grades will also be issued to participants who complete all assignments and attend each online instructor-led course session for each instructor-led course.

Tuition

• Each online self-directed course is $1500 CAD and includes all materials.
These courses take place between January 14 to May 6, 2025.

• Each online instructor-led course is $2,000 and includes all materials.
These instructor-led courses take place between April 8 and July 30, 2025.

Full Details

Meet the Instructor

Alex Mariakakis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and an Affiliate Scientist at Techna. He runs the Computational Health and Interaction (CHAI) lab, which leverages ubiquitous and emergent technologies to address problems related to people’s health and well-being.

What is Quercus?

Quercus is the University of Toronto’s primary online teaching and learning platform. It will be used for Courses 2 and 3. It is a web-based platform for accessing course content, submitting assignments, and interacting with your instructor and other learners.

Your Quercus course site will be the “virtual classroom” where you, your instructor, and other course participants will interact throughout the course. You will receive a detailed schedule for your course and information about how Quercus will be used for all course formats (in-class, online and hybrid) in your Course Outline at the beginning of your course.

Contact

You can send any questions to t.cairem@utoronto.ca.