Certified Professional Data Scientist (CPDS)

A professional certification in data science is a signal to employers that you have the capability to operate at a high level within a professional context.

Why become a Certified Professional Data Scientist?

Employers increasingly look for data scientists with both academic backgrounds and industry recognised professional credentials that demonstrate practical, specialised industry knowledge. A recent study from Elucian found that over 85% of employers will expect employees to have professional credentials in addition to a degree qualification. 

The CPDS exam is designed for practising data science professionals with a relevant postgraduate qualification or equivalent from a recognised university, higher education institution or awarding body, together with a minimum of two years’ professional experience in data science.

The Certified Professional Data Scientist (CPDS) exam tests the key knowledge and skills required for the Data Science professional. It demonstrates to employers that holders of this credential are competent at a high level in statistics and maths for data science, programming skills, predictive modelling, machine learning and working with both structured and unstructured data. In addition a CPDS has a proven minimum professional experience and academic education.
Degree
Credential

How the certification works?

In order to achieve the CPDS must submit copies of academic qualifications from a recognised institution together with evidence of relevant professional experience and success in the CPDS professional exam.

CPDS overview

Employers increasingly look for data scientists with both academic backgrounds and industry
  • Cost  €250 
  • Number of exam questions: 180 
  • Exam Duration : 3 hours 
  • Exam Pass Grade : 70%
  • Minimum professional experience: 2 years
  • Minimum education level: Postgraduate diploma or higher.
EXAM PREPARATION

How the CPDS exam works

The Certified Professional Data Scientist exam is a three hour online exam which tests the range of skills and knowledge required for analytical data scientists, including that established by the Edison European Data Science Framework’s body of knowledge (DS-BoK).
Once candidates register for the exam, they will be able to access the Data Science Institute’s assessment platform, where they can find practice questions, exam specifications and guidance.

In order to prepare for the exam, candidates should be familiar with the CDPS exam specification and be able to answer questions in the format provided by the institute. Candidates may choose from either R or Python tracks for the exam.The key knowledge areas the exam covers are listed below:
KNOWLEDGE AREAS COVERED

The exam covers the following areas

Statistical Inference
Predictive Modelling
Data reduction methods
Machine Learning
Natural Language Processing
 STATISTICAL INFERENCE
Statistics terminology
Hypothesis testing
Analysis of Variance
Parametic tests
Non-parametric tests
R or Python packages functions and code for statistical analysis
PREDICTIVE MODELLING
General approach to predictive modelling
Model building process
Multiple Linear Regression
Logistic Regression
Time Series Analysis
Python or R functions packages and code for predictive modelling

 PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS
Principal component analysis
Principal component regression
K means clustering
Hierarchical clustering
Python or R functions packages and code for data reduction
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
Unstructured data
Text analysis
Text mining
Sentiment Analysis
Text mining and NLP in R or Python

 MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS
Naive Bayes
Decision Tree 
Random Forest
Support Vector Machine 
Market Basket Analysis
Neural Network
Bootstrapping and Bagging
* Candidates will be expected to be familiar with the exam specification for the Certified Professional Data Analysis (CDPA) exam.

Steps to become a Certified Professional Data Scientist

1
Apply
2
Study
3
Take Exam
4
Certification
1

Apply

Complete the certification application and submit your copies of your degree certificate and resume. Once you receive confirmation of your eligibility you may pay your exam fee.
2

Study and Practice

Study for the certification exam using the guidance and practice questions on the Data Science Institute’s exam preparation portal.
3

Take Exam

Take the exam. You need to achieve a minimum score of 75% to be certified.
4

Certification

You will receive your verified digital certificate instantly on passing the exam.