Four Ways to Get Datasets for Your Machine Learning Algorithm

Data is at the heart of a lot of modern technological innovations, but few are as dependent upon data for their proper functioning as machine learning. Machine learning algorithms are very powerful tools for enabling us to better understand and utilize the data available to us. Fortunately, there are numerous options for anyone who needs datasets to train their machine learning algorithms.

Kaggle

Kaggle is a popular online repository of free data sets. The sheer range of data on offer, as well as its exquisite multifunctional design, makes Kaggle one of the best repositories out there, even when you include the premium options that charge an entry fee. Kaggle’s databases include collections of external sources that are of potential interest to data analysts.

The multifaceted nature of Kaggle’s offerings makes it an ideal resource for machine learning data. Kaggle also encourages users to share code with one another, as well as providing tutorials on best practices for searching and scraping data. In other words, you will find everything that you need to get started learning how to put databases to practical use.

Kaggle is simple to use, even if you know absolutely nothing beforehand. Its intuitive interface makes a welcome difference from the more esoteric designs that add needless complexities into the process. Another standout feature of Kaggle is that they host regular competitions with genuine cash prizes on offer. Sign up for an account to view their full terms and conditions.

data.World

data.World is among the best public dataset repositories on the internet. The main selling point of data.World is the extremely wide range of data on offer and sources represented. You will find public data on a host of different subjects, including NASA data, Twitter data, financial data, and crime data to name just a few.

In addition to the large number of public data sources that data.World enables you to search, it also encourages users to upload their own datasets. This further expands the range of data types on offer, which means that data.World offers data no other service has access to. If you want to collaborate on your data projects with other people, data.World has you covered there as well.

Data.gov

If there’s one thing the US government has always been pretty good at, it’s gathering data. The government loves data, it gives them a more detailed picture of situations and, more importantly, it gives them a way of making decisions while placing the responsibility on a higher power – in this case, statistics. Data.gov is by far the largest dataset aggregator on the web today and is the portal through which anyone can access the Open Data program.

You will find a number of different categories, including public safety, agriculture, local government, and similar topics. It’s easy to find the data that is of interest to you and the variety on offer means that you can use this as a resource for a whole host of different machine learning projects. Anyone who wants to get into open source data research for the purposes of journalism will find everything they need here.

You don’t need to register to access the data and the search function is nice and simple to get to grips with. A selection of filters makes it simple to organize data so that it’s in its most convenient forms for your needs.

Socrata OpenData

Socrata OpenData is an easy to use data portal that provides access to a large number of data sets encompassing a very broad range of information. As well as making these data sets easily searchable and viewable in your web browser, Socrata also enables you to download the data in different formats, ready to import into visualization scripts.

Socrata has a lot of data available, but the trade-off here is that there is less curation. If you know exactly what you’re looking for and how to find it, you should be able to ascertain which datasets are suitable for you with relative ease. The difficulties begin when you want to use the portal for more general data searches. In this case, you will need to factor in the time it takes to verify the validity and quality of data.

Scraping Public Sources

Of course, if you want to gather data then you always have the option of writing your own scraping bot and taking matters into your own hands. The advantage of doing this compared to using pre-built datasets is that you will have complete control over what data you collect and where you collect it from. There is no shortage of data available online, if you know where to look, of course.

Crawlers can be used to search websites that are likely to contain the data you want or to scour the wider internet looking for it. While some businesses guard their data closely, there has been a general willingness among public institutions around the world to make their data freely available. There is a tremendous amount of data just waiting for you to scrape.

Brokers and Sellers

Not all data is easily available. Some data, especially high specialized industry-specific data or data that is expensive and difficult to gather, can only be purchased from specialized brokers. There are also a number of different platforms that enable data brokers to sell access to their data. Buying data can be much cheaper than it would be to gather it all yourself.

However, when you buy data, you are buying access to the data rather than the information itself; you won’t have a unique data set for your machine learning algorithm. Of course, you can combine it with other data sets to create a unique combination of sources.

There is no shortage of options for gathering the data you need to train your machine learning algorithms. This includes gathering your own data from publicly available sources, as well as specialist data brokers for more specialized applications. Whatever your data needs, all the information sets you could ever need are there waiting for you.

machine learning graphic -DepositPhotos

The post Four Ways to Get Datasets for Your Machine Learning Algorithm appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/datasets-machine-learning-algorithm