Preparing Text for AI Models
Keep adding new skills with 10,000+ programs for $239 (usually $399). Save now.
Preparing Text for AI Models
This course is part of Open Generative AI: Build with Open Models and Tools Professional Certificate
Included with
Ask Coursera
Recommended experience
Recommended experience
Skills you'll gain
Tools you'll learn
Details to know
January 2026
See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills
Build your Data Analysis expertise
- Learn new concepts from industry experts
- Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
- Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
- Earn a shareable career certificate from Coursera
There are 3 modules in this course
The Preparing Text for AI Models course is designed for developers, engineers, and technical product builders who are new to Generative AI but already possess intermediate machine learning knowledge, basic Python proficiency, and familiarity with development environments such as VS Code, and who want to engineer, customize, and deploy open generative AI solutions while avoiding vendor lock-in.
The course equips learners with practical skills in dataset sourcing, preprocessing, and formatting for training large language models. Starting with the discovery of text datasets from repositories like Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Common Crawl, learners evaluate quality, relevance, and licensing considerations. The course then covers preprocessing pipelines, including text cleaning, normalization, deduplication, and tokenization strategies, ensuring efficiency and compatibility with model training. Learners also design annotation schemas, apply semi-automated labeling techniques, and build validation workflows to maintain quality. The final module guides learners in constructing structured datasets for instruction tuning, fine-tuning, and benchmarking, supported by best practices in train-test splits and stratification. By the end of the course, learners will have created production-ready text datasets suitable for generative AI applications.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to key resources you can add to your toolkit for sourcing text datasets. You’ll navigate repositories like Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Common Crawl, and learn how to evaluate dataset size, quality, and relevance to your training goals. You’ll also cover legal and ethical considerations and practice importing and converting datasets between common formats, so you can confidently select and prepare text data for your projects.
What's included
3 videos3 readings1 assignment1 ungraded lab
3 videos•Total 16 minutes
- Podcast: Behind Every Great Model: Better Text Data•4 minutes
- Importing and Converting Text Datasets•6 minutes
- Preparing Text Datasets for LLM Training Pipelines•5 minutes
3 readings•Total 70 minutes
- Code Demonstration Transcripts•10 minutes
- Text Dataset Repositories and Quality Checks•30 minutes
- When and How to Use Web Scraping•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 10 minutes
- Evaluating and Preparing Your First Dataset•10 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 60 minutes
- Find and Load Your First Dataset•60 minutes
In this module, you’ll apply text-cleaning techniques, compare different tokenization methods, and design preprocessing pipelines. You’ll also format data for instruction tuning and build batching routines, giving you hands-on experience with multiple approaches you can adapt to your own training workflows.
What's included
3 videos1 reading1 assignment1 ungraded lab
3 videos•Total 20 minutes
- Formatting for Instruction Tuning•4 minutes
- Building a Preprocessing Pipeline•9 minutes
- Advanced Formatting Patterns for Instruction-Tuned LLMs•7 minutes
1 reading•Total 30 minutes
- Essential Preprocessing for Text Data•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Preparing Text for LLMs•30 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 60 minutes
- Clean and Format a Text Corpus•60 minutes
In this module, you’ll learn how to turn raw text into structured datasets that are ready for training. You’ll design and apply annotation schemas, practice splitting datasets for training and evaluation, and compare approaches for organizing data. Along the way, you’ll see how different methods affect model performance, giving you the judgment to decide which structuring strategies work best for your projects.
What's included
2 videos1 reading1 assignment1 ungraded lab
2 videos•Total 11 minutes
- Podcast: The Human Touch in AI: Why Annotation Matters•4 minutes
- Creating Splits for Model Generalization•7 minutes
1 reading•Total 30 minutes
- Annotation and QA Best Practices•30 minutes
1 assignment•Total 60 minutes
- Preparing Text for AI Models in Practice•60 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 30 minutes
- Annotate and Split a Sample Dataset•30 minutes
Earn a career certificate
Add this credential to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV. Share it on social media and in your performance review.
Instructor
Explore more from Data Analysis
- Status: Free TrialC
Coursera
Course
- Status: Free Trial
- Status: Free TrialA
Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute
Course
- Status: Free Trial
Course
Why people choose Coursera for their career
Frequently asked questions
To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Certificate, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.
More questions
Financial aid available,
¹ Some assignments in this course are AI-graded. For these assignments, your data will be used in accordance with Coursera's Privacy Notice.
