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URL: https://www.coursera.org/learn/transformers-in-action-a-practical-approach-to-nlp-and-ai

⇱ Transformers in Action: A Practical Approach to NLP and AI | Coursera


Transformers in Action: A Practical Approach to NLP and AI

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Transformers in Action: A Practical Approach to NLP and AI

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Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
Intermediate level

Recommended experience

2 weeks to complete
at 10 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
Intermediate level

Recommended experience

2 weeks to complete
at 10 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

  • Master Transformer architectures and attention mechanisms driving modern NLP.

  • Fine-tune pretrained models using Hugging Face for real-world NLP tasks.

  • Build, evaluate, and deploy end-to-end NLP workflows with confidence.

  • Apply Transformers to tasks like summarization, translation, and sentiment.

Details to know

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Assessments

20 assignments

Taught in English

There are 4 modules in this course

"This intermediate-level course takes you beyond AI theory into the practical world of Natural Language Processing (NLP) powered by Transformer architectures. You’ll trace the evolution of language models—from traditional statistical methods and recurrent networks to attention-based systems like BERT, GPT, and T5—through engaging demos and real-world case studies.

Across four modules, you’ll gain a deep understanding of how Transformers work, why they outperform previous models, and how to use them for NLP tasks such as classification, summarization, translation, and sentiment analysis. Through guided coding labs and hands-on exercises with Hugging Face tools, you’ll learn how to tokenize data, fine-tune pretrained models, evaluate results, and deploy applications efficiently. Whether you’re a developer, data scientist, or AI enthusiast, this course bridges the gap between concept and implementation—helping you turn complex architectures into tangible, working AI systems. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - Understand and explain how Transformer architectures process and generate human language. - Fine-tune and deploy pretrained models using Hugging Face tools and APIs. - Apply NLP techniques to real-world use cases such as summarization and classification. - Evaluate and interpret model performance using key metrics and visualizations. - Design and deliver an end-to-end NLP project, from training to deployment." Disclaimer: This is an independent educational resource created by Board Infinity for informational and educational purposes only. This course is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or officially associated with any company, organization, or certification body unless explicitly stated. The content provided is based on industry knowledge and best practices but does not constitute official training material for any specific employer or certification program. All company names, trademarks, service marks, and logos referenced are the property of their respective owners and are used solely for educational identification and comparison purposes.

Explore how Natural Language Processing evolved from rule-based and sequential models to attention-driven architectures. Learn tokenization, embeddings, and self-attention concepts through visual demos and hands-on mini-projects that build a strong foundation for understanding Transformers.

What's included

13 videos7 readings5 assignments1 discussion prompt1 ungraded lab2 plugins

13 videosTotal 59 minutes
  • Introduction to the Course3 minutes
  • What Is NLP?4 minutes
  • From Text to Tokens5 minutes
  • Word Embeddings6 minutes
  • Sequential Thinking in RNNs4 minutes
  • LSTMs and GRUs5 minutes
  • The Sequential Bottleneck4 minutes
  • Why Do We Need Attention?5 minutes
  • Queries, Keys, and Values5 minutes
  • Self-Attention in Action5 minutes
  • Anatomy of a Transformer5 minutes
  • Encoder vs. Decoder4 minutes
  • Why Transformers Won4 minutes
7 readingsTotal 85 minutes
  • Syllabus5 minutes
  • Glossary10 minutes
  • How Machines Understand Language15 minutes
  • Sequence Models Before Transformers15 minutes
  • The Rise of Attention Mechanisms15 minutes
  • Inside the Transformer Architecture15 minutes
  • Solution Breakdown & Explanation10 minutes
5 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : How Machines Read Text15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz: Sequence Models Before Transformers15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : The Attention Idea15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Enter the Transformer15 minutes
  • Graded Quiz : Foundations of Transformers60 minutes
1 discussion promptTotal 10 minutes
  • Meet and Greet10 minutes
1 ungraded labTotal 60 minutes
  • Lab : Fundamentals of Tokenization & Embedding60 minutes
2 pluginsTotal 20 minutes
  • Foundations of Transformers15 minutes
  • Quick Course Check-In5 minutes

Dive into the anatomy of major Transformer families like BERT, GPT, and T5. Learn how different pretraining objectives — such as Masked Language Modeling and Causal Language Modeling — shape model capabilities, and practice running inference and fine-tuning tasks using Hugging Face Transformers.

What's included

12 videos5 readings5 assignments1 ungraded lab

12 videosTotal 54 minutes
  • Architecture Families4 minutes
  • Pretraining Tasks6 minutes
  • Design Trade-offs4 minutes
  • Inside a Hugging Face Model6 minutes
  • Context and Hidden States5 minutes
  • Hands-On Inference4 minutes
  • What Is Fine-Tuning?5 minutes
  • Loss Functions and Regularization5 minutes
  • Fine-Tuning Demo5 minutes
  • Architecture Recap2 minutes
  • Pretraining Objective Review5 minutes
  • Choosing the Right Model5 minutes
5 readingsTotal 70 minutes
  • Types of Transformer Models: Architectures and Pretraining Objectives15 minutes
  • Getting Under the Hood: Hugging Face Model Components and Inference15 minutes
  • Fine-Tuning Transformers: Workflow, Loss Functions, and Best Practices15 minutes
  • Solution Breakdown & Explanation10 minutes
  • Fine-Tuning Transformers: Workflow, Loss Functions, and Best Practices15 minutes
5 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Types of Transformer Models15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Working with Pretrained Models15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Fine-Tuning Basics15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz - Compare and Reflect15 minutes
  • Graded Quiz : Transformer Architectures and Pretraining60 minutes
1 ungraded labTotal 60 minutes
  • Lab - Transformer Architectures and Pretraining60 minutes

Build and train NLP models end-to-end using Hugging Face pipelines, Datasets, and the Trainer API. Explore dataset preparation, hyperparameter tuning, evaluation metrics, and model deployment to the Hugging Face Hub while learning best practices for debugging and performance monitoring.

What's included

12 videos4 readings5 assignments

12 videosTotal 48 minutes
  • Exploring Pipelines5 minutes
  • Understanding Datasets4 minutes
  • Preparing Data for Training5 minutes
  • Trainer API Overview4 minutes
  • Evaluating Models3 minutes
  • Monitoring Training4 minutes
  • Common Training Issues4 minutes
  • Hyperparameter Tuning4 minutes
  • Debugging in Practice4 minutes
  • Versioning and Model Cards3 minutes
  • Publishing to Hugging Face Hub4 minutes
  • Inference APIs4 minutes
4 readingsTotal 60 minutes
  • Hugging Face Pipelines and Datasets: Fast-Tracking NLP Development15 minutes
  • Training and Evaluating Transformers: Trainer API, Metrics, and Tracking15 minutes
  • Improving and Debugging Transformers: Training Challenges and Hyperparameter Tuning15 minutes
  • Sharing and Deploying Transformers: Model Cards, Hugging Face Hub, and Inference APIs15 minutes
5 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Pipelines and Datasets15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Model Training Workflow15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Debugging in Practice15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Share and Deploy15 minutes
  • Graded Quiz : Hugging Face Transformers in Action60 minutes

Apply Transformer models to real-world NLP problems like summarization, question answering, and semantic similarity. Learn optimization techniques such as distillation and quantization, then design and present a capstone NLP project that integrates fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment workflows.

What's included

13 videos3 readings5 assignments

13 videosTotal 51 minutes
  • Sentence Embeddings5 minutes
  • Measuring Similarity4 minutes
  • Visualizing Embeddings5 minutes
  • Summarization and Translation4 minutes
  • Question Answering and Classification5 minutes
  • Zero-Shot and Multi-Task Learning4 minutes
  • Model Compression4 minutes
  • Exporting Models3 minutes
  • Deployment Strategies4 minutes
  • Project Overview4 minutes
  • Building Your NLP Application4 minutes
  • Presenting and Reflecting3 minutes
  • Closure Video3 minutes
3 readingsTotal 45 minutes
  • Semantic Similarity and Embeddings: Using SBERT, Cosine Search, and Visualizations15 minutes
  • Real-World NLP with Transformers: Summarization, QA, Translation, and Zero-Shot Classification15 minutes
  • Optimizing and Deploying Transformers: Compression, Export, and Inference Strategies15 minutes
5 assignmentsTotal 120 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Visualizing Embeddings15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Real NLP Applications15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Optimization and Deployment15 minutes
  • Practice Quiz : Capstone Projects15 minutes
  • Graded Quiz : Applications and Extensions60 minutes

Instructor

Board Infinity
261 Courses428,749 learners

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Frequently asked questions

Mid-level professionals, data scientists, and developers seeking hands-on experience with NLP and AI models.

Basic Python and familiarity with data science libraries like NumPy or pandas are recommended.

You’ll primarily use Hugging Face Transformers, Datasets, and Inference APIs, along with Jupyter and Colab.

No advanced math is required key concepts like attention and loss functions are explained intuitively with visuals.

Yes, Colab environments with free GPU access are supported for training and experimentation.

Every concept includes code demos, hands-on exercises, and guided projects to ensure real-world application.

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 purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

Financial aid available,