Top 5 Free Courses in Reinforcement Learning
Tags: reinforcementlearnin, machinelearning, deeplearning
Published: 2019-05-27 18:49:29

---
title: Top 5 Free Courses in Reinforcement Learning
published: true
description: In this post, we bring 5 courses developed by the top of mind universities and companies, and you can watch them online for free.
tags: reinforcementlearnin, machinelearning, deeplearning
canonical_url: https://reinforcementlearning4.fun/2019/05/27/top-5-free-courses-in-reinforcement-learning/
cover_image: https://launchyourintelligentapphome.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/screen_shot_2015-02-25_at_10.46.16_am.0.0.jpeg
---

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<p>Reinforcement learning is not a trivial topic and even from a more practical perspective, mastering the subject requires some background in computer programming, math and probabilities. Although there's a increasing number of libraries which offers environments and algorithms out-of-the-box, a ground base on reinforcement learning theory is essential to choose the appropriate algorithms for each kind of problem and to tune their hyperparameters when it's necessary.</p>
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<p>In this post, we bring 5 courses developed by top of mind universities and companies, and you can watch them online for free. Let's check them:</p>
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<h2>1. Reinforcement Learning by Georgia Tech (Udacity)</h2>
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<p>This course was developed by Georgia Tech and it's available for free on the Udacity online platform. All you have to do is create your account and sign in for the classes. The course covers the initial concepts of reinforcement learning, including temporal difference learning (TD learning), Markov decision process (MDP) and topics on game theory. You access the course in this link: </p>
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<p class="has-medium-font-size"><a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Reinforcement Learning by Georgia Tech (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.udacity.com/course/reinforcement-learning--ud600" target="_blank">Reinforcement Learning by Georgia Tech</a></p>
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<h2>2. Reinforcement Learning Explained (edX)</h2>
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<p>This course is part of the <em><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.edx.org/microsoft-professional-program-artificial-intelligence" target="_blank">Microsoft Professional Program in Artificial Intelligence</a></em>, but you can take it alone. The course covers basic and advanced topics like Policy Gradient and Actor Critic. The course is free, but you can pay for a verified certificate. Below is the link for the course:</p>
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<p class="has-medium-font-size"><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/reinforcement-learning-explained-5?source=aw&amp;awc=6798_1545029170_761aa7fc0c2a4cf34e45480a8d6e9037" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Reinforcement Learning Explained (opens in a new tab)">Reinforcement Learning Explained</a></p>
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<h2>3. Practical Reinforcement Learning (Coursera)</h2>
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<p>This course is part of the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.coursera.org/specializations/aml" target="_blank">Advanced Machine Learning Specialization</a>, offered by the Russia's Higher School of Economics. It's a 4 week course which covers topics like value/policy iteration, q-learning, policy gradient and advances to deep reinforcement learning with Deep Q-Learning. The course is paid if you want a certificate and access the assignments, but you can audit the course for free.</p>
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<p class="has-medium-font-size"><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/practical-rl" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Practical Reinforcement Learning (opens in a new tab)">Practical Reinforcement Learning</a></p>
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<h2>4. Introduction to Reinforcement Learning</h2>
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<p>This course was lectured by <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="prof. David Silver (opens in a new tab)" href="http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.silver/web/Home.html" target="_blank">prof. David Silver</a> at the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="UCL (London's Global University)  (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/" target="_blank">UCL (London's Global University)</a>. The course covers topics like Markov Decision Process, Dynamic Programming, Value Function Approximation, Policy Gradient, Exploit-Exploration Dilemma and others. You can access the lectures at the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="DeepMind's Youtube Channel  (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZDM-OYHWgPebj2MfCFzFObQ" target="_blank">DeepMind's Youtube Channel </a>as well as the lectures slides at the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="course website (opens in a new tab)" href="http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.silver/web/Teaching.html" target="_blank">course website</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZDM-OYHWgPebj2MfCFzFObQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Introduction to Reinforcement Learning, by prof. David Silver (opens in a new tab)">Introduction to Reinforcement Learning, by prof. David Silver</a></p>
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<h2>5. Deep Reinforcement Learning (CS 294-112)</h2>
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<p>The last course of our list was offered by the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="UC Berkeley (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.berkeley.edu/" target="_blank">UC Berkeley</a>. It covers from the basics of Reinforcement Learning to advanced topics. You can find links to slides, discussion groups at the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="course front-page (opens in a new tab)" href="http://rail.eecs.berkeley.edu/deeprlcourse/" target="_blank">course front-page</a> and the recorded lectures at the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="CS 294-112 Youtube Channel (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkFD6_40KJIxJMR-j5A1mkxK26gh_qg37" target="_blank">CS 294-112 Youtube Channel</a>.</p>
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<p><a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Deep Reinforcement Learning (CS 294-112) (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkFD6_40KJIxJMR-j5A1mkxK26gh_qg37" target="_blank">Deep Reinforcement Learning (CS 294-112)</a></p>
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<p>The courses listed above covers a wide range of topics on Reinforcement Learning and gives you all the theory necessary to start developing your own intelligent agents, either they are intended to play Atari games, stock trading or build robots. If you have any questions about the courses or reinforcement learning, don't hesitate to write at <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="rodolfo@reinforcementlearning4.fun (opens in a new tab)" href="mailto:rodolfo@reinforcementlearning4.fun" target="_blank">rodolfo@reinforcementlearning4.fun</a>.</p>
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<p>Originally published at: <a href="https://reinforcementlearning4.fun/2019/05/27/top-5-free-courses-in-reinforcement-learning/">Top 5 Free Courses in Reinforcement Learning</a></p>