School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences

Free Primer Courses

Our free primer courses help you prepare for part-time or full-time study. They cover roughly the first two weeks of your chosen programme.

  • Six to ten evening sessions over two weeks, from 6pm to 8pm.
  • Online classes via Teams.
  • Computer science courses run in September.
  • Data science courses run in September and early December, ahead of the January intake.
  • A mathematics primer is planned; details will be added when available.

Most of the materials are available throughout the year.

We provide free access to some of our online learning materials, including Codio, for a limited time. Try our teaching materials before enrolment, with interactive exercises, quizzes and projects in Python, Java and data science.

Create a free account at codio.co.uk. Course access is provided via QR codes at our open-day and evening sessions.

An introduction to Codio

Codio is the online environment we use for many of our introductory programming labs.

Codio is divided into three main areas:

  • A Guide panel with the lab instructions and questions. Use the Next/Back buttons or the table of contents to navigate through the pages.
  • A File tree and editor for viewing and editing the source code provided for the lab.
  • A Terminal/Console where you compile and run your programs and see their output.

Follow the guide step by step, switching to the editor and terminal when instructed. Your work is saved automatically. When you have finished a session, you can use the breadcrumb at the top of the page to return to the course dashboard. When you next log in and click the unit again, use Resume to continue where you left off.

Before you start, it is worth reviewing the introductory materials on using Codio.

Codio Demo.mp4

Available courses

  • Programming in Python
  • Programming in Java
  • Data science with Jupyter

You can try more than one course. Further courses will be added to Codio in the future.

Access is provided via QR codes at our open-day and evening sessions.

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