Terminology

Account

Each of our business customers are referred to internally as an account. Individuals and companies who pay for access have a subscription to DataCamp. Individuals who have a free account are registered users.

Administrators

Unless space will not allow you to spell it out fully, always use “administrator” instead of the word “admin” when referring to administrators of business subscriptions in DataCamp materials.

B2C, B2B

The terms B2C and B2B should only be used internally.

Admin

Always use “admin” instead of “administrator” when referring to administrators of business subscriptions.

When describing different levels of access for admins, do not use the terms “billable” or “non-billable” externally; these designations should only ever be used internally.

To describe admins who only have access to the dashboard, and not DataCamp learning content, you can use the terms “dashboard-only admin” or “admin-only access.”

Coding languages

Follow the style of the original name of the language. Correct style of DataCamp-supported languages are below:

• Bash
• Git
• Python
• R
• Shell
• Apache Spark
• spreadsheets (only capitalize at the beginning of a sentence, or in a title/course name)
• SQL
• PostgreSQL
• Scala

Coding packages and libraries

Follow the style of the original name of the package, including original capitalization style. Even at the beginning of a sentence, packages should not be capitalized unless the package name is capitalized. Correct style of a selection of packages are below:

• astsa
• Bash
• Bokeh
• broom
• data.table
• datetime
• dplyr
• ggmap
• ggplot2
• ggvis
• H2O
• Highcharter
• Keras
• lubridate
• MASS
• MATLAB
• Matplotlib
• NumPy
• os
• pandas
• pickle
• Plotly
• polyglot
• psych
• purrr
• PySpark
• PythonLand
• R Markdown
• random
• raster
• RColorBrewer
• readr
• requests
• rpart
• scikit-learn
• SciPy
• seaborn
• sf
• Shiny
• sklearn
• spaCy
• sparklyr
• statsmodels
• stringr
• TensorFlow
• tibble
• tidyr
• urllib
• xts
• zoo

Courses, tracks, practice, projects

In general, do not capitalize “courses,” “tracks,” “career tracks,” “skill tracks,” “practice,” or “projects” in a sentence; always capitalize them in a title or headline.

• Courses: Do not capitalize in a sentence.
  • ✅ Exercises within a course should be referred to as “practice exercises.”
• Tracks: Do not capitalize the word “track(s),” or “career tracks” or “skill tracks” in a sentence.
  • ✅ “Skill tracks are shorter than career tracks and help you master complementary skills.”
• Projects: Do not capitalize in a sentence. You do not need to add “DataCamp” in front of “projects”.
• Practice: Do not capitalize in a sentence. Always refer to practice as “coding challenges,” or a “set of coding challenges” when referring to a practice pool.
  • ❌ Practice pools, modes, modules, sessions, exercises.

Course names

Please refer to course naming guidelines.

DataCamp

Our company name should always be written as one word, with the “D” and “C” capitalized.

• ✅ DataCamp
• ❌ Data Camp
• ❌ Datacamp

DataFrames, data.frame, data frames

When using one of these terms, follow the appropriate usage based on the context of coding language.

• In the context of Python: DataFrame, DataFrames
• In the context of R: data.frame, data frames

Dataset

Always use “dataset” as one word.

• ✅ The course uses a large dataset.
• ❌ The course uses a large data set.

Fluency (as in data fluency)

Always use the phrase “data fluency,” not “data literacy.”

Background on this terminology

Literacy is a more binary term (you are either literate or you’re not), while fluency is on a spectrum of proficiency. Fluency also has an aspirational quality, in that you’re always trying to become more fluent in subjects you care about. The word literacy may also have negative connotations, such as being illiterate or implying that you’re unintelligent if you are not data literate.

Hands-on

Always hyphenate in a sentence.

• ✅ DataCamp has hands-on courses.
• ❌ DataCamp has handson courses.
• ❌ DataCamp has hands on courses.
• ❌ DataCamp courses have hands-on-keyboard exercises.

Instructors

Currently recommendations, not strict rules:

Always use the word “instructor” (not “teacher”) in copy that refers to individuals who have created a premium course or project featured on datacamp.com, including DataCamp employees. The following terms may also be used internally or when communicating directly to DataCamp content creators:

• Community author: Any individual who creates non-premium content that is not featured on datacamp.com. Examples of this type of content include: tutorials; courses created for classroom settings or corporate training using the Teach App, but that are not on datacamp.com or the DataCamp Community. Should not be used in marketing materials.
• Author: Sometimes used generically to refer to any individual who has created any kind of content using DataCamp. This more generic term may be helpful when we are referring to something that affects all authors, such as announcing an update to the Teach Editor. Should not be used in marketing materials.

Joins

Never use a hyphen for the following: self joins, semi joins, anti joins, cross joins, inner joins, outer joins.

• ❌ self-join

Licenses

Always use the term “licenses” in reference to licenses purchased for DataCamp for Business members. Never use the term “seats” in this context.

Spreadsheets

Capitalize when used in a title or course name, but do not capitalize when used in a sentence. The singular or plural form can be used; the choice should be determined based on readability.

• ✅ Python for Spreadsheet Users
• ✅ Pivot Tables in Spreadsheets
• ✅ DataCamp has Python, R, and spreadsheet courses.
• ✅ DataCamp has courses in Python, R, and spreadsheets.

Teach, Teach Editor

Currently recommendations, not strict rules:

The terms Teach, Teach App, and Teach Editor should only be used internally and in direct communication instructors. More descriptive terms may also be used (see below).

• Teach: Refers to all authoring tools for content creators.
  • Can also be referred to as “authoring tools.”
• Teach App: Refers to the Teach dashboard.
  • Can also be referred to as “the Teach dashboard.”
• Teach Editor: Refers to the content editor.
  • Can also be referred to as the “content editor.” Should not be referred to as the “course editor,” which excludes projects, practice and tutorials; and should not be referred to as “the editor,” which is too general.

Tidyverse

When talking about the package, never capitalize it. If you’re talking about it more generally, capitalize only at the start of sentences.

Users

Users should be referred to as learners. In the context of enterprise customers, learners may be referred to as employees or team members in sales and marketing materials.

XP

When referring to XP, always use capital letters and use a space between XP and the number.

• ✅ I have 4,700 XP.

Correct spelling of general technology terms

When referring to XP, always use capital letters and use a space between XP and the number.

• e-book
• email
• cellphone
• Facebook
• Google
• Hashtag
• internet
• iPad, iPhone, etc.
• LinkedIn
• social media
• Twitter, tweet, tweeted, retweet
• website
• YouTube