Building Services with ASP.NET Web API

It teaches you to build services using ASP.NET Web API, and the concepts required to create RESTful services. The course runs in four modules - C# Programming Fundamentals, Advanced C# Programming, SQL Server for Backend Development, and ASP.NET Web API - so the language and the database are in place before you build the service. By the end you have the skills to design, implement and launch scalable and efficient web services.

Developers, software engineers and backend developers, plus anyone interested in building web APIs who already has a basic grounding in web development. It suits people with prior experience in any programming language who now want to work specifically with C# and ASP.NET Web API. It is listed as an intermediate course.

A basic understanding of web development concepts and prior experience with any programming language would be beneficial. You don't need C# specifically - module one starts from the language's fundamentals - but this is not a first-ever programming course, and it doesn't claim to be.

Four things, in this order: C# programming from foundational basics to advanced OOP principles; SQL Server, from relational database structures to optimizing performance through normalization; ASP.NET Web API, from RESTful service principles to serializing data in JSON and XML; and how to design scalable, maintainable APIs with routing configurations, resource management and error handling.

Coursera's guidance is 2 weeks at 10 hours a week. The four modules run roughly 6, 6, 5 and 4 hours - about 21 hours of module time - across 89 videos, 12 readings and 18 assignments. Evenings and weekends will stretch that out, and the schedule flexes to fit.

Yes. The course has a flexible schedule and deadlines reset to fit your pace, so you can work through it in two focused weeks or spread it across a couple of months without losing access.

Module one (6 hours, 25 videos, 5 readings, 5 assignments) gives you a foundation in C# syntax, concepts and programming principles: an introduction to C#, its version history and how C# code executes, installing and configuring Visual Studio, and a Hello World program. It then covers variables and data types, operators, conditional statements, looping constructs, jump statements, arrays and strings, and closes on object-oriented programming - classes and objects, encapsulation and abstraction, constructors, inheritance and polymorphism.

Module two (6 hours, 19 videos, 4 readings, 4 assignments) goes in depth on advanced C#: abstract classes, interfaces, static classes and methods, extension methods and partial classes and methods; then properties, indexers, enums and exception handling; then anonymous types, delegates, events, anonymous methods, lambda expressions and expression trees.

Module three (5 hours, 27 videos, 5 assignments) covers SQL Server and the relational database concepts backend development needs: database fundamentals and types of databases, SQL commands, tables, data manipulation, constraints, SQL clauses, data types and variables, operators and predicates, joins, views, indexes, stored procedures, DML operations, scalar and table-valued functions, and triggers.

Module four (4 hours, 18 videos, 3 readings, 4 assignments) is the core API portion. It covers service-oriented architecture and REST, an introduction to ASP.NET Web API and how it compares with WCF, building a Web API project, creating the database behind it, CRUD operations, testing with Postman, consuming a Web API in ASP.NET MVC, convention and attribute routing, route constraints, content negotiation and media type formatters.

Yes - that's what the course is for. Module four introduces REST and service-oriented architecture, then walks through building an ASP.NET Web API project end to end, including serializing data in JSON and XML so different clients can consume it.

Yes. Module four has a dedicated lesson on ASP.NET Web API CRUD operations, preceded by creating the database for the Web API and followed by testing those endpoints with Postman and consuming them from an ASP.NET MVC application.

Yes. The last four lessons of module four cover convention and attribute routing, route constraints, content negotiation and media type formatters - the pieces that decide which endpoint handles a request and what format the response comes back in.

Yes - an entire module of 27 lessons is devoted to it, and module four then creates the database that sits behind the Web API. The skills Coursera lists for this course include SQL, Database Design, Database Development, Database Management, and Database Architecture and Administration.

Yes. On successful completion Board Infinity issues a shareable certificate through Coursera, with its own verification link. Coursera's one-click button adds it straight to the Licenses & Certifications section of your LinkedIn profile.