Course Overview for the Predictive Business Analytics Certificate, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Program Courses

To earn a certificate in Business Analytics, you must complete the three core courses (BUS_ANLY 201, BUS_ANLY 202, and BUS_ANLY 204).* There is no admissions process for the Certificate in Business Analytics. Start the path toward your certificate by registering for your first course below.

* Students who began the program prior to the fall 2021 term must complete four courses to earn their certificate: BUS_ANLY 201, BUS_ANLY 202, BUS_ANLY 203, and BUS_ANLY 204.

PDP courses are offered online, remotely, and on-campus. Please refer to the Schedule Notes for course delivery information.

IMPORTANT: The registration process for all professional development courses requires you to (A) register for your course, (B) complete an acknowledgment of Northwestern University's Student Expectations and COVID-19 Code of Conduct in CAESAR, AND (C) update your emergency contact information . Current students with an active NetID must complete their student acknowledgment in CAESAR before registering for courses. New students must complete their student acknowledgment in CAESAR within 48 hours of enrollment before official registration can be finalized.
Please contact pdp@northwestern.edu for assistance.

BUS_ANLY 204-DL : Data Visualization, Communication, and Storytelling

Description

This course examines how to make business analytics an integral part of an organization’s decision-making process in order to create a competitive edge and generate value. Topics covered include promoting analytical thinking, building consensus, adopting smart metrics for project development, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring.

Emphasis will be placed on the visual display of data and how to effectively communicate analytical and sometimes complex results to a mixed audience including clients, staff, non-technical leaders, and senior management.

Various dashboarding and graphics technologies will be explored, and students will have the opportunity to work with examples depicting real scenarios from different industries such as finance, healthcare, retail, government, marketing, and sales. Students will also gain firsthand experience with making the case for analytics in front of an audience and presenting their analytical findings, actionable insights, added value for the business, and gained competitive edge.

Each student will receive a 3-month license to Tableau to use during the course and afterwards until the license expires. Tableau is the leading platform to explore and manage data, with generative AI built-in to the solution. It accelerates time to value and reduces repetitive tasks with smart suggestions and in-product guidance. After the license expires, students will be able to renew it for a year at the student rate.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Formulate data profiles and generate thoughtful actionable insights.
• Summarize complex analytical results into simple, encompassing, and convincing visual analytics.
• Create presentations for delivery to a mixed technical and non-technical audience.
• Create effective visualizations using best practices and synthesize them into illuminating stories.
• Illustrate the comprehension of data storytelling through the sharing of a video story with the class.

Additional Information:

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course. This course assumes a basic understanding of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint or similar programs as a basis for navigating Tableau.

Students can take this course out of sequence (before completing BUS_ANLY 201 and 202).