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 register for your course and update your emergency contact information in CAESAR, Northwestern University's Student Enterprise System.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT*:

Registering for multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a mandatory, integrated step to access Northwestern University systems. Northwestern uses the DUO Mobile smartphone application for multi-factor authentication. Steps to install the DUO Mobile App can be found here. Once you have completed the MFA registration process, you will have access to systems like CAESAR and CANVAS, Northwestern’s Learning Management System.

*It is a student’s responsibility to ensure access to Northwestern systems after registering for a PDP course. If you do not have a smartphone capable of downloading and using the DUO Mobile app, you may want to consider a YubiKey that can be purchased from several online retailers.

Please contact pdp@northwestern.edu with any questions.

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

Description

This course is designed to empower professionals with the skills to integrate business analytics into their organization’s decision-making processes, enhancing competitive advantage and value creation. Tailored for individuals who are not data scientists but need to effectively consume and communicate data and analytics, this course covers essential topics including promoting analytical thinking, building consensus, and adopting smart metrics for project development, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring.

A strong emphasis is placed on the visual display of data and the effective communication of complex analytical results to diverse audiences, including clients, staff, non-technical leaders, and senior management. Participants will explore various dashboarding and graphics technologies and will work with real-world examples from industries such as finance, healthcare, retail, government, marketing, and sales.

Students will gain hands-on experience in making the case for analytics, presenting their findings, and demonstrating the added value and competitive edge derived from their insights. Each student will receive a 3-month license for Tableau, the leading platform for data exploration and management, featuring generative AI capabilities for accelerated value and reduced repetitive tasks. Upon expiration, the license can be renewed at the student rate for an additional year.

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).