Data Analytics Certificate

Xavier Leadership Center’s Analytics Certificate is delivered over three semesters in partnership with Xavier University’s William College of Business. The certificate includes:

Data Mining

Participants will receive an introduction to the basic theory, tools and techniques of data mining, including prediction, associations, clustering, and recommendation systems. Data Mining is delivered from two points of view: the technological view and the management view. Participants will use data mining tools when doing their team projects.
In the last decade, there has been an extraordinary quantity of data available to businesses. Transactional data from point-of-sale scanners are now routinely available; data from direct marketing and surveys is growing exponentially; and e-commerce and web-browsing data is everywhere. Many businesses have a strong interest in extracting value or knowledge from this data.
The vision of this course is to present and discuss data mining technologies and their application to data sets in an effort to support tactical and strategic business decisions. However, the over-riding focus will be learning when and how to use the technologies.

Spreadsheet Applications for Decision Making

The goal of Spreadsheet Applications for Decision Making is to explore the role of spreadsheets as the standard business tool used to model and analyze quantitative problems. As such, class time will focus on the most commonly used Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) techniques and show how these tools are implemented using Microsoft Excel.

Data Visualization & Communication

Data Visualization & Communication enables you to become proficient at communicating business relevant implications of data analyses through visualizations. By the end, you will know how to structure your data analysis projects as visualizations to ensure the fruits of your hard labor yield results for your stakeholders. Learn how to streamline your analyses and highlight their implications efficiently using visualization and make effective visualizations that harness the human brain’s innate perceptual and cognitive tendencies to convey conclusions directly and clearly. Finally, you will design and persuasively present business “data stories” that use these visualizations, capitalizing on business-tested methods and design principles.

Analysts and business super users managing, analyzing and telling data stories to solve problems and make better business decisions.

Participants will master the ability to:
● Understand popular data mining techniques, when they are applicable, and how to apply them to solve problems.
● Identify and apply quantitative techniques which are useful in analyzing and solving problems to facilitate the decision making process.
● Design and present data stories using visualizations to effectively communicate business-relevant implications.

Data Mining
● Understand popular data mining techniques, how to apply them, and when they are applicable
● Utilize a state-of-the-art commercial data mining package
● Apply popular data mining techniques to analyze and solve real-world problems
● Recognize and assess ethical data mining practices

Spreadsheet Applications for Decision Making
● Identify basic quantitative techniques which are useful in analyzing and solving business problems
● Understand the role and scope of management science as a tool in the decision making process
● Formulate decision problems as mathematical models
● Identify and apply the appropriate solution procedure for a given problem and interpret the model solution
● Describe advantages and limitations of each quantitative technique
● Use electronic spreadsheets to implement commonly used OR/MS techniques

Data Visualization & Communication
● Craft the right questions to ensure your analysis projects succeed
● Leverage questions to design logical and structured analysis plans
● Create the most important graphs used in business analysis and transform data
● Design business dashboards
● Tell stories with data
● Design effective slide presentations to showcase your data story
● Deliver compelling business presentations