ABSTRACT
This chapter is about an approach to course design of an entry-level business analytics course. The chapter walks through an entire course of business analytics including the order and content. The author provides the learning outcomes of the to demonstrate their knowledge. In this introductory course, the professor begins with using a tool that students are likely to be familiar, Microsoft Excel. After gaining confidence in PivotTables, students use SAP Business Objects which is accessible to the students through the SAP University Alliance. Students learn how to create visualizations and tell a story with data using Tableau, using an educational license. Next, students learn how to build clusters in both Tableau and SAP Predictive Analytics. Students complete a SQL tutorial to understand relational database structures. The students use a website to connect to SAP HANA to answer questions using this in-memory processing technique. A group assignment is that students learn how to Web-scrape data from TripAdvisor and write a consulting report for local restaurants regarding restaurant reviews. From here, the course moves into machine learning, and the students create decision trees using BigML, Inc. There is an exercise for students to build maps and answer important questions about crime mapping. The course ends with conversations about social media, ethics, privacy, and trends. The final exam is a combination of visualizations and machine learning analytics. This chapter is unique in that it provides the step-by-step details of three of the assignments that another professor can adapt for use in their own course.
