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COURSE SYLLABUS

Data Analysis and Reporting

Spring 2019

I. Class

· Course Description: Students will gain practical experience in using advanced database techniques and data visualization, data warehousing, reporting and other Business Intelligence (BI) tools. Contemporary BI tools and technologies will be used to create intelligent solutions to realistic problems.

· Course Objectives:

1. Effectively understand the evolution of business analytics needs and to develop an appreciation for issues in managing data/information/knowledge.

2. Apply in advanced database techniques in designing and executing complex queries in enterprise level database management information systems (Oracle,

SQL server, DB2 …).

3. Understand data warehousing administration and security issues.

4. Apply data extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) processes.

5. Administer and build reports

BI. Required Course Materials

· Free eBooks and other software resources will be posted on Blackboard.

· We use the Microsoft SQL Server 2017 in this class through a virtual machine that you can access from home or from campus.

· The on-campus computer lab in the business building located off the Atrium is available for student use and has the necessary computers and software. Computer lab hours can be found at: http://ualr.edu/cob/student-services/advising/advising-faq/

· Some of the assignments will require Microsoft Office software (e.g., MS Word, Excel, etc.). One way to get access to the MS Office software is get a free subscription to MS Office 365 ProPlus. Get the MS Office software here for free..

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IV. Course Grading

Course grading will be the combination of exams, term project, assignments, and quizzes. Grades are based on: A: 90~ 100%, B: 80~ 89%, C: 70~ 79%, D: 60~ 69%, F: 59 as described below. Graduate students will be evaluated using the same criteria as the undergraduate students. However, they will have to submit an additional assignments and/or extra project.

Grade Element	%
A.	Participation	10%
B.	Reading Quizzes	20%
C.	Assignments	30%
D.	Assignment Quizzes	10%
E.	Exams (three)	30%
Total	100%

A. Participation

You will be responsible for various in-class activities that will allow you to exercise your skills and knowledge, stimulate your critical thinking, and perform your assignments. You are expected to attend all the sessions, come to the class before it starts, stay in class for lectures and assignments, and participate with all class activities. Failure in any of these four areas will impact your participation grade.

Class attendance, measured as a percentage of classes attended where role is called, sets the baseline for the participation grade (e.g., 80% means you attended 8 out of 10 classes and did not leave those classes early). Additional points may be removed for non-participation in classroom activities or discussions.

· Class attendances will be verified at the beginning of each class. Students will be counted absent if they are not in the class when roll is taken. If students are tardy, they are counted as absent. No exceptions!

B. Readings Quizzes

There will be multiple quizzes throughout the course. The purpose of the quizzes is to ensure that student is performing the required reading throughout the semester. The highest grade of your two quiz attempts will determine your quiz grade.

· The single worst quiz grade will be dropped for final grade calculation.

C. Assignments

There will be multiple assignments throughout the course. Through these assignments, you will have the opportunity to apply what we discussed in the class. Students will be

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asked to individually complete a series of assignments based on cases, articles, and/or other exercises.

 The single worst assignment grade will be dropped for final grade calculation.

D. Assignment Quizzes

There will be multiple quizzes throughout the course. The purpose of the quizzes is to ensure that student understands ideas, concepts, and techniques in the course’s assignments. The highest grade of your two quiz attempts will determine your quiz grade.

· The single worst quiz grade will be dropped for final grade calculation.

E. Exams

There will be three exams. More information will be provided before the exams.

· The two highest exam grades are averaged to calculate the exam grade, meaning that the lowest exam grade is dropped.

· Exams are not subject to the late work policy and must be completed in class, in the face-to-face format, or by the due date subject to testing center availability in the case of online format (no exceptions).

· Exams on which cheating was involved will receive a zero that cannot be dropped from the exam grade calculation.

V. Policies

A. Blackboard Statement

This course makes extensive use of the Blackboard system to disseminate information and materials for this class. If I need to make a change to the class or contact you, I will do it through Blackboard. Therefore, in order to keep up with the events in the class, you will need to check Blackboard regularly (preferably at least once per day).

B. Attendance

If something happens causing you to be absent, I strongly suggest you notify me in advance. Federal financial aid regulations hold an institution responsible for knowledge of student class attendance and withholding federal funds if a student is not attending. The same is true for veterans’ educational benefits and for the Arkansas Department of Education.

· In an online course attendance is based on the student signing on to Blackboard and submitting work each week.

· If a student does not submit any to Blackboard in a week, then they are considered absent.

· If a student has not attended class within the first two weeks of class (the first ten class days), the students may be withdrawn administratively.

· If during the semester a student misses two consecutive weeks of classes, the student may be withdrawn administratively.

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C. Late Work

Late work will be penalized in this course. You will not be able to negotiate late work after the fact. If you notify me that there is a problem ahead of time, you may be able to negotiate lower to no penalties assuming there is a significant acceptable reason for the delay. Unacceptable reasons include, but are not limited to: too much to do this week, or my internet quit working, or my machine quit working before I could upload at 11:59. If work is submitted:

· Up to 24 hours after the due date, the penalty is 10 points

· Between 24 and 48 hours after the due date, the penalty is 20 points

· After 48 hours past the due date will receive a zero

Additionally, if you submit the wrong file to an assignment or paper, you have a choice. You may have me grade the original submission. Or, you have me grade the late submission with applicable penalty.

Work, including quizzes, assignments, papers, projects, etc., submitted more than

48 hours past the due date will not be graded. No work will be accepted after

11:59pm of the last day of classes as identified on the University Academic Calendar

(subject to the previously described late policy). No exceptions!

D. Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty

University regulations regarding academic dishonesty, as set forth in the UALR student handbook and other university documents and publications will be strictly enforced in this class. In accordance with Section VI: Statement of Student Behavior, under the code of student rights, responsibilities, and behavior, the university defines academic dishonesty under the classifications of cheating, plagiarism, collusion, and duplicity (see http://ualr.edu/deanofstudents/1684-2/ for definitions).

Academic dishonesty in this class may result in disciplinary sanction and WILL be reported to the office of the dean of students.

In addition to reporting dishonesty to the dean of students, the exam, quiz, or assignment, on which cheating was involved will receive a zero that cannot be dropped or replaced in the final grade calculation.

A second occurrence of dishonesty or plagiarism will result in a grade of “F” for the class

For your convenience the definitions for cheating, plagiarism, collusion, and duplicity are provided below.

Cheating on an examination or quiz is defined as to give, receive, offer, or solicit information on any quiz or examination. This includes the following classes of dishonesty:

· Copying from another student’s paper;

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· Use during the examination of prepared materials, notes, or text other than those specifically permitted by the professor;

· Collaboration with another student during the examination;

· Buying, selling, stealing, soliciting, or transmitting an examination, or any material purported to be the unreleased content of a coming examination, or the use of such material;

· Substituting for another person during an examination or allowing such substitution for oneself;

· Bribery of any person to obtain examination information.

Plagiarism is to adopt and reproduce as one's own, to appropriate to one's own use and incorporate in one's own work without acknowledgement, the ideas or passages from the writings and works of others. If you use someone else’s words or ideas without crediting them, you a committing plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, simple cite the work used and, if directly quoting something, put quotation marks and the page number. See Purdue OWL https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/ and videos about specific topics at https://www.youtube.com/user/OWLPurdue.

Collusion is to obtain from another party, without specific approval in advance by the professor, assistance in the production of work offered for credit to the extent that the work reflects the ideas or skills of the party consulted rather than those of the person in whose name the work is submitted.

Duplicity is to offer for credit identical or substantially unchanged work in two or more courses without specific advance approval of the professor(s) involved.

E. Abuse

As with physical abuse, verbal abuse will not be tolerated. Verbal abuse includes but is not limited to verbal harassment, threats of violence, profanity used to threaten or demean, and verbal intimidation. Forms of abuse include spoken, written, or electronic.

Any student, student organization, or group of students found responsible for verbal abuse will be referred to the Deans of Students for disciplinary action.

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VI. Tentative Course Schedule

This is a tentative outline in this course. Please use this schedule to see where you should be in your reading, and when exams are tentatively scheduled. The schedule is subject to change. In case of changes, student will be notified in advance.

Date				Topic
Week 01 – 01/21
		Review and Understand Syllabus
		Readings – Introduction to SQL Server
		Readings Quiz 01 – SSRS
		Readings – Competing on Analytics
		Readings Quiz 02 - COA
		Assignment 01 – ERDs and Data Dictionaries
		Assignment Quiz 01
		Introduce yourselves and ask questions on Discussion Board
Week 02 – 01/28
		Readings – McKinsey Report
		Readings Quiz 03 - McKinsey
		Readings – Strength in Numbers
		Readings Quiz 04 - SIN
		Assignment 02 - SQL Queries with Joins and Wheres
		Assignment Quiz 02
		Holiday – No Class on	Monday
Week 03 – 02/04		All quizzes and assignments still due
		Readings – Big Data: The Management Revolution
		Readings Quiz 05 - BDTMR
		Read – Gartner’s Business Analytics Framework
		Readings Quiz 06 - GABF
		Assignment 03 - SQL Queries with Math and Aggregates
		Assignment Quiz 03
Week 04 – 02/11
		Readings – Business Analytics Technology

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Date	Topic
	Readings Quiz 07 - BAT
	Assignment 04 - SQL Data Tools Tutorials
	Assignment Quiz 04 – Exam 01 Assignment Review
	Practice Exam for Exam Next Week!
Week 05 – 02/18
	Exam 01
	Assignment 05 – Kinds of Customers
	Assignment Quiz 05
Week 06 – 02/25
	Readings – Data Visualization for Human Perception
	Readings Quiz 08 - DVHP
	Readings – Data Visualization Analyst
	Readings Quiz 09 - DVA
	Assignment 06 – Product Profitability
	Assignment Quiz 06
Week 07 – 03/04
	Readings – Data Visualization Value
	Readings Quiz 10 - DVV
	Readings – Data Warehouse Concepts
	Readings Quiz 11 - DWC
	Assignment 07 – Retail Sales versus Wholesale Sales
	Assignment Quiz 07
Week 08 – 03/11
	Readings – Data Warehouse Process
	Readings Quiz 12 - DWP
	Readings – Data Warehouse Logical Design
	Readings Quiz 13 - DWL
	Assignment 08 – Order Prices and Discounts
	Assignment Quiz 08
	Practice Exam for Exam Next Week!

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Date		Topic
Week 09 – 03/18		Spring Break – No Class and No Assignments
Week 10 – 03/25
		Readings – State of ETL
		Readings Quiz 14 - STETL
		Readings – Surrounding ETL
		Readings Quiz 15 - SRETL
		Assignment 09 – Data Warehouse Mapping
		Assignment Quiz 09
Week 11 – 04/01
		Exam 02
		Assignment 10 – Explain Losses
		Assignment Quiz 10
Week 12 – 04/08
		Readings – Data Mining Techniques
		Readings Quiz 16 - DMT
		Readings – NSA Data Mining
		Readings Quiz 17 - NSADM
		Assignment 11 – Data Mining Tutorial
		Assignment Quiz 11
Week 13 – 04/15
		Readings – Credibility in Analytics
		Readings Quiz 18 - CREDA
		Readings – Credibility in Communication
		Readings Quiz 19 - CREDC
		Assignment 12 – Data Points and Story Points
		Assignment Quiz 12
Week 14 – 04/22
		Readings – Big Data Ethics
		Readings Quiz 20 - BDE
		Readings – What’s Up With Big Data Ethics

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Date		Topic
		Readings Quiz 21 - WUWBDE
		Assignment 13 – Identify Recommendations
		Assignment Quiz 13
		Practice Exam for Exam Next Week!
Week 15 – 04/29
		Assignment 14 – Professional Report
		Exam 03
Week 16 – 05/06		Monday last day of class. No assignments this week.
Final Exam		There is no final exam for this course

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