In this week’s Brief, analytics comes to the HR department (“people analytics”), and our course spotlight is on:
- Sep 6 – Oct 4: Predictive Analytics 1
- Sep 6 – Oct 4: Programming 1 (R or Python)
These courses are excellent entry points into our data science certificate programs:
- Analytics for Data Science (focuses on off the shelf tools like Excel and Tableau)
- Programming for Data Science (tracks for R and Python, novice and experienced programmers)
You can take one of the entry point courses before enrolling in the certificate, and apply it retroactively.
See you in class!
– Peter Bruce
Chief Academic Officer, Author, Instructor, and Founder
The Institute for Statistics Education at Statistics.com
Industry Analytics
People Analytics
Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “The new ways your boss is spying on you”
Analytics has come to HR. It’s partly Orwellian, tracking what employees do on the computer, and partly warm and fuzzy, leveraging the true informal organizational structure via network analysis (jump into Friday’s Network Analysis course to learn the basics). According to the American Management Association, 45% of employers use software to track […]
Student Spotlight
Gunnar Gunnarsson
Gunnar Gunnarsson is an economist at the Central Bank of Iceland who specializes in fiscal policy analysis. He came to the Institute for Statistics Education at Statistics.com to enhance both his analytical skills and his programming ability, and enrolled in the Programming for Data Science certificate. He says
“The dimension reduction and classification techniques taught in this program are helping me enormously in my work at the Bank.”
The courses he took also whet his appetite for more advanced learning:
“After I finish this certification I will be signing up for both Bayesian Statistics and Optimization specializations.”
Historical Note
Network Analysis
A seminal point in the development of social network analysis was the 1938 publication of Jacob Moreno and Helen Jennings’ article Statistics of social configurations. The article helped launch the field of sociometry, and the journal of the same name. The addition of metrics was initially a sidelight to the field of sociology, which was then preoccupied with the recesses of the human mind. Jennings Master’s thesis was entitled “The Nature of the Pathetic,” and Moreno is regarded as a pioneer in group therapy methods, and the founder of the “psychodrama” technique. Moreno was not of a quantitative orientation, but Jennings was. She was interested in learning what produces leaders and isolates, and needed metrics for that. Ultimately, her development and application of measurement methods gave rise to the field of network analysis, and the study of networks themselves as entities.
Course Spotlight
Sep 6 – Oct 4: Predictive Analytics 1
Predictive Analytics 1 is designed and taught by the author team for the best selling text Data Mining for Business Analytics. You will learn how to:
- Visualize and explore data to better understand relationships among variables
- Partition data to provide an assessment basis for predictive models
- Specify, implement and assess models with the following algorithms:
- k-nearest-neighbor
- Naive Bayes
- Classification and Regression Trees
- Understand how ensemble models improve predictions
Sep 6 – Oct 4: Programming 1 (R or Python)
Our introductory courses for R and Python programming are designed and taught by experienced Institute instructors and authors. You will learn:
- How to read/write data
- How to use functions
- How to deal with dates
- How to write loops
- How to leverage the power of packages contributed to these open-source languages
These courses are excellent entry points into our data science certificate programs:
- Analytics for Data Science (focuses on off the shelf tools like Excel and Tableau)
- Programming for Data Science (tracks for R and Python, novice and experienced programmers)
You can take one of the entry point courses before enrolling in the certificate, and apply it retroactively.
See you in class!