Predictive Analytics 3 – Dimension Reduction, Clustering, and Association Rules

Predictive Analytics 3 – Dimension Reduction, Clustering, and Association Rules

This course will teach you key unsupervised learning techniques of association rules - principal components analysis, and clustering - and will include an integration of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques.

This course will teach you key unsupervised learning techniques of association rules - principal components analysis, and clustering - and will include an integration of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques.

$699 | Enroll Now
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Overview

In this course, you will cover key unsupervised learning techniques including association rules, principal components analysis, and clustering. You will also review integration of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques.

Participants will apply data mining algorithms to real data, and will interpret the results. A final project will integrate an unsupervised task with supervised methods covered in our Predictive Analytics 1 and Predictive Analytics 2 courses. This course uses Analytic Solver Data Mining (previously called XLMiner), a data-mining add-in for Excel.

Note: If you prefer to work in R or Python, this course is offered using R or Python.

Introductory/Intermediate Level
4-Week Course
100% Online Courses
ACE + CAP Credit Eligible
Expert Instructors
Teacher Assistant Support
Tution-Back Guarantee

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course students will understand issues relating to using too many predictors and how to reduce the number of predictors to a smaller number of usable “components.” You will use various clustering techniques and association rules to describe clusters of similar records, and to find patterns in your data. You will learn to use Excel-based tools to implement the models covered in this course, and how to combine supervised and unsupervised models.

  • Understand the issues related to using too many predictors (the “curse of dimensionality”)
  • Use principal components analysis to reduce the number of predictors to a smaller number of “components” of correlated predictors
  • Use hierarchical clustering and k-means clustering to find and describe clusters of similar records
  • Use association rules to find patterns of “what goes with what” in transaction data
  • Combine unsupervised and supervised learning methods in a final project

Who Should Take This Course

Marketers seeking to specify customer segments and identify associations among products purchased, environment scientists seeking to cluster observations, analysts who need to identify the key variables out of many, MBA’s seeking to update their knowledge of quantitative techniques, managers and scientists who want to see what data-mining can do, and anyone who wants a practical hands-on grounding in basic data-mining techniques.

Instructors

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Dr. Anthony Babinec

Mr. Anthony Babinec

Anthony Babinec is the President of AB Analytics. For over two decades, Tony Babinec has specialized in the application of statistical and data mining methods to the solution of business problems. Before forming AB Analytics, Babinec was Director of Advanced Products Marketing at SPSS; he worked on the marketing of Clementine and introduced CHAID, neural nets and other advanced technologies to SPSS users. He is on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association, where he has held various offices including President.

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Dr. Galit Shmueli

Dr. Galit Shmueli

Dr. Galit Shmueli is a Distinguished Professor of the Institute of Service Science, College of Technology Management at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.  Previous academic appointments include the SRITNE Chaired Professor of Data Analytics and Associate Professor of Statistics and Information Systems at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and Associate Professor of Statistics in the Department of Decision, Operations & Information Technologies at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.  Dr. Shmueli's research has been published in the statistics, information systems, and marketing literature.

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Course Syllabus

Week 1

Dimension Reduction

  • Detecting information overlap using domain knowledge and data summaries and charts
  • Removing or combining redundant variables and categories
  • Dealing with multi-category variables
  • Automated dimension reduction techniques
    • Principal Components Analysis (PCA)
    • Predictive algorithms with variable selection techniques

Week 2

Cluster Analysis

  • Popular uses of cluster analysis
  • Clustering approaches
  • Hierarchical Clustering
    • Distances between records
    • Distances between clusters
    • Dendrograms
    • Validating clusters
    • Strengths and weaknesses
  • K-Means Clustering
    • Initializing the k clusters
    • Distance of a record from a cluster
    • Within-cluster homogeneity
    • Elbow charts

Week 3

Association Rules and Recommender Systems

  • Discovering association rules in transaction databases
    • Support, confidence and lift
    • The apriori algorithm
    • Shortcomings
  • Collaborative filtering
    • Item-based
    • Person-based

Week 4

Integrating Supervised and Unsupervised Methods; Introduction to Network and Text Analytics

  • The role of unsupervised methods in predictive analytics
    • Dimension reduction of predictor space
    • Predictive models on subsets of homogeneous records
  • Advantages and weaknesses of combining unsupervised and supervised methods
  • Network analytics
  • Text analytics
  • Unsupervised methods used in network and text analytics

Class Dates

2023

May 12, 2023 to Jun 9, 2023

Sep 8, 2023 to Oct 6, 2023

2024

Jan 12, 2024 to Feb 9, 2024

2025

No classes scheduled at this time.

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Prerequisites

Introductory Statistics

We assume you are versed in statistics or have the equivalent understanding of topics covered in our Statistics 1 and Statistics 2 courses. but do not require them as eligibility to enroll in this course. Please review the course description for each of our introductory statistics courses, estimate which best matches your level of understanding of the material covered in these courses, then take the short assessment test for that course. If you can not answer more than half of the questions correctly, we suggest you take our Statistics 1 and Statistics 2 courses prior to taking this course.

In addition, there is a lesson in the course where supervised and unsupervised learning techniques are used in combination, so, unless you do not need this portion, you should be familiar with supervised learning methods, such as those presented in our Predictive Analytics 1 course.

Recommended

We recommend, but do not require as eligibility to enroll in this course, an understanding of the material covered in these following courses.

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Predictive Analytics 1 – Machine Learning Tools

Predictive Analytics 1 – Machine Learning Tools

This online course introduces the basic paradigm of predictive modeling: classification and prediction.
Topic: Analytics, Prediction/Forecasting | Skill: Introductory, Intermediate | Credit Options: ACE, CAP, CEU
Class Start Dates: May 12, 2023, Sep 8, 2023, Jan 12, 2024, May 10, 2024

What Our Students Say​

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I have truly enjoyed this course with Professor Babinec!  All the courses I have taken statistics.com have met my expectations and made me happy because of my professional growth, but this course as well as the course on Likelihood Estimation have surpassed all my expectations!!

Beatriz C. Santiago
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Thank you for the excellent course. I appreciated the timely and detailed responses from Dr. Babinec (for e.g. normalization example when non-numeric predictors are involved). Discussions initiated by other students were also very valuable - esp for PCA and Clusters

Satish Rao
IBM
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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I transfer or withdraw from a course?

We have a flexible transfer and withdrawal policy that recognizes circumstances may arise to prevent you from taking a course as planned. You may transfer or withdraw from a course under certain conditions.
  • Students are entitled to a full refund if a course they are registered for is canceled.
  • You can transfer your tuition to another course at any time prior to the course start date or the drop date, however a transfer is not permitted after the drop date.
  • Withdrawals on or after the first day of class are entitled to a percentage refund of tuition.
Please see this page for more information.

Who are the instructors at the Institute?

The Institute has more than 60 instructors who are recruited based on their expertise in various areas in statistics. Our faculty members are:

  • Authors of well-regarded texts in their area;
  • Advisory board members;
  • Senior faculty; and
  • Educators who have made important contributions to the field of statistics or online education in statistics.

The majority of our instructors have more than five years of teaching experience online at the Institute.

Please visit our faculty page for more information on each instructor at The Institute for Statistics Education.

Please see our knowledge center for more information.

What type of courses does the Institute offer?

The Institute offers approximately 80 courses each year. Topics include basic survey courses for novices, a full sequence of introductory statistics courses, bridge courses to more advanced topics. Our courses cover a range of topics including biostatistics, research statistics, data mining, business analytics, survey statistics, and environmental statistics.

Please see our course search or knowledge center for more information.

Do your courses have for-credit options?

Our courses have several for-credit options:

  • Continuing education units (CEU)
  • College credit through The American Council on Education (ACE CREDIT)
  • Course credits that are transferable to the INFORMS Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®)

Please see our knowledge center for more information.

Is the Institute for Statistics Education certified?

The Institute for Statistics Education is certified to operate by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). For more information visit: https://www.schev.edu/

Please see our knowledge center for more information.

Visit our knowledge base and learn more.

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Related Courses

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Predictive Analytics 1 – Machine Learning Tools

Predictive Analytics 1 – Machine Learning Tools

This online course introduces the basic paradigm of predictive modeling: classification and prediction.
Topic: Analytics, Prediction/Forecasting | Skill: Introductory, Intermediate | Credit Options: ACE, CAP, CEU
Class Start Dates: May 12, 2023, Sep 8, 2023, Jan 12, 2024, May 10, 2024
Predictive Analytics 2 – Neural Nets and Regression

Predictive Analytics 2 – Neural Nets and Regression

As a continuation of Predictive Analytics 1, this course introduces to the basic concepts in predictive analytics to visualize and explore predictive modeling.
Topic: Analytics, Prediction/Forecasting | Skill: Introductory, Intermediate | Credit Options: ACE, CAP, CEU
Class Start Dates: Jul 7, 2023, Nov 10, 2023, Mar 8, 2024

Additional Course Information

Organization of Course

This course takes place online at The Institute for 4 weeks. During each course week, you participate at times of your own choosing – there are no set times when you must be online. Course participants will be given access to a private discussion board. In class discussions led by the instructor, you can post questions, seek clarification, and interact with your fellow students and the instructor.

At the beginning of each week, you receive the relevant material, in addition to answers to exercises from the previous session. During the week, you are expected to go over the course materials, work through exercises, and submit answers. Discussion among participants is encouraged. The instructor will provide answers and comments, and at the end of the week, you will receive individual feedback on your homework answers.

Time Requirements

This is a 4-week course requiring 10-15 hours per week of review and study, at times of your choosing.

Homework

Homework in this course consists of short answer questions to test concepts, and guided data analysis problems using software.

In addition to assigned readings, this course also has supplemental video lectures and an end of course data modeling project.

Course Text

The required text for this course is Data Mining for Business Analytics: Concepts, Techniques, and Applications in Microsoft Office Excel with XLMiner, 3rd Edition, by Shmueli, Patel and Bruce.

Please order a copy of your course textbook prior to course start date.

Software

This is a hands-on course, and participants will apply data mining algorithms to real data. The course is built around XLMiner, which is available for Windows versions of Excel, or over the web.

Course participants will receive a license for Analytic Solver Data Mining (previously XLMiner) for nominal cost – this is a special version, for this course. IMPORTANT: Do NOT download the free trial version of XLMiner from solver.com as it may conflict with the special course version.

Software Uses and Descriptions | Available Free Versions
To learn more about the software used in this course, or how to obtain free versions of software used in our courses, please read our knowledge base article “What software is used in courses?” 

Course Fee & Information

Enrollment
Courses may fill up at any time and registrations are processed in the order in which they are received. Your registration will be confirmed for the first available course date unless you specify otherwise.

Transfers and Withdrawals
We have flexible policies to transfer to another course or withdraw if necessary.

Group Rates
Contact us to get information on group rates.

Discounts
Academic affiliation?  In most courses you are eligible for a discount at checkout.

New to Statistics.com?  Click here for a special introductory discount code.  

Invoice or Purchase Order
Add $50 service fee if you require a prior invoice, or if you need to submit a purchase order or voucher, pay by wire transfer or EFT, or refund and reprocess a prior payment.

Options for Credit and Recognition

This course is eligible for the following credit and recognition options:

No Credit
You may take this course without pursuing credit or a record of completion.

Mastery or Certificate Program Credit
If you are enrolled in mastery or certificate program that requires demonstration of proficiency in this subject, your course work may be assessed for a grade.

CEUs and Proof of Completion
If you require a “Record of Course Completion” along with professional development credit in the form of Continuing Education Units (CEU’s), upon successfully completing the course, CEU’s and a record of course completion will be issued by The Institute upon your request.

ACE CREDIT | College Credit
This course has been evaluated by the American Council on Education (ACE) and is recommended for college credit.  For recommendation details (level, and number of credits), please see this page. Please note that the decision to accept specific credit recommendations is up to the academic institution accepting the credit.

ACE Digital Badge
Courses evaluated by the American Council on Education (ACE) have a digital badge available for successful completion of the course.

INFORMS-CAP
This course is recognized by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) as helpful preparation for the Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) exam and can help CAP® analysts accrue Professional Development Units to maintain their certification.

Supplemental Information

Literacy, Accessibility, and Dyslexia

At Statistics.com, we aim to provide a learning environment suitable for everyone. To help you get the most out of your learning experience, we have researched and tested several assistance tools. For students with dyslexia, colorblindness, or reading difficulties, we recommend the following web browser add-ons and extensions:

 

Chrome

 

Firefox

 

Safari

  • Navidys (for colorblindness, dyslexia, and reading difficulties)
  • HelperBird for Safari (for colorblindness, dyslexia, and reading difficulties)

Miscellaneous

There is no additional information for this course.

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Predictive Analytics 3 – Dimension Reduction, Clustering, and Association Rules
$699 | Enroll Now
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