Introduction to Data Analysis Using Excel

The use of Excel is widespread in the industry. It is a very powerful data analysis tool and almost all big and small businesses use Excel in their day to day functioning. This is an introductory course in the use of Excel and is designed to give you a working knowledge of Excel with the aim of getting to use it for more advance topics in Business Statistics later. The course is designed keeping in mind two kinds of learners - those who have very little functional knowledge of Excel and those who use Excel regularly but at a peripheral level and wish to enhance their skills. The course takes you from basic operations such as reading data into excel using various data formats, organizing and manipulating data, to some of the more advanced functionality of Excel. All along, Excel functionality is introduced using easy to understand examples which are demonstrated in a way that learners can become comfortable in understanding and applying them.

To successfully complete course assignments, students must have access to a Windows version of Microsoft Excel 2010 or later.

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WEEK 1

Module 1: Introduction to Spreadsheets

In this module, you will be introduced to the use of Excel spreadsheets and various basic data functions of Excel.

Topics covered include:

• Reading data into Excel using various formats

• Basic functions in Excel, arithmetic as well as various logical functions

• Formatting rows and columns

• Using formulas in Excel and their copy and paste using absolute and relative referencing

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WEEK 2

Module 2: Spreadsheet Functions to Organize Data

This module introduces various Excel functions to organize and query data. Learners are introduced to the IF, nested IF, VLOOKUP and the HLOOKUP functions of Excel.

Topics covered include:

• IF and the nested IF functions

• VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP

• The RANDBETWEEN function

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WEEK 3

Module 3: Introduction to Filtering, Pivot Tables, and Charts

This module introduces various data filtering capabilities of Excel. You’ll learn how to set filters in data to selectively access data. A very powerful data summarizing tool, the Pivot Table, is also explained and we begin to introduce the charting feature of Excel.

Topics covered include:

• VLOOKUP across worksheets

• Data filtering in Excel

• Use of Pivot tables with categorical as well as numerical data

• Introduction to the charting capability of Excel

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WEEK 4

Module 4: Advanced Graphing and Charting

This module explores various advanced graphing and charting techniques available in Excel. Starting with various line, bar and pie charts we introduce pivot charts, scatter plots and histograms. You will get to understand these various charts and get to build them on your own.

Topics covered include

• Line, Bar and Pie charts

• Pivot charts

• Scatter plots

• Histograms