LD7131 - Data Analytics for Business Decision Making

You will learn through a series of hands-on, experiential learning sessions where you will be guided in the use of various software packages to reach decisions and will then consider their potential uses and organisational implications. These will all take place in computer workshops to facilitate the acquisition of the necessary practical skills.

Some of these packages may be familiar to you already (e.g. Microsoft Excel) while others are likely to be new to you (e.g. SPSS, SAS). In each session, an experienced practitioner academic will introduce the key underlying theoretical concepts of the techniques to be covered but the emphasis will be on rigorous practical exploration of techniques for managing and interrogating data sets to reach meaningful and practical conclusions.

Importantly, you will also learn at work, through reflecting on your experiences and applying your knowledge from the module to your practice in the workplace. During the workshops you will be encouraged to discuss the theories and concepts with the tutors and your peers to understand how these relate to your own work based experiences. The module will provide directed activities to enable you to transfer the learning into your workplace and provide an opportunity for you to apply and evidence the development of your own professional practice. Finally, there will be an opportunity for you to reflect and review your learning with your workplace mentor and executive coach

You will be supported primarily by the module tutor, who will be available for guidance and consultation about the module and its requirements. A Teaching and Learning Plan and module Blackboard site will also be used extensively to support learning, set out the schedule of work and provide materials. Less formally, all members of the teaching team will provide support and assistance in the taught sessions. Given the practical nature of the work, there will be ample opportunity for discussion and provision of formative feedback in the class contact time.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Knowledge of decision making techniques for business problem solving.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
2. The ability to use a range of management decision making software packages;
3. The ability to analyse quantitative data using appropriate techniques;
4. The ability to interpret outputs from data analysis and to use these to gain insights into potential courses of action.

You will be assessed in a single assignment (3000 words).

This will contain a number of sections, each related to one of the topics covered in the taught blocks, and focussed on the practical application of the techniques discussed to a realistic business scenario.

While this assignment will be submitted as a single piece of work at the end of the teaching period, it will be possible for students to complete each component as the topics are explored in class allowing for participants to work on it alongside the taught sessions.

The assignment will assess all module learning outcomes.

Ongoing formative feedback will also be provided in the taught sessions by the module teaching team.

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Business decision making is an increasingly complex field. Some of this complexity is due to the range and amount of data that managers are expected to process on a regular basis: for example, examining large data sets for emerging trends, monitoring progress on projects or forecasting for decision making.

This module will equip you with some of the practical skills needed to manage this complexity and to generate conclusions which can be used for management decision making. Through experiential learning, you will develop the ability to analyse data using a variety of approaches, each best suited to particular problem scenarios. Since the emphasis is on practical applications of the techniques discussed many classes will take place in IT workshops very much enabling participants to ‘learn by doing’. This IT based approach will complement the learning found in other modules by developing a different skill set and ensuring that the learning experienced has a real-world application in business.