Category Archives: Data Analysis

Excel Learning Series – Spring 2016

Are you looking to improve your Excel skills? Does the phrase Microsoft Excel make you nervous? Fear not friends, META LAB and the DLC are collaborating once again to provide a series of Excel workshops to support the MIIS community. The sessions will take place in CF442, Pac Lab from 11-12. All you need to bring is yourself! Your facilitator will be META Lab GA and Data Analysis Teaching Assistant: Mentru Nagbe. When used properly, Microsoft Excel can be an extremely powerful tool to display, organize, and analyze large data sets. The series will contain hidden tips and tricks in addition to exercises that will make you an Excel champion in no time.

Schedule

  • Session 1: February 19, 11-12
  • Session 2: February 26, 11-12
  • Session 3: March 11, 11-12
  • Session 4: March 18, 11-12
  • Session 5: April 1, 11-12 

Sign Up

excel-signup-buttonTo get access to the learning series materials and receive information on future sessions, click the sign up button!

Curriculum

Session 5

  • Linking functions, equations, and graphs
  • Creating custom budgets from scratch
  • Series review

Session 4

  • More pivot tables
  • Working in multiple workbooks
  • Linking workbooks and formulas
  • Uploading untidy data
  • In-depth V-lookup
  • Financial functions

Session 3

  • How to create a charts (All Types)
  • Other chart types, mixed income as line, expenses and
  • savings as stacked column
  • Altering parts of a chart
  • SPARKLINES
  • Freeze panes
  • Splits
  • Outlining
  • Some more useful functions
  • Pivot Table (time permitting)

Session 2

  • Formatting Cells
  • Tabs (part 2)
  • Row Height and Columns Width
  • Alignments
  • Text Wrap
  • Borders
  • Numerical Formatting
    • Dates
    • Time
  • Format
  • Conditional Formatting
  • Tables
  • Hidden Function
  • Print Preview tab
  • Previewing Page Breaks
  • Page Set up and printing screen

Session 1

  • Cursor
  • Cells
  • Formula bar
  • Tabs
  • Worksheets
  • Templates
  • Fonts
  • Copy and paste
  • Wrap text
  • Minitoolbar
  • Quick Access Tool Bar-
  • Status Bar
  • Entering data
    • Autofill
    • Undo/redo
    • Comments
    • Save
  • Formulas
    • Writing formulas
    • Copying formulas
    • $$$$$$

Resources

Lynda LogoLynda.com is an incredible online resource offering guided video tutorials and step by step instructions for all sorts of digital tools. As a member of the Middlebury community you have premium access. Here’s how it works:

  • Visit go.miis.edu/lynda
  • Input your MIIS login credentials
  • Search “Excel Essential Learning”

Fall 2015 Excel Learning Series – Session 3

Are you looking to improve your Excel skills? Does the phrase Microsoft Excel make you nervous? Fear not friends, META LAB and the DLC are collaborating once again to provide a series of Excel workshops during the first half of the Fall 2015 term to support the MIIS community. The third of four sessions will take place on October 9th at noon in CF442, Pac Lab. All you need to bring is yourself! Your facilitator will be META Lab graduate assistant and Data Analysis Teaching Assistant: Mentru Nagbe.

When used properly, Microsoft Excel can be an extremely powerful tool to display, organize, and analyze large data sets. The series will contain hidden tips and tricks in addition to exercises that will make you an Excel champion in no time.

Session 3 Topics

  • Charts and Adjusting Worksheet View
  • How to create a charts (All Types)
  • Other chart types, mixed Use income as line, expenses and
  • Savings as stacked column
  • Altering parts of a chart
  • SPARKLINES
  • Freeze panes
  • Splits
  • Outlining

Sign Up

excel-signup-buttonTo get access to the learning series materials and receive information on future sessions, click the sign up button!

Resources

Lynda LogoLynda.com is an incredible online resource offering guided video tutorials and step by step instructions for all sorts of digital tools. As a member of the Middlebury community you have premium access. Here’s how it works:

  • Visit go.miis.edu/lynda
  • Input your MIIS login credentials
  • Search “Excel Essential Learning”

Fall 2015 Excel Learning Series – Session 2

Are you looking to improve your Excel skills? Does the phrase Microsoft Excel make you nervous? Fear not friends, META LAB and the DLC are collaborating once again to provide a series of Excel workshops during the first half of the Fall 2015 term to support the MIIS community.  The second of four sessions will take place on September 25th 11am – noon in MG100 (McGowan 100).  All you need to bring is yourself and your laptop! Your facilitator will be META Lab graduate assistant and Data Analysis Teaching Assistant: Mentru Nagbe.

When used properly, Microsoft Excel can be an extremely powerful tool to display, organize, and analyze large data sets. The series will contain hidden tips and tricks in addition to exercises that will make you an Excel champion in no time.

Sign Up

excel-signup-buttonTo get access to the learning series materials and receive information on future sessions, click the sign up button!

Session 2 Topics

  • Control 1 important and easy way to get to the format cell box
  • Formatting Cells
  • Tabs (part 2)
  • Row Height and Columns functions
  • Alignments
  • Text Wrap
  • Borders
  • Numerical Formatting
  • Dates
  • Time
  • Format
  • Conditional Formatting –
  • Tables
  • Hidden Function
  • Print Preview tab
  • Previewing Page Breaks
  • Page Set up and printing screen

Resources

Lynda LogoLynda.com is an incredible online resource offering guided video tutorials and step by step instructions for all sorts of digital tools. As a member of the Middlebury community you have premium access. Here’s how it works:

  • Visit go.miis.edu/lynda
  • Input your MIIS login credentials
  • Search “Excel Essential Learning”

Fall 2015 Excel Learning Series – Session 1

Are you looking to improve your Excel skills? Does the phrase Microsoft Excel make you nervous? Fear not friends, META LAB and the DLC are collaborating once again to provide a series of Excel workshops during the first half of the Fall 2015 term to support the MIIS community. The first of four sessions will take place on September 11th at noon in CF442, Pac Lab. All you need to bring is yourself! Your facilitator will be META Lab graduate assistant and Data Analysis Teaching Assistant: Mentru Nagbe.

When used properly, Microsoft Excel can be an extremely powerful tool to display, organize, and analyze large data sets. The series will contain hidden tips and tricks in addition to exercises that will make you an Excel champion in no time.

Session 1 Topics

– cursor
– cells
– formula bar
– tabs
– worksheets
– templates
– fonts
– copy and paste
– wrap text
– mini toolbar
– quick access tool bar
– status bar
– entering data
– autofill
– undo/redo
– comments
– save
– writing + copying formulas
– $$$$$$

Sign Up

excel-signup-buttonTo get access to the learning series materials and receive information on future sessions, click the sign up button!

 

Resources

Lynda LogoLynda.com is an incredible online resource offering guided video tutorials and step by step instructions for all sorts of digital tools. As a member of the Middlebury community you have premium access. Here’s how it works:

  • Visit go.miis.edu/lynda
  • Input your MIIS login credentials
  • Search “Excel Essential Learning”

Fall 2014 Excel Learning Series

META LAB and the DLC are collaborating to provide a series of Excel workshops throughout the Fall 2014 semester to support the MIIS community.  Learning sessions will progress from introductory topics to more advanced tools and functions. Your facilitator will be META Lab graduate assistant and Data Analysis Teaching Assistant: Amer Shurrab.

Excel Learning Series: Weekly Topics to be Covered

  • Session #1: Friday, September 19, Location: CF 434
  • Session #2: Friday, September 26, Location: CF 434
  • Session #3: Friday, October 3, Location: CF 452
  • Session #4: Friday, October 24, Location: CF 452
  • Session #5: Friday, October 31, Location: CF 452
  • Session #6: Friday, November 7, Location: CF452
  • Session #7: Friday. November 14, Location: CF452
  • Session #8: Friday, November 21, Location: MG100

*PLEASE REGISTER BELOW TO JOINT THE EXCEL LEARNING SERIES MAILING LIST
To help us plan for the series, REGISTER by filling out the survey below:

Lynda.com logoIf you’re interested in learning more about Excel, there are numerous web resources available. Lynda.com is an incredible online resource offering guided video tutorials and step by step instructions for all sorts of digital tools. As a member of the Middlebury community you have premium access. Here’s how it works:

  • Visit go.miis.edu/lynda
  • Input your MIIS login credentials
  • Search “Excel Essential Learning”

Intro to Excel Workshop!

Working with data this semester? Want to brush up on your foundational Excel skills? Come to the DLC Thursday, March 13 from 12:30-1:30 to go through a basic training on how to format and summarize a data set. We’ll go over how to sort your columns and rows, hide what you don’t need (and unhide it if you decide you do), freeze panes to make scrolling easier, calculate summary statistics like mean and standard deviation, and anything else you want to know. This is a beginner class and we will move as slowly as needed.  In future weeks we will offer more advanced classes depending on demand.

Bring your computer and any specific projects or questions you have.

Effective Data Presentation Techniques Wrap Up

For those of you who attended Profs. Ruehsen and Murphy’s workshop last week on Effective Data Presentation Techniques, here are their slides for your records.  For those who were unable to attend, feel free to have a look through and try to identify the most effective and ineffective approaches.  If you’re not sure, come by the Digital Learning Commons to get the recap!

Data Presentation Techniques 2013

Thanks again to Profs. Ruehsen and Murphy for a very helpful presentation.

 

Upcoming Event: Effective Data Presentation Techniques

Effective Data Presentation Techniques.001A workshop @ The Commons with Profs. Moyara Ruehsen and Phil Murphy

 

Monday, November 18, 6:00 pm in the Design Space

Wondering how best to present your data for all of those course assignments and reports? Well, now is your chance to learn from the experts. Tell your story in a coherent and effective manner with a graph that your audience can interpret in two seconds. Should you use a pie chart for that data? Is there an optimal number of slices? What about an area diagram? When is it best to use a horizontal bar chart instead of a vertical column chart? When do stacked columns make sense? (Almost never.) How can 3-D deceive? Are there effective ways to combine lines and columns in the same diagram? (Yes.) And will it ever make sense to use a stacked area diagram (yes) or a donut or half-donut (yes)? Or should you abandon the chart idea altogether and just go with a table? (Sometimes.) Hear more nuanced answers to these questions and more!

Google Refine Workshop

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Today at the DLC we covered Google Refine and how it can help MIIS students to clean survey data for analysis. Using data collected by students in Professor Murphy’s Data Analysis for Public Policy class, we learned how to download and install the program, upload datasets, use facets and filters to view and organize data, and how to cluster and merge data points. Aside from helping students to prepare their data for analysis in their final project, learning how to use Google Refine will pay dividends when students collect data of their own in the field. Data for this project was collected manually by survey and then input electronically by students into a survey form. Students may find that they want to design surveys with more fill in the blank questions and qualitative responses, which will need to be cleaned and coded before analysis. Google Refine is a tool that students can use to save time and help organizations and teams to make better use of the valuable input that they receive through surveys.

Click here for a PDF of the slideshow that accompanied this presentation.

Google Refine gets your whites whiter

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Google Refine is a great free data cleaning tool that you can use to prepare your collected data for analysis with R and R Commander. Anyone who has worked with survey data input by human beings (so anyone who has worked with survey data) has encountered the fact that not everyone has the same understanding of how data should be input and that everyone occasionally suffers from fat finger syndrome (FFS). Annual incomes may be entered as $30,000, $30k, or 30000, and computer thinks that these are different values. Monterey could end up being Moneterey, monterey, monterey ca, Monterrey, or any number of other versions.

Rather than combing through hundreds or thousands of responses to ensure that each is identical, Google Refine groups responses that it identifies as being similar and allows you to merge them into a single, consistent response. Rather than potentially producing 5-10 distinct responses, you can be certain that every “Monterey” is counted as “Monterey.” This workshop will teach you the basics of uploading uncleaned data into Google Refine, using “facets” to group and combine responses, applying filters to more quickly find certain kinds of data, and exporting data that is ready for analysis in R.

The worksop will be held on Thursday November 8th from 12:30 to 1:30 at the Digital Learning Commons (420 Calle Principal). Please come prepared to learn, with Google Chrome (go.miis.edu/chrome) and Google Refine (go.miis.edu/refine) installed on your computer and your data readily available to work with. See you there!