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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Mastering Data Analysis in Excel by Duke University

4.2
stars
3,908 ratings

About the Course

Important: The focus of this course is on math - specifically, data-analysis concepts and methods - not on Excel for its own sake. We use Excel to do our calculations, and all math formulas are given as Excel Spreadsheets, but we do not attempt to cover Excel Macros, Visual Basic, Pivot Tables, or other intermediate-to-advanced Excel functionality. This course will prepare you to design and implement realistic predictive models based on data. In the Final Project (module 6) you will assume the role of a business data analyst for a bank, and develop two different predictive models to determine which applicants for credit cards should be accepted and which rejected. Your first model will focus on minimizing default risk, and your second on maximizing bank profits. The two models should demonstrate to you in a practical, hands-on way the idea that your choice of business metric drives your choice of an optimal model. The second big idea this course seeks to demonstrate is that your data-analysis results cannot and should not aim to eliminate all uncertainty. Your role as a data-analyst is to reduce uncertainty for decision-makers by a financially valuable increment, while quantifying how much uncertainty remains. You will learn to calculate and apply to real-world examples the most important uncertainty measures used in business, including classification error rates, entropy of information, and confidence intervals for linear regression. All the data you need is provided within the course, all assignments are designed to be done in MS Excel, and you will learn enough Excel to complete all assignments. The course will give you enough practice with Excel to become fluent in its most commonly used business functions, and you’ll be ready to learn any other Excel functionality you might need in the future (module 1). The course does not cover Visual Basic or Pivot Tables and you will not need them to complete the assignments. All advanced concepts are demonstrated in individual Excel spreadsheet templates that you can use to answer relevant questions. You will emerge with substantial vocabulary and practical knowledge of how to apply business data analysis methods based on binary classification (module 2), information theory and entropy measures (module 3), and linear regression (module 4 and 5), all using no software tools more complex than Excel....

Top reviews

TB

Nov 16, 2021

I like and appreciate courses provided through Coursera.This course is very interesting and valuable for those whose jobs do have relevance with data management .God bless Coursera and Duke University

JE

Oct 30, 2015

The course deserves a 5-star rating because: (1) content is relevant, (2) the professor is concise and possesses great teaching skills, and (3) the learning modules are applicable to daily problems.

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476 - 500 of 934 Reviews for Mastering Data Analysis in Excel

By sudhanshu r

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Jun 27, 2020

The course content was really nice. A few corrections in assignments is required but overall the learning experience was great. The best part is the course does not spoon feeds you everything, you need to put in efforts to complete it which is really important for learning.

By Gelber W S T

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Apr 6, 2021

very good course, it is too long to me (6 weeks). would be better 4 and not to take some materials. It seems to be a lack of order in the course development but still a good course. Please do not take it if you are not familiar with some basic statistics and probability.

By Colin M

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Mar 24, 2017

Good course, bit disjointed at times and some of the maths is rushed through, or not really relevant. Not sure I need proofs on why standardising figures results in easier to use data, maybe just show us how to do the analysis and apply it to more examples in real life.

By Paul B

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Mar 3, 2023

Very math intensive and in my opinion a bit of an overkill consideration these days so many of these calculations are automated with software like R and Python. Maybe less time on how to actually perform the operations and more time on how they relate to each other.

By Ka L C

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Feb 17, 2020

I have learnt a lot about creating models with training data set and testing the strength of the model on test data sets. Every quiz is designed brilliantly. The only problem is that questions in the peer-reviewed assignment are not very clear and need some fix.

By YEVGENIY V K

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Feb 2, 2016

Lots of good information. However, this course could be structured a lit bit better. More examples and small practice exercises within the lectures would significantly improve the retention of material.

You should posses at least basic knowledge of statistics.

By Richard P

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Dec 27, 2015

Great information included. I feel like I know much more about modelling data than when I started. The quizzes can be in that without the hints on the discussion forum I don't know how I would have completed them just based on the information in the videos.

By Saranya C

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Oct 15, 2020

This course is really useful for Data Analysts. I learnt much and the final project was a real task. But one aspect that is lacking where I couldn't rate 5 is, Quizzes - there are so many mistakes and not instructed well. Hope it is improved in future.

By Matt B

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Feb 17, 2016

I would have appreciated a bit more of a hands-on process in building the workbooks (with proper instruction of course) and more formal presentation of the formulas being used, but overall, I got a lot out of this course and enjoyed it along the way.

By K.S. V

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May 26, 2016

Although more about Prob and Stat than learning to use Excel, concepts of binary classification and entropy are very interesting and are taught very deliberately and thoroughly. More practise quizes and worked out examples would be even better.

By Victor W

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Nov 19, 2016

Course is very good! All examples are very clear and detailed. And a spreadsheet is provided to follow along during class. Only bad thing is that it was not so clear this course is heavily related to Math. Data Analysis = Math & Statistics. ;-)

By Jeff S

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Mar 9, 2016

Tough class but filled with useful and applicable ata analysis using the most popular and available program to do this work... Be prepared to get a little frustrated and watch the instructions more than once..... It's not Cousera fun fluff !!!

By Syed M R A

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Jan 31, 2018

Great clarification of concepts regarding "classification algorithm" and its application in various industries. Final project is awesome but very practical and needs more clarity in videos and notes. Overall, very challenging and informative.

By Andrew K

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Nov 18, 2019

Enjoyed the course overall. It's been a few weeks now, but I recall getting the sense that it needed a careful overhaul on quizzes. Some of the frustrations were mentioned in discussion groups that don't seem that well trafficked any more.

By Jose V

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Jan 29, 2017

The course is very challenging, but very interesting. I will probably suggest a bit more of staff support in the last week, specially the final project which is very challenging and demanding. A bit more of orientation will be really good.

By mallikarjun b

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Sep 11, 2016

The explainations are a bit hard to follow if you are in a hurry, some times the course concepts just jump onto you. The techniques and content are really really great and very relavent, but the instructional value can be further ehnanced.

By Jiten P

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Feb 10, 2020

Very detailed course introducing us to the foundations and concepts leading to analytics. However, I think the course could have been simplified, as it takes strong understanding of probability and related concepts as prerequisites.

By Evgeniy M

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Nov 7, 2017

This course is about modeling but not Excel features.

I really enjoyed the course, but I had other expectations before starting working with this course.

I think, the title of the coure should be changed to minimize miscommunication.

By D. C

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Jul 30, 2017

(Final Grade 91.4%). You will need to dedicate a time discuss course material with fellow learners, mentors, and instructors.

Update 07/29/2017 , I review the material , and they do a lot of corrections to the explanations ,

By abbas k

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Oct 18, 2018

This course although well taught was too difficult as it required understanding of higher level statistical concepts. That said I enjoyed the course and learned a lot for the instructor and the discussion groups. Thank you

By Mohammed T C

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May 29, 2020

The course come up with lots of learning but there is a lack of use of Excel. The instructor showed everything with manual calculation instead of Excel formula. The course would be great if everything integrate with excel.

By Joe G

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Oct 19, 2017

Excellent starting point for data analysis, while prior knowledge of statistics and excel are not necessary, they do help with course comprehension. Would like to see future courses expand upon what was taught here.

By Joshua A

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Jul 30, 2019

Great course and great professor, overall! The course was challenging at some points, especially when it came to the final project, but I really feel as though i learned some valuable skills from taking the course.

By Vitalija K

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Feb 17, 2016

I really enjoyed the course. Professor was very good at explaining everything. And the team was very helpful. And this course is definitely for people who already has a good backround in exel and working with data.

By Wenqi Z

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Jan 4, 2016

This is more than just an Excel course. It also covers a lot of statistics and the application of statistics in Excel (with pre-built template). I think more focus on how to build things in Excel will be useful.