Business and Leadership

Continuing & Professional Education

Enhance the performance of your measuring, mapping, modeling, and monitoring by tapping the power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Learn the concepts that drive GIS, the basics of cartography, and the differences between various GIS packages.

The next step for business analytics students is to gain an opportunity to use the free software R to perform statistical computing. In this hands-on course, you will be introduced to data manipulation and visualization using the R language, primarily working with a set of packages knows as the tidyverse. At the end of this course you should be able to subset large datasets, apply functions to those subsets, fit simple linear and generalized linear models, and visualize the results in a publication-ready format.

Explore the use of analytical methods in management problem-solving, highlighting organizational and contextual issues. Construct an analytical model of a problem that can be manipulated or solved to identify a decision that yields the best outcome, according to one or more carefully defined criteria. The challenges of communicating and implementing results in an organizational context may also be explored through mini-cases and illustrations.

Knowing how to extract real business value from the data generated by your organization is a valuable tool for all managers. Topics may include: foundational information on what is meant by analytics; the various types of analytics - descriptive, predictive and prescriptive; moving from business intelligence to business analytics; theories and trends in data analytics; and the latest best practices and tools available in business analytics, including their advantages and disadvantages.

Gain an overview of big data, the state of the practice in analytics and the analytics lifecycle as an end-to-end process. Focus on the key roles of a successful analytic project. Topics may include: the main phases of the lifecycle; and developing core deliverables to stakeholders.

The next step for business analytics students is to gain an opportunity to use the free software R to perform statistical computing. In this hands-on course, you will be introduced to data manipulation and visualization using the R language, primarily working with a set of packages knows as the tidyverse. At the end of this course you should be able to subset large datasets, apply functions to those subsets, fit simple linear and generalized linear models, and visualize the results in a publication-ready format.

Explore key concepts used by professionals to help grow your business or personal brand through online marketing and social media. Increase your knowledge of social media tools, website development and maintenance, web analytics, search engine utilization, basic content creation, and copyright. These transferable skills and strategies offer you the foundation needed to start engaging audiences across popular social media platforms.

Build an effective online presence through a strong marketing strategy that reflects your organizational culture. Learn about best practices for social media and marketing across various platforms, building and strengthening organizational reputation and brand online, strategic planning and development, how to build a social media following, and steps for executing an integrated strategic social media marketing plan.

Learn how to measure where your web traffic is coming from, how much web traffic you are receiving, which messages are most effective at driving users to your desired destination, and how to report on these measures. Explore various approaches to use analytics in social media, including web search optimization and ROI analysis.

Learn about how social media has provided new ways to create and experience media-rich narrative, as well as how the creative use of digital tools can offer exciting new possibilities for collaboration and sharing. Explore the essentials of storytelling and its use as an educational and marketing tool in this online environment. Discuss issues related to quality of content, memes, what it means to go viral and the quality of writing specific to the online environment.

Understand why and how decisions are made around visual communications and acquire the tools you’ll need to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of social media. Learn basic design principles that will inform your decisions and help you create an effective and visually-pleasing online presence. Explore ways of using these principles to emphasize the message that is being delivered.

Explore the etiquette, ethics, and various legal and policy issues that affect how we use social media. Discuss topics like copyright, privacy, intellectual property, fair dealing, creative commons, and the public domain. Learn how these issues play out differently nationally and internationally, as well as the implications of those differences for social media use.

Learn the skills needed to maximize your online presence and impact across various platforms as a means to help drive sales. Delve deeper into internet marketing opportunities, website design, e-commerce, engaging online communities, and best strategies for creating and directing web traffic.

Learn how to identify, prepare for, and manage the risks inherent to a professional presence on social media, as well as to recognize the impacts of emerging problems elsewhere online. Explore best practices for policy, procedures, and guidelines for social media within an organization. Draw on learnings from traditional media and public relations concepts to prepare for and respond to emerging issues.