Business and Leadership
Continuing & Professional Education

Technology & Innovation

Part-time, online/in-class blended study tailored for:

  • managers
  • technology hobbyists
  • professionals
  • job seekers
  • job changers

Gain an edge in your pro­fes­sion, explore cut­ting-edge indus­tries, pre­pare for a new role, or learn to use tech­nol­o­gy to increase your effi­cien­cy and reduce time spent on man­u­al tasks.

Our Tech­nol­o­gy and Inno­va­tion pro­gram­ming area offers soft­ware train­ing on a broad range of appli­ca­tions, from Excel and MS Project to InDe­sign and SketchUp. We also teach lan­guages like R and Python, as well as skill-based cours­es focused on big data, ana­lyt­ics, man­ag­ing IT projects, data sci­ence, and more.

                                                                   

Learn a new computer skill from scratch, or brush up on previous knowledge

Keep current with evolving tech trends, softwares, and best practices

Take individual courses without enroling in a full program

Courses are often open to everyone, regardless of skill level

Choose a schedule that works for you with daytime, evening, and weekend options

Get the guidance you need from industry experts

A note about COVID-19 measures

If you see a program on our website announced as an in-person or downtown Edmonton offering, please disregard the format—but not the program. Winter, Spring, and Summer 2021 courses have been converted to remote delivery platforms. Register for a course online or apply to a program via email, and keep learning!

  • Tuition is paid on a course-by-course basis as you reg­is­ter for your classes.
  • Eli­gi­ble for the Cana­da-Alber­ta Job Grant.
  • Cor­po­rate mul­ti-reg­is­tra­tion pack­ages are avail­able for most Exten­sion cours­es. Con­tact us at excorp@​ualberta.​ca for pre­ferred pricing.
Bursaries and funding opportunities
for Canadian residents: Canada Training Benefit Alberta employers & employees: Job Grant UAlberta alumni: PD Grant UAlberta employees: HRDF

Software

Visualizing space in three dimensions (3D) is critical to the success of an interior decorator/designer. In this course, you will learn SketchUp, a prominent 3D design software, that quickly generates everything from rough concepts to evaluate scale, proportion, colour and texture, to working drawings and construction documents for production, all using a familiar pencil and paper paradigm. Most successful architectural firms with Interior Design or Decoration departments employ SketchUp software.
Cad II is an extension of the lessons learned in CAD I. This project based credit course will focus on developing more advanced skills in generating two-dimensional drawings and three dimensional models, still primarily based in Google SketchUp. Students will develop a greater awareness of presentation skills using the software's built in animation features and creating working/presentation drawings with Google LayOut. Prerequisite: EXRI 3510
This course provides an introduction to Excel's features and functions by demonstrating how to add, edit, search for, and delete records in a data list using a form. Other topics covered include how to sort data in a data list, creating and working with "text to columns," using various database functions to summarize data as well as creating and working with pivot tables and pivot charts.

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.

Adobe InDesign is a professional desktop publishing program that allows you to produce stunning, creative layouts for a variety of print and digital media, including books, reports, magazines, posters, brochures, to name a few. In this course, students will be introduced to the design interface, new document setup, and working with colour swatches. They will also gain knowledge in working with objects, frames, type, as well as importing imagery and graphics. Students will prepare their finished products for both professional print and digital viewing.
Learn to apply many new features and techniques of InDesign that will help to automate the construction of complex multi-page documents so that the modifications may be completed in an extremely efficient manner. Students will also learn to integrate Photoshop, Illustrator, and Bridge with InDesign to prepare, place, and modify many different file formats for complete full circle workflow.
This course is intended for new Microsoft Project 2016 users. Upon completion of the course, participants will be able accomplish the following: Understand the basic purpose and operation of the software by creating a new project, edit and outline a task list, as well as establish dependencies by linking tasks. Also covered in the course will be how to add and assign resources to a project, work with project calendars, and enter project costs, setting up and printing project information. Tasks, resource conflicts and tracking will be covered along with sorting, filtering and grouping and format views and Gantt Charts
Learn Python programming as part of an introduction to machine learning (ML) applications. No previous programming experience is required, but learners must have basic computer and high-school algebra skills. The main topics are: variables, expressions, conditional execution, iteration, functions, how to edit/execute/debug python programs, testing, parsing, computational problem solving, and iterative software development. Includes hands-on, in-class exercises, students must be prepared to (in class) write Python programs, individually or in a group.
Learn intermediate Python programming and how to program a machine learning (ML) application. The class will implement a binary Naive Bayes classifier from scratch, over the course. Important ML concepts such as supervised learning, quality training data, cross validation, precision, recall, and a confusion matrix will be discussed and implemented in Python. Includes hands-on, in-class exercises, students must be prepared to (in class) write Python programs, individually or in a group. Prerequisite: EXSC 2500

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.

Implementing new IT business systems (or performing major upgrades to existing ones) is an inherently high-risk process. As a senior manager - you may need to ensure the success of a system project initiative - but you don't need to be a systems specialist to do so effectively. Designed from a business perspective, this course will help you to recognize specific risks to in-house developed, contracted, or cloud based solutions; understand the obscure language in project progress reports; and identify the warning signs of potentially impending failure for your system.

AI

What areas of your business can benefit from Machine Learning? What factors should you take into account when exploring a ML project for your organization? Gain conceptual and practical knowledge of ML management as you learn how to define an ML problem, understand risk and data needs, and get ready to plan for ML business applications. By the end of this course you will have a working knowledge of the Machine Learning Canvas process.
The recent and rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) has left many wondering how a business can best deploy theses technologies for maximum impact. This seminar, designed for business leaders and technical staff, will provide an applied understanding of the process and capabilities of AI, machine learning and data mining. Participants will work in small teams to conceive, present and refine and AI project of their choice and can expect to gain an introductory working knowledge of how to evaluate, validate and begin developing AI solutions for a chosen domain.
Understand the Machine Learning Project Life Cycle (MLPL) and learn how to integrate it into a business context. You will analyze MLPL case studies and acquire the working knowledge needed to apply the MLPL in your business or organization.
This is a must-have course for professionals who are seeking foundational, conceptual, and technical knowledge in machine learning. Learn how to analyze the credibility of artificial intelligence/machine learning and its applications in business. Gain an understanding of unsupervised, supervised, and reinforcement learning, the three widely accepted categorizations of machine learning.

Big Data

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.

May 29 start
Online learning, synchronous
David Yuk
Details & registration

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.

This course provides an introduction to Excel's features and functions by demonstrating how to add, edit, search for, and delete records in a data list using a form. Other topics covered include how to sort data in a data list, creating and working with "text to columns," using various database functions to summarize data as well as creating and working with pivot tables and pivot charts.

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.

Jun 19 start
Online learning, synchronous
David Yuk
Details & registration
In this hands-on course, you will focus on the application of fitting simple statistical models to data and experiments. The difference between descriptive and inferential statistics will be discussed, with the introduction of probability and data distributions. You will then fit simple models to data starting with simple linear regression, multiple linear regression and analysis of variance. By the end of the course, you should be able to interpret statistical models of how to report them. Prerequisite EXGEN 5449
In part two of this hands-on course, you will focus on fitting more complicated models to data and experiments. The models that will be discussed are known as generalized linear models and mixed effect models. You will also learn about multivariate statistical tools, such as principal component analysis, as well as entering the field of predictive modeling using time series data and simple forecasting techniques. By the end of the course, you should be able to interpret, report and present the results of your statistical models. Prerequisite EXGEN 5454

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.

Social Media

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.
Apr 6 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Linda Brown
Details & registration

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.

Jun 15 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Bryan Leung
Brian Siddle
Details & registration

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.

May 4 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Jessica Laccetti
Details & registration

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.

Jun 22 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Linda Brown
Details & registration

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.

Aug 10 start
Online learning, asynchronous
N Kathleen Van Dusen
Details & registration

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.

Apr 6 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Jessica Laccetti
Details & registration

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.

May 25 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Scott Cunningham
Simon Trafford
Details & registration

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.

Apr 27 start
Online learning, asynchronous
Adam Rozenhart
Details & registration

Looking for
something different?

Over 300 courses and 40 programs to help you build the skills you need.

  • Questions: extnreg@ualberta.ca