BUA 345
  • This website provides semester-long access to BUA 345 lecture slides, notes, and R code files, regardless of access to Blackboard.
  • Syllabus and Course Links
  • Lectures 1-8 and 11
  • Lectures 9-19
  • Lectures 20-28
  • Homework Assignments
  • Practice Questions
  • Installing R and RStudio
  • Interesting Data
Professor Pooler (pspooler@syr.edu) - Office: WSOM Room 518
  • In-Person Hours: Tue. Thu. 5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
  • Zoom Hours: Mon. Wed. 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM - Zoom Hrs. Link
  • Also available by appointment on Zoom or in-person
Spring 2026 Syllabus
  • NOTE: The order of the material varies slightly between semesters so the subjects covered in the syllabus may be updated as the semester progresses. I will always let you know if there are substantial changes.
Spring 2026 Absence Explanation Form
  • It is not possible to effectively keep track of absence excuses or PointSolutions technical issues through email.

  • If you are absent or have a temporary technical issue with Point Solutions, use this Google form to explain.

Spring 2026 BUA 345 Blackboard Site
  • Engagement Questions, Assignments, and Tests will be submitted on Blackboard.
Excel Skills and Simple Linear Regression (SLR) Review
  • MAS 261
    • Helpful Lectures from MAS 261 - Fall 2025
      • Lecture 17 - Language of Hypothesis Testing/One Sample t-tests
      • Lecture 20 - Introduction to Correlation and Covariance
      • Lecture 24 - Introduction to Simple Linear Regression
      • Lecture 25 - Simple Linear Regression Continued
      • Lecture 26 - Multiple Linear Regression
      • Lecture 27 - Introduction to Linear Transformations
    • Recordings of these lectures are available upon request.

Software Links
  • Posit Cloud - Cloud access to R and RStudio

  • R
  • RStudio
Software Training
  • LinkedIn Learning - Free for Syracuse University Students, Staff, and Faculty

    • R for Data Science: Analysis and Visualization - This training is optional and provides a good introduction to R and RStudio which are used in this course.

    • Python Essential Training - Python is not used in this course but it is helpful for analytics and data science.


  • DataCamp - An excellent (but not free) online learning center for many software packages. Costs can be subsidized (see below).

  • Whitman WIRE Initiative - The WIRE initiative will subsidize costs of online software training that results in certification.

    • Contact their office to arrange a meeting and develop a plan.
Instructions for Downloading and Saving Excel Files:
  1. Create a BUA 345 folder on your laptop’s Desktop.

    • NOTE: If you are on a campus computer, when you login, the desktop is connected to your ‘Syracuse University OneDrive’ and can be opened on SU computer when you login with your NetID and Password.
  2. Click link below to open file, then click File > Download > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

  3. Move file from Downloads to your Desktop BUA 345 folder.

Poll Everywhere - My User Name: penelopepoolereisenbies685

This website was last updated on Saturday, January 24, 2026.
Excel Skills
  • Lecture 4 - Descriptive Analytics with Pivot Tables
    • Slides
    • Notes
    • PDF
    • Excel Files - Download to a BUA 345 folder on your desktop.
      • Lecture 4 Review Question Data.xlsx
      • Lecture 4 Excel Worksheets.xlsx
    • Posit Cloud Demo - Titanic Data - Click links
      • Free Posit Cloud Account Required
      • R Project
      • HTML - Note: This publication is a ‘step up’ in appearance from class notes.
    • Video Recordings
      • Lecture 4 - 2026-01-22 - 2:00 PM
      • Lecture 4 - 2026-01-22 - 3:30 PM

  • Lecture 3 - Data Preparation and Conditional Formatting
    • Slides
    • Notes
    • PDF
    • Excel Files - Download to a BUA 345 folder on your desktop.
      • Lecture 3 Review Question Data.xlsx
      • Lecture 3 Excel Worksheets.xlsx
    • Video Recordings
      • Lecture 3 - 2026-01-20 - 2:00 PM
      • Lecture 3 - 2026-01-20 - 3:30 PM

  • Lecture 2 - Data Preparation in Excel
    • Slides
    • Notes
    • PDF
    • Excel Files - Download to a BUA 345 folder on your desktop.
      • Lecture 2 Review Question Data.xlsx
      • Lecture 2 Excel Worksheets.xlsx
    • Video Recordings
      • Lecture 2 - 2026-01-15 - 2:00 PM
      • Lecture 2 - 2026-01-15 - 3:30 PM
      • NOTE: In response to a request, captions will be included in videos going forward. Please note that the captions are 96-97% accurate, but not perfect and the accuracy may decrease when I use technical terminology. Please let me know if you have a question.


  • Lecture 1 - Welcome and Introduction to Business Analytics
    • Slides
    • Notes
    • PDF
    • Excel Files - Download to a BUA 345 folder on your desktop.
      • Big_Mac_Index.xlsx
    • Video Recordings
      • Lecture 1 - 2026-01-13 - 2:00 PM
      • Lecture 1 - 2026-01-13 - 3:30 PM
      • NOTE: Audio quality during the 3:30 PM recording was a little muffled at times. I’m fairly certain I know why and the issue should be resolved on Thursday. The 2:00 PM recording had no audio issues.

Poll Everywhere

My User Name: penelopepoolereisenbies685

Poll Everywhere

My User Name: penelopepoolereisenbies685

  • Demo Videos will be posted to assist you.

  • Assignments that require R will have an accompanying R project.

HW 2 - Demo Video Playlist
  • Demo videos will be posted to assist you.
Notes
  • Students in BUA 345 are NOT required to install R and RStudio on their laptop but they are encouraged to.

  • R and RStudio are two separate software components. Download and install R and then download and install RStudio.

  • When updating your version of R or RStudio, uninstall the previous version first.

Downloading and Installing R
  • R can be downloaded from the Comprehensive R Archive Network

  • Video Demo for downloading and installing R on a Windows OS
  • Mac installation is similar.

  • If you do not need to uninstall an out-of-date version of R, skip to 0:53.

  • The current version of R is 4.5.2.


Downloading and Installing RStudio
  • RStudio can be downloaded from Posit, the parent company of RStudio.

  • Video Demo for downloading and installing RStudio on a Windows OS
  • Mac installation is similar.

  • If you do not need to uninstall an out-of-date version of RStudio, skip to 0:56.

  • The version shown in the video is from August of 2024 and is out-of-date.

  • The current version of RStudio is 2026.1.0.392.

NOTES:
  • Many data sources provide data in a downloadable format such as Excel (.xlsx) or .csv. I recommend saving data as CSV UTF-8 files with a .csv postscript.

  • The list below is in alphabetical order and is not an exhaustive list.

  • Some data sources do not provide data in a downloadable format so the data values have to be scraped from the website.

Billboard
  • Scraping required
BEA - Bureau of Economic Analysis
BLS- Bureau of Labor Statistics
Box Office Mojo
  • Scraping required but it’s straightforward.
Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards
  • Great source for unusual datas
Data World
  • An ecclectic library of data that can be searched by topic of interest
Department of Energy - Prices & Trends
Eurostat
  • A wide variety of data about Europe can be accessed at this site.

  • Aanalogous to US.Gov for the United States.

Federal Reserve Data
Kaggle
  • An ecclectic library of data that can be searched by topic of interest
  • Kaggle also holds competitions where data scientists can win money and build a reputation
Our World in Data
  • Good source for geographic and demographic data
Sports Reference
  • Scraping required
  • Wide range of sports data
Statista
  • Syracuse University Libraries provides paid membership access
  • Use link above and then sign in with SU NetID and Password
  • Excellent resource for public and private sector data
U.S. Energy Information Administration
  • Excellent information on electricity usage by location or region.
Data.Gov - Data and Statistics about the U.S.
  • Includes MANY topics including BLS, DOE, and EIA above
Yahoo Finance
  • Stock data can be directly imported into R as an xts dataset