This is the permanent version of Professor Pooler’s BUA 455 Course Website and is only updated at the end of the semester or when substantial changes are made to the material during the semester.
Homework assignments and ‘Practice Questions’ for tests are not posted on the permanent BUA 455 Website.
Lectures that are solely devoted to review and preparation for mid-semester tests and the final exam are also not available on the permanent website.
Starting on page 8 (10th document page), this paper provides specific language about different roles in data analytics.
This section may be helpful as you try to explain your skillset in interviews.
Using AI in coding and writing is commonplace and helpful if used cautiously and ethically.
This is a great ‘letter’ from a high school student who ‘broke up’ with AI because she felt it was supplanting her own voice. It’s worth your time to read and consider it.
This link provides permanent access to the most recent lecture slides, notes, and R projects after the semester has ended.
Homework assignments, practice questions, and project information are not included on the permanent site.
R - Required all semester
RStudio - Required all semester
Quarto - Required after HW 1
Posit Cloud - Required after Fall Break but can be used sooner if needed.
LinkedIn Learning - Free for Syracuse University Students, Staff, and Faculty
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.
My User Name: penelopepoolereisenbies685
During this lecture I will talk for about 10-15 minutes to demonstrate and highlight a couple items.
I will take attendance using Poll Everywhere.
I will also step out for five minutes so students can complete course evaluations.
The rest of this class period will be used for project groups to meet and ask me questions, if needed.
Please keep in mind that if you need my help with coding, it is best to send me the file (or upload it to Posit Cloud) and send me your questions ahead of time.
This Data Dashboard group project (23% of course grade) serves two purposes in the BUA 455 curriculum:
Students will better understand the whole data management process and how to make good choices at each step to make the work process more efficient and reproducible.
Students will learn about the interactive components of a data management and visualization project, i.e., a dashboard, including how to communicate with technically knowledgeable colleagues and non-technical audiences.
Student groups will develop a Data Dashboard.
In class, we will review how to use the Quarto Dashboard format to publish a multi-page dashboard.
Each group will aggregate, manage, and curate data for a hypothetical client to address their data questions and needs.
One person in each group should ideally will oversee the project as a whole and ensure that the dashboard is cohesive.
Each page can present a single plot, a set of plots, or a plot and a table, and should have explanatory text and citations for data sources if needed.
The final page of your dashboard will include all citations for software, software packages, AI sources, and data used to create your dashboard. AI sources, and data used to create your dashboard.
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.
A wide variety of data about Europe can be accessed at this site.
Aanalogous to US.Gov for the United States.
This group created a highly customized color scheme which is not required.
Groups can use one of the many packaged dashboard themes that work really well.
Overall, this is excellent work but dashboards should be less wordy.
This group used the default theme which is fine, but it is easy to change.
Overall, this is also excellent work, but again, a little too wordy.
The perceptive depth of the analysis in the plots made this project stand out.
This group used a packaged dashboard theme and complementary color pallettes that enhanced their dashboard.
This group also did an excellent job of editing the text and almost all of the pages are well arranged.
The data management in the dashboard was excellent. If this was a graduate class, I would encourage the students to go further with the analyses. I also might suggest more advanced plots and subsequent data exploration suggested by the work they had already completed.
In May of 2025, I asked two sixth grade classes to complete an anonymous survey and then I created a dashboard from their responses using the same criteria required for your projects.
This dashboard is posted on GitHub.
I will be using GitHub as the sole platform in a course I am developing, Interactive Exploratory Data Analysis.
These two memos pertain to Example Dashboard 4. This was not a perfect dashboard, but the memos were very well executed.
This memo succinctly explained the steps needs to update each aspect of the dashboard.
There are always details that can be edited and improved but this was very well done.
This example is provided as guidance NOT a template to follow.
Your group’s rough draft proposal does not have to look exactly like this or have this exact number of questions or data sources.
This group added their final proposal to their rough draft text which is okay.
Adding your final proposal to your draft proposal is not required, but if you choose to do this, don’t worry about the page limit suggestion.
Again, this example is provided as guidance, not a template but I do want the final proposal to be explicit about what will be on each page and who is responsible for each page.