Overview
Highly successful businesses have shown that strategic business decisions need to be driven by data analyses. The ability to gather information from data is an in-demand skill that is valuable in any industry. This is why data analytics is among the fastest-growing professions today. Data analysis requires more than relying on reports and statistical analysis. It requires a balance of technical skills and analytical abilities to determine clear, actionable business solutions.
UC Irvine’s 3-month post-graduate level Accelerated Certificate Program (ACP) in Data Analytics for Business covers a wide array of topics; students will learn the fundamental concepts behind collecting, storing, and analyzing data. Through descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, students will also learn how to utilize analytic tools and models to reliably forecast trends and behaviors, effectively utilize visualization tools, and create effective strategies.
Benefits
- Define appropriate business goals for implementing better data-driven decisions
- Develop actionable plans from existing corporate data and initiatives to evaluate the effectiveness of current strategies
- Create and explain data visualizations to support data understanding
- Perform data analysis on various data sets using industry-standard tools
- Utilize a variety of analytics techniques for model training and validation
- Collect, select, describe, profile, and prepare data from various sources for analysis
- Explain the differences between descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics and how each fits into the data analytics workflow
- Develop plans to deploy analytics models, including monitoring, maintenance, and formal review of the project
- Create decision plans to optimize business processes, mitigate risks, and guide decision making
- Communicate model and analytics results to all levels of management
- Gain a competitive edge in the global job market through an internship in a U.S. company
Who Should Attend
The Data Analytics for Business Certificate is a comprehensive program designed for working adults within a wide range of professional backgrounds to develop the skills they need to succeed in this exciting, high-growth field. Learn how to better understand organizational data and business processes in ways that drive results. Specific job titles that would benefit from this program include Business and Data Analysts, Marketing, Sales, Operations, and those professionals looking to broaden their skills.
View a student testimonial from their time in ACP during remote learning here
Certificate Requirements
To earn a certificate at UCI Division of Continuing Education, students must complete all required courses with a grade of “C” or better.
Curriculum
Introduction to Analyzing Data for Business Goals
Introduction to Python Programming
This course is a beginner course to the Python programming language. The course begins with Python syntax and uses hands-on exercises to cover the following topics: how to use variable types, flow control, and functions; how to interact with a system via Python; writing simple scripts to process text; how to use Jupyter, a popular development tool for Python.
Descriptive Analytics: Data Visualization and Storytelling with Data
This course covers the basics of interpreting historical data to better understand business changes through the application of descriptive analytics, using historic data to draw comparisons and describe significant changes. Students will learn how data can be used to tell a story by effectively utilizing visualizations. Additional topics include audience identification, chart types, ethical considerations, data preparation, and dashboards. A survey of available visualization tools will be included with a hands-on project.
Predictive Analytics: Tools and Techniques
This hands-on course provides all the skills needed to use historical data for making predictions on future actions. Students will be introduced to key tools used in predictive analytics and how to evaluate the right tool in order to extract stored data elements, understand what they mean in the company, transform their formats, and derive new relationships among them. At the end of the course, students will be able to use these predictive analytics tools and models to reliably forecast trends and behaviors and create actionable strategies.
Prescriptive Analytics: Digital Decisioning
Organizations are turning data into action by using prescriptive analytics to provide recommended actions to achieve business goals. This course explores the best practices to use when determining business goals. Students will discover the right types of questions to ask when defining objectives, review and evaluate prescriptive models in practice, and discuss the relationship between customer service, profitability, and operational efficiency to explore how business decisions can involve tradeoffs between business goals and constraints.
Data Analytics Project
Put descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics into action in this capstone project course. This course covers a framework that enables students to apply analytics to business needs by working on a data analytics project. Students will work through setting project goals, learn how to frame questions based on these goals, and ways to evaluate the data needed for successful project completion. In addition, real-world case studies and examples will be reviewed to compare and contrast project techniques and frameworks.
Internships
As an optional last course and for an additional fee of $2,900, you have the opportunity to apply academic theory and gain practical experience in a variety of businesses and industries for 10 weeks. A research project provides additional training. Also included in the internship are the Resume Development and Interviewing Skills workshops.
Schedule
Students will be placed into a morning (9:00-12:00) or afternoon (13:00-16:00) schedule. Courses in the program are taken consecutively, completing one before proceeding to the next. Schedules are not guaranteed and are subject to change. A final schedule will be provided on the first day of the program.
