INFORMS Open Forum

Hi,

I am a Business Analytics major and need some advice regarding courses I can complete to upskill myself especially in the area of data visualization.

Thanks

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Shivank Chandra
UC Davis
San Francisco CA
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Hi Shivank, 

For data visualization, depending on the tools that you use, you can choose to get certifications on Power BI or Tableau. Microsoft and Tableau both have free self-paced learning materials and are great for studying for certifications. If you are interested in coding for data visualization, I would suggest to learn from projects -- find interesting dataset and learn while you try to visualize it (Google is free too~). It's more fun that way, and you'll have more to present in your portfolio. 

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Shannon (Xiaonan) Shang
Manager, Data Analytics
Enovation Controls
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If you haven't read Tufte's book on visualization, do it.  There are lots of good ideas there; and some that may not be too great. It's not so much about the how as about the concept of a good visualization.

Another excellent source is the New York Times's style manual for visualizations. There are also books written about it.  I once heard the graphics style editor of the NYT speak, and she had many good suggestions that they learned from hard experience.

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Bruce Hartman
Professor
University of St. Francis
Tucson, AZ United States
bruce@ahartman.net
website:http://drbrucehartman.net/brucewebsite/
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