Data & Analytics Business Intelligence

Foundations of Analytics

Build practical data literacy, interpret metrics with confidence, and make better decisions from real-world business data.

Quick Course Facts

Self-paced, Online, Lessons

Videos and/or Narrated Presentations

5.3

Approximate Hours of Course Media

About the Foundations of Analytics Course

Foundations of Analytics is an introductory Data & Analytics course designed to help you build practical data literacy and approach business questions with greater confidence. By learning how to work with data sources, metrics, and visualizations, you will interpret metrics with confidence, and make better decisions from real-world business data.

Master Foundations Of Analytics For Smarter Business Decisions

Learn the essential concepts of Data & Analytics through a clear, beginner-friendly progression
Build practical skills for defining questions, selecting success metrics, and evaluating results
Develop confidence in data cleaning, descriptive statistics, and visualization choices
Apply Foundations of Analytics to a real business problem in a guided capstone project

A practical introduction to analytics concepts, methods, and decision-making from data.

This course walks you through the full analytics workflow, starting with what analytics is and why it matters in modern organizations. You will explore the different types of data, common analytics use cases, and how to frame problems so that your analysis stays focused on meaningful goals. Along the way, you will gain a solid understanding of data sources, collection methods, and the importance of quality checks before any analysis begins.

As you move through the lessons, you will learn how to work with tables, fields, and records; summarize data with descriptive statistics; and recognize relationships, variation, and trends. The course also covers charts, segmentation, dashboards, and reporting principles so you can present information clearly and effectively. These core Data & Analytics skills help you build practical data literacy and create analyses that are useful in everyday business settings.

Beyond the technical fundamentals, Foundations of Analytics emphasizes analytical judgment, responsible interpretation, and ethical decision-making. You will learn how to avoid common biases, turn insights into recommendations, and consider privacy and governance when working with data. By the end of the course, you will be able to approach a business question end to end with greater clarity, confidence, and structure, and you will be better prepared to contribute thoughtful, data-informed decisions in any professional environment.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Course Orientation

1 lesson

Lesson 1: What Analytics Is and Why It Matters

18 min Preview

Analytics is the practice of using data to understand what is happening, why it may be happening, and what actions are likely to improve outcomes. In this lesson, learners get a clear, practical defin…

Data Basics

1 lesson

Lesson 2: Types of Data and Common Analytics Use Cases

20 min

This lesson introduces the core types of data you will see in analytics and shows how each type shapes the questions you can ask. You will learn to distinguish categorical, numerical, time-based, and …

Problem Framing

1 lesson

Lesson 3: Defining Questions, Goals, and Success Metrics

18 min

This lesson shows how to turn a vague business concern into a clear analytics question. You will learn how to separate symptoms from root problems , define the decision that needs to be made, and iden…

Data Acquisition

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Understanding Data Sources and Collection Methods

20 min

This lesson explains where analytics data comes from and how it is collected in real business settings. You will learn the difference between first-party, second-party, and third-party data, and how o…

Preparing Data

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Data Quality, Cleaning, and Integrity Checks

22 min

This lesson shows how to spot, fix, and prevent common data quality problems before they distort analysis. You will learn practical checks for missing values, duplicates, inconsistent formats, invalid…

Dataset Structure

1 lesson

Lesson 6: Working with Tables, Fields, and Records

18 min

This lesson introduces the core building blocks of a dataset: tables , fields , and records . You will learn how to identify rows and columns, distinguish variables from observations, and read a table…

Summarizing Data

1 lesson

Lesson 7: Descriptive Statistics for Everyday Analysis

22 min

This lesson introduces descriptive statistics as the foundation for everyday analysis: the tools we use to summarize what data is saying before making decisions. Learners will see how to describe a da…

Core Relationships

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Correlation, Variation, and What They Really Mean

20 min

This lesson explains how to interpret correlation and variation without overclaiming what the data can prove. Learners see how variables can move together, why spread matters as much as the average, a…

Data Visualization

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Charts That Help: Choosing the Right Visualization

20 min

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to choose charts that match the question you’re asking, the type of data you have, and the decision you want to support. We’ll focus on practical chart selection for c…

Trend Analysis

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Reading Trends, Patterns, and Seasonality

20 min

This lesson teaches how to read trends , spot patterns , and recognize seasonality in business data. Learners will practice separating signal from noise, asking the right questions before drawing conc…

Comparing Groups

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Segmentation and Group-Based Analysis

18 min

Segmentation is the practice of dividing a dataset into meaningful groups so you can compare behavior, performance, or outcomes more clearly. In this lesson, learners will see how group-based analysis…

Reporting

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Basic Dashboards and Reporting Principles

20 min

Basic dashboards and reporting principles help turn raw metrics into information people can use quickly. In this lesson, learners will see how to choose the right KPI for a business question, arrange …

Analytical Judgment

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Interpreting Results Without Common Biases

22 min

This lesson teaches you how to interpret analytics results without falling into the most common judgment errors. You will learn to spot confirmation bias, base-rate neglect, correlation traps, and ove…

Decision Support

1 lesson

Lesson 14: From Insight to Recommendation

18 min

This lesson shows how to turn analysis into a clear recommendation that someone can act on. You will learn how to connect evidence to a decision, state the tradeoff behind your recommendation, and exp…

Governance

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Ethics, Privacy, and Responsible Analytics

20 min

This lesson explains how to use data responsibly so analytics supports better decisions without creating legal, ethical, or reputational risk. You will learn the difference between privacy, consent, a…

Applied Practice

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Capstone: Analyze a Business Question End to End

25 min

In this capstone lesson, you will apply the core skills from Foundations of Analytics to a realistic business question from start to finish. The focus is not on advanced statistics or complex dashboar…

About Your Instructor

Professor Nathan Ward

Professor Nathan Ward guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.