Teaching style

Since this is a practically oriented discipline, there is an emphasis on a “hands-on” approach to analysing data and extracting insights. The papers cover a set of core analytical skills, techniques and tools, which are applied in a business context.

Core analytics skills including data cleaning, wrangling, visualisation and reporting are paramount, as are their domain-specific applications – analysing specific business problems based on available data and proposing solutions using learned techniques. Data analytics concepts and techniques are delivered through lectures, labs, tutorials and practical workshops.

Students taking the minor will learn these skills through three core papers. Through these papers the students will be exposed to commonly used data analysis platforms, including Excel, R and Python, and relevant techniques. The knowledge and skills acquired in these courses will be put to practice and extended by taking two further papers (one 200- and one 300-level paper) that are in one or more business domains (e.g., accounting, finance or economics). In this way the minor spans disciplines at the Otago Business School.

Background required

There are no prerequisites except a desire to learn techniques and skills to extract insights from business data. This minor will suit anyone who has an interest in data and computing.