Basic Analytics

Michael Brydon, BEng, MEng, PhD
Beedie School of Business
Simon Fraser University

The following is a consolidated list of multimedia tutorials used to support my courses in basic analytics. The purpose of this page is to expose the links to anyone who may want to use the content. The obvious caveat is that this is not the full course—the context for each lesson (learning objectives, quizzes, data sets, assignments, class slides) is embedded within the closed course management system at SFU.

By way of background: My approach in the course is to teach analytic concepts using hands-on exercises. One way to help students differentiate between high-level concepts and tool-specific techniques is to have them do the same task using multiple tools. Students are asked to do t-tests, regression, basic plots, and so on using SAS Enterprise Guide, Excel, and R or Python. By doing this, and comparing and contrasting the approaches, they gain a better understanding of the underlying essence of analytic techniques.

Jump to data files

Captivate presentations Plain video
(right-click to download; quality not as good as Captivate videos)
R
(RMarkdown book)
Python
(Jupyterbook)
Getting started with SAS Enterprise Guide (Virtual Lab)
Getting started with RStudio (Virtual Lab)
mpeg video | YouTube
mpeg video | YouTube
Introduction to R
Importing data
Introduction to Python for Data Analysis
Importing Data
Decision Model (overall intro) mpeg video | YouTube    
Decision Bias mpeg video | YouTube    
Histograms in Excel mpeg video | YouTube Basic visualizations Basic Visualization
Query Builder in SAS Enterprise Guide mpeg video | YouTube Filtering data frames
Recoding data and dummy variables
Filtering Data
Recoding Data
The Central Limit Theorem mpeg video | YouTube    
t-test in Excel mpeg video | YouTube Visual gap analysis and t-test Gap Analysis Using t-Tests
Gap analysis with categorical data mpeg video | YouTube Gap analysis with categorical variables Gap analysis with categorical variables
Gap analysis with Bayesian networks mpeg video | YouTube    
Relational databases mpeg video | YouTube    
Queries with Microsoft Access mpeg video | YouTube    
Queries with SQL mpeg video | YouTube    
Using a chatbot to write SQL      
Data warehouses and OLAP in Excel mpeg video | YouTube    
Drill-down with Tableau mpeg video | YouTube    
Scatteplots in Excel mpeg video | YouTube Scatterplots and correlation Correlation and Scatterplots
Basic linear regression in Excel mpeg video | YouTube Basic linear regression Simple Linear Regression
Multiple regression using Excel mpeg video | YouTube Multiple regression Multiple Linear Regression
Tips and tricks for practical regression mpeg video | YouTube    
Dummy variables in multiple regression mpeg video | YouTube    
Causal modeling versus statistical modeling mpeg video | YouTube    
Data mining using classification trees mpeg video | YouTube    
Classification trees using KNIME mpeg video | YouTube    
Regression Trees mpeg video | YouTube    
Multi-criteria decision making in Excel mpeg video | YouTube    
Monte Carlo simulation using @Risk mpeg video | YouTube    
Decision tree modeling using PrecisionTree mpeg video | YouTube    
Statistical analysis using Jamovi mpeg video | YouTube    

 

Sample data files used in demonstrations
Bank employee salary data (Excel or CSV) (t-tests, contingency tables)
Concrete strength data (regression)
Patent data (competely made-up) (data mining)
Hockey salary data (data mining)
Video game sales (assignments)