Academics

Libraries announces spring 2022 data analytics and visualization workshops

Credit: Penn State University Libraries. All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Starting Feb. 4, Penn State University Libraries will offer a series of virtual sessions on data analytics and visualization that highlight tools for business analytics (Power BI and Tableau) and platforms for big data analytics in the cloud (Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services).

Presented by the University Libraries’ Research Informatics and Publishing Department, the sessions are designed to introduce resources and expertise available through the Libraries, Penn State Cloud Services Team and Power BI Community of Practice.

Sessions are free and open to all Penn State faculty, staff and students. A drop-in office hour will be offered after each workshop for those who wish to discuss specific applications of data analytics tools in their research projects. Advance registration is required; registration links are provided below for each session. For more information, contact Cindy Xuying Xin at xzx1@psu.edu. 

The introductory sessions are designed to provide an overview of the data analytics tools and explore their commonly used features for data analysis and visualization. No prior experience is required for these sessions.

The Advanced Analytics with Tableau workshop will provide an overview of advanced data analytics and visualization features in Tableau, including regression and clustering analysis.

The Big Data Analytics workshops will introduce each of the listed cloud platforms and their tools for big data analytics and machine learning, including natural language processing (NLP), computer vision and speech recognition. These workshops will be taught by graduate assistants with relevant expertise and will include hands-on examples. No prior experience is required.

Demos based on a sample dataset will be provided for all sessions. For the session on Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) in Power BI, participants will need a Power BI premium license to access the demo. Licenses can be obtained at this link, or activated as a trial version from the Power BI online login.

In addition to these workshops, those who attend the Penn State Data Summit 2022 on Feb. 2 and 3 can participate in two pre-conference data analytics and visualization sessions on Jan. 27. Check the summit's agenda to learn more.

The Research Informatics and Publishing department provides research data services to support researchers throughout the research life cycle. Researchers can seek expertise in data management and curation, statistical analysis, data analytics and visualization, maps and GIS, digital humanities, digital collections and open publishing. For more information about the resources available, visit the Research Data Services webpage.

Research Informatics and Publishing also provides guest lectures and one-on-one consultations for those seeking help with data analytics tools (Tableau and Power BI) for their class or research projects. Appointments can be made via the Data Learning Center booking system. The Advanced Analytics and Visualization Digital Lab, accessible remotely via weblabs.psu.edu, provides software tools such as Power BI, Tableau, MATLAB, Minitab, Python, Stata, SPSS, SAS and ArcGIS.

Last Updated January 25, 2022

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