Course Overview

Statistics and data analysis are probably playing the most important roles in business analytics nowadays. With the ability to conduct scientific statistical studies and systematically analyze data, managers will be able to understand more about their customers, suppliers, competitors, and the business environment. The insights may then facilitate better decision making and help a company to attain competitive advantages. In this fundamental course in the Global MBA (GMBA) program, we will focus on the techniques for conducting basic statistical studies and data analysis. The hope is that students will be capable of doing scientific data analyses in their future GMBA courses and after graduations. Time will be spent on tools, applications, as well as theories. Statistical software will be taught and used throughout this course. For at least part of this course, I plan to adopt the "flipped classroom" principle, which may be new to some students. Please pay attention to the syllabus to get an idea about the design of this course.


This is a required course offered in the GMBA program in National Taiwan University. The GMBA office does not allow non-GMBA students to take or audit this course.

Learning Achievement

Week Date Topic Suggested Reading
1 9/13 Overview and in-class brainstorming LD, MK, B Ch. 1
2 9/20 (No class: the instructor is in UIUC)
3 9/27 MS Excel operations
4 10/4 (No class: Mid-Autumn Festival)
5 10/11 Exploratory data analysis (1) B Ch. 2
6 10/18 Exploratory data analysis (2) B Ch. 3
7 10/25 Probability B Chs. 4–6
8 11/1 Case study (1)
9 11/8 Distributions and sampling B Ch. 7
10 11/15 (No class: NTU’s birthday)
11 11/22 Hypothesis testing B Chs. 9–10
12 11/29 Regression analysis (1) B Ch. 12
13 12/6 Regression analysis (2) B Chs. 13–14
14 12/13 Case study (2)
15 12/20 Explanation vs. prediction
16 12/27 Data mining and machine learning
17 1/3 Review and preview
18 1/10 Final project presentations

Competence

Course prerequisites

*Restrict to students in GMBA program.

Grading Philosophy

Course schedule

Course type

Online Course Requirement

Instructor

Ling-Chieh Kung

Other information

Global MBA, College of Management

Site for Inquiry