Business Analytics (BUAN)


BUAN 3065  Business Analytics 1: Data Definition, Preparation, Descriptive Analytics  (3 credits)  
Overview of where business analytics fits into current corporate decision-making support; intro to the three major aspects of business analytics (descriptive, predictive and prescriptive). Emphasis begins with analytics’ use in addressing business problems and opportunities (applications) rather than programming and statistical underpinnings. The review of statistics, Excel and the scientific method are incorporated to analytic thinking for decision-making. Concentrates on data issues (such as data preparation, transformation and cleaning) as well as descriptive and visual analytics. Introduces students to the leading data visualization software packages used in business organizations and apply them using a variety of business, economic and government data sets.
Prerequisite: Enrolled in the College of Business Administration; grade of C or better in BUAD 1560.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Spring Term, 2023 Fall Term, 2023 Spring Term, 2022 Fall Term  
BUAN 3066  Business Analytics 2: Predictive and Prescriptive Modeling  (3 credits)  
Addresses the most valuable predictive and descriptive modeling methodologies and how they address sales & marketing, supply chain, finance, accounting and HR business problems/opportunities – classification, regression, behavioral, value and optimization modeling; demand and adoption forecast models; and market basket analysis (association and sequence). Also focusses on developing an understanding which analytical tool can be used for which purpose, and the limitations and benefits of each. Hypotheses testing, sampling issues, analysis rules and best practices for analysis are also explored.
Prerequisite: Enrolled in College of Business Administration; BUAN 3065.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Spring Term, 2023 Fall Term, 2023 Spring Term, 2022 Fall Term  
BUAN 3986  Internship Work Period  (0 credits)  
SNC/UNC grade assessment.
Prerequisite: BUAN 3065; cons. of prog. dir. and cons. of Business Career Center.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Summer Term, 2022 Summer Term  
BUAN 4060  Business Analytics: Unstructured Data Analysis  (3 credits)  
Addresses the unstructured data management skills needed for modern data analysis including those salient to big data and real-time data environments. Introduces unstructured data, including both well-formatted data (XML, JSON etc.) and free flowing information. Learn about software and databases as well as methods for identification, acquisition, extraction, validation/cleansing, representation and analysis of data for organizational use. Learn how to store and manipulate unstructured data, how to mine text and how to manipulate and analyze unstructured data to enable better decision-making. Briefly introduces data visualization tools as a way to communicate effectively insights gained from analyzing unstructured data.
Prerequisite: BUAN 3065 and BUAN 3066.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2023 Fall Term, 2022 Fall Term, 2021 Fall Term, 2020 Fall Term  
BUAN 4061  Advanced Business Analytics  (3 credits)  
Takes insights derived from the analytics and focusses on how to communicate these actionable insights to executives for decision-making purposes. Includes presentation and storytelling skills, and the ability to communicate to both technical and managerial audiences. Students also need to be able to measure the outcomes based on the decisions that were made with the data-storytelling. Looks to develop good listening and team building and other communication skills.
Prerequisite: BUAN 3065 and BUAN 3066.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Spring Term, 2023 Fall Term, 2023 Spring Term, 2022 Fall Term  
BUAN 4160  Integrative Business Analytics  (3 credits)  
A team-based course that gives students the opportunity to further apply the content learned in prior courses to a company-specific set of business problems/opportunities. Combines course work with a student-team practicum with a local area company that provides a real business problem/opportunity and a real-life/messy data set. Depending on the number of companies involved and the size of the class, there can be multiple companies or a single company involved. For the latter, the project is set up as a competition for the best-fitting solution.
Prerequisite: BUAN 4060 and BUAN 4061, which may be taken concurrently.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Spring Term, 2023 Spring Term, 2022 Spring Term, 2021 Spring Term  
BUAN 4931  Topics in Business Analytics  (1-3 credits)  
Lectures and discussions in an area which, because of its topicality, is not the subject of a regular course. Topics are designated in the Schedule of Classes.
Prerequisite: Soph stndg. and BUAD 1560.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
BUAN 4986  Business Analytics Internship - Grading Period  (3 credits)  
S/U grade assessment.
Prerequisite: BUAN 3986; cons. of prog. dir. and cons. of Business Career Center.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2022 Fall Term  
BUAN 4989  Business Analytics Internship Work and Grading Period  (3 credits)  
S/U grade assessment.
Prerequisite: BUAN 3065; cons. of prog. dir. and cons. of Business Career Center.  
Level of Study: Undergraduate  
Last four terms offered: 2024 Spring Term