Curriculum

9 Sections
50 Lessons
Lifetime

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What is Data?
This course gives a short introduction in the world of data. If you are starting your journey into this wonderful land, this course is for you. The course covers basic concepts, different types of data and gives an introduction to machine readable data.
6
Finding Data
Don't know where to start looking for data? This section gives an introduction to data portals and different data sources. Finally we will walk you through how to use one sample data portal.
5
Sort and Filter: The basics of spreadsheets
So you found and downloaded your dataset? What now? Sort and Filter introduces a powerful tool to manage data: Spreadsheets. Based on Google Spreadsheets, this Course introduces the basic functions as well how to sort and filter data to find what you might be interested in…
8
Taming the Fierce Beast – The Math you need to start
Worried about all those numbers? This module will help you to refresh the basic math (don't be afraid it's mainly counting and adding).
10
'But what does it mean?': Analyzing data (spreadsheets continued)
Wonder how to make sense of the data? Basic Analysis will help you to understand what your data might mean. It also introduces spreadsheet formulas and helps you calculate more values out of what you already have.
4
From Data to Diagrams: An introduction to plots and charts
A picture says more than a thousand words – yeah but how do we turn a thousand words into a picture? This section will help you to understand basic data visualization and create them using Google spreadsheets. Visualizing data will help you to better understand the data you are handling.
7
Look Out!: Common Misconceptions and how to avoid them
Not everything is easily understood in dataland. In this course we give a short overview over common pitfalls when talking about data and how to avoid them. It can help you avoid the mistakes made as well as read other peoples claims more carefully. If you want to learn what to watch out for: join in!
9
Tell me a story: Working out what’s interesting in your data
Data alone is meaningless and often boring. To understand it better you will need context. In this section we will talk about how to publish the data we worked on throughout the basic track. We will talk about how to identify key points of your data to help you use data to make your voice heard.
6
Data provenance
To make a credible and sustainable data project, you need to document your steps right from the beginning. This course contains tips and tricks and tools for doing so.
3

Spreadsheets: An Overview

Nowadays spreadsheets are widespread so a lot of people are familiar with them already. A variety of spreadsheet programs and applications exist. For example Microsoft’s Office package comes with Excel, the OpenOffice package comes with Calc and so on. Not surprisingly, Google decided to add spreadsheets to their documents package. Since it does not require you to purchase or install any additional software, we will be using Google Spreadsheets for this course.

Depending on what you want to do you might consider using different spreadsheet software. Here are some of the considerations you might make when picking your weapon of choice:

Spreadsheet	Google Spreadsheets	Open(Libre)Office	Microsoft Excel
Usage	Free (as in Beer)	Free (as in Freedom)	Commercial
Data Storage	Google Drive	Your hard disk	Your hard disk
Needs Internet	Yes	No	No
Installation required	No	Yes	Yes
Collaboration	Yes	No	No
Sharing results	Easy	Harder	Harder
Visualizations	Large range	Basic charts	Basic charts

Data Fundamentals

Curriculum

Spreadsheets: An Overview

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