Study location	Netherlands, Maastricht
Type	Summer Course, full-time
Nominal duration	1-week (2 ECTS)
Study language	English

Tuition fee	€275 per programme

Entry qualification	Enrolled as an Undergraduate student or Undergraduate diploma The entry qualification documents are accepted in the following languages: English. Often you can get a suitable transcript from your school. If this is not the case, you will need official translations along with verified copies of the original.

Language requirements	English B2, IELTS 6.5

Overview

Many companies have access to mountains of data and increasingly recognize the importance of turning these data into insights. This development leads to a pressing need for data analysts and explains the growing popularity of data analytics software. This course introduces participants to one such software package, namely the open-source programming environment R. Through lectures and interactive, assignment-based, tutorials, students will be introduced to three crucial aspects of data analytics in R: (i) basic objects and operations in R; (ii) flow control and programming in R; and (iii) working with data in R (management, analysis, and visualization).

The course offers a good foundation for individuals who intend to get involved in data analytics (e.g., start a business intelligence/analytics master program or plan to take other, independent data analytics courses), but have little or no coding/programming experience. The skills acquired in this course are also useful for data analytics in syntax-driven environments other than R.

Course Duration and Dates
This is a one week course running from the 24th of August until the 28th of August, 2020. Due to COVID-19, we have decided to cancel all on-campus education this summer. The courses will be scheduled in Central European Time [CET] so it is possible that some time slots are not ideal for people in certain time zones. However, when scheduling the courses, we will try to take into account the different time zones as much as we can.

ECTS
The number of credits earned after successfully concluding this course is the equivalent of 2 ECTS according to Maastricht University’s guidelines. For further information see the MSS terms and conditions

Goals
▪ Get to know the open-source language R and the accompanying developers’ environment RStudio;
▪ Become familiar with the basic objects and operations in R;
▪ Get introduced to programming and algorithmic thinking;
▪ Learn to work with data in R.

Coordinator
Dr. B. Foubert

Bram Foubert is Associate Professor at the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (SBE), where he teaches courses in data analytics and econometrics. His research interests are in the areas of consumer response modelling and retailing. More specifically, he investigates how marketing instruments, such as sales promotion, store environment, or advertising, affect purchase and consumption behavior and customer life time. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, and Marketing Science, among others.

Instruction language
English

Prerequisites
▪ Knowledge of algebra (high-school level)
▪ Familiarity with datasets (e.g., in Excel or SPSS)
▪ No prior coding or programming experience needed

Recommended literature
The course is entirely self-contained but will make use of the statistical programming environment R:
▪ www.r-project.org
▪ www.rstudio.com

Teaching methods
▪ Assignments ▪ Lectures ▪ Presentations ▪ Skills ▪ Work in subgroups

Assessment methods
▪ Assignment ▪ Attendance

Keywords
R, programming, data analytics, business intelligence, data analysis, data visualization, data management