I still love this course! But considering this is the second course of 8, I think it would be more apt to describe what's different here than overall.

Admittedly, this course was more of a struggle for me to get through. To begin with, I think the Learning Logs being based off each other and stemming from having to schedule a lengthy conversation with someone didn't help for someone like me who's trying to get through each of the courses as fast as allowed. I would have preferred more presented scenarios, or at least the first of the chain of 3

And as much as I love Ximena, I believe she was a little stilted in her speaking compared to Tony, which made it harder to engage, coupled with the fact you're given constant videos in the last weak which further made it a struggle to finish.

I still give it 4 stars, because the thoroughness of the course is still greatly appreciated! Thank you all for your hard work!

I think the instructor was really well organized and delivered the material professionally. The material and delivery were clear and well-scripted. Kudos to Coursera for their part in this course so far. In fact, if I was only rating Coursera, I would give this 5 stars. However, Quiklabs does not live up to Coursera's standards as far as I'm concerned. There are disconnects between instructions and how the Quiklab actually behaves. I consider myself an intermediate when it comes to technology, but when I start talking to myself after following directions religiously and still have problems I lose patience and find myself getting annoyed. You might want to focus on a more seamless transition to labs for students.

More questions on the quiz and way more questions on the challenges. The course needs more practical testing as well. What would be nice is if there was case study of some sort at the end of each course to tie everything together. Like a video that incorporates everything we learned.

Also a practical exercise that we can participate and for example complete an SOW or meeting agenda or complete an actual sort, calculation and formatting of data. Then in the scenario, what an ideal completed table looks like to compare to.

The course is great so far, but more practical experience using these skills is needed to go beyond learning the material but ensuring it really sticks and we are absorbing the material.

Overall, I liked this course. I felt that the information and handson experiences were good. I had trouble with clarity at times (I don't remember which part- it might have been some of the sample examples?) However, taking course has challenged me to look at things from a new perspective and really consider how to ask good, SMART, and structured questions that will help me when I begin my journey as a junior data analyst. I did not realize just how much I have learned so far, and I am grateful for this opportunity to learn. Thank you for the time and energy you spent taking time to inform (us, the online students) with all of these valuable insights, and lessons.

Sincerely,

KMc

This course spent a lot of time on very basic people skills and conflict resolution, which is indeed important for any role. However, it left me to wonder how many people really do send scathing emails to management complaining about their work or sidelining coworkers for handing over dirty data, since they included that as a response option on several questions. Basic courtesies and approachability should be taught in high school, well before pursuing a data analyst certificate. Aside from that, it touched on basic Excel functions and formulas, and framing questions to reach the main problem or objective, and keeping balance with shareholder expectations, speed and accuracy.

The course contained two main topics. 1. is spreadsheets using different formulas and functions. I found this part very useful and informative although I have a good command of Excel. Although there were mentions on differences between Excel and Google Sheets, I still had trouble applying certain functions locally in excel and ended up using google sheets instead. I tried many times to find out what was causing the errors i had in excel but was still unsuccessful. 2. is the part related to communication and handling conflicts in work environment, this is surely useful in terms of soft skills, but if you already have some work experience, this information should not be new.

These courses are very informative and easy to follow along with. I like that the courses are able to be taken at your own pace and can be moved through without having to wait for a specific due date or to move through the courses with a group or class timeframe. I would prefer that the course tests could be taken on a tablet/iPad and not have to be taken on a computer. Also, in all over the videos for this course so far, the speakers "talk with their hands" but do so in an unnatural manner, moving their hand for each word they are speaking. This is very distracting. If ever these videos need to be updated and recreated, please do not have the presenters do this.

Ximena - The instructor for this course was trying to speak clearly and very slowly so that everyone can understand her, which is a great thing to do. However, when Ximena had her own "featured" video, she was talking much more naturally and I felt like this is how the course should've been.

The content of the course in terms of asking questions is great, I imagined and felt situations where some of these questions are going to be useful. However, It is really difficult to do without a dataset or without knowing what an analyst truly does so far. I think I might need to go back to this course after I've finished all of the other courses in this series.

Good course but nothing is perfect. I have found a lot of errors in the subtitles. These errors are inconsequential especially if you pay attention. Someone needs to be employed to go through this course and edit it line by line. The software and people are not perfect, so some words that were said unnecessarily get added. It would be fun if the producers poked fun at the software transcription faults and user error (I understand that an academic institution [generally] does not do this). A possible next course of action is to... fix the subtitles or to dub over the spoken words of the speaker or REDO the videos entirely. Cheers!

I'm giving this course 4 stars. The concepts taught were on point, but I find that clearer examples can be given for some key parts of the course. Some of the explanations and examples are very concise, if it were more elaborate, it can be understood better. For example, Quantitative and Qualitative data are important elements, they have been defined well but to help the learner understand the concept, the examples for each can be more effective. Same with the part about solving problems with questions. The content had to be read a few times to be able to really understand what they were talking about.

Ximena was quite detailed and calm. Although I struggled at the initial part of the course (WEEK 1 & 2). I really enjoyed the week 3 lectures, practicals and guided projects on spreadsheets, functions and formulas in spreadsheets and WEEK 4 lectures and realistic case scenerios on effective communication, conflict management, meetings, balancing stakeholders needs, clear communication and data limitations.

I learnt a lot. I am definitely going to improve my overall communication skills at work with my bosses and team members and also handle conflicts better.

Thank you. I am grateful.

Data driven decision making is an excellent course with one small minor issue: I'm working in the field of data analytics and I take part in this course to discover and learn new things and one thing that is really unrealistic here is that the course assumes that a data analyst can just go talk to a primary stakeholder and circumvent the people they directly report to. I strongly discourage anyone from just going to talk to your primary stakeholder if you encounter an issue, before talking to your manager first. Especially if the primary stakeholder is the CEO.

Learning about the framework for thinking about projects involving data analysis and the types of questions that data analysts need to consider was useful. But for myself, having endured a full business career working for multiple organizations already, there is too much emphasis on the soft skills and diplomacy required for general career success. This course is geared more towards the business novice who is starting their professional career than for someone who wants to learn the pure mechanics of working with data in any analytics environment.

I found this course a little more challenging than the first course, and am expecting the courses to become increasingly more challenging as I continue. Some of the definitions learned could have been included with the weekly glossaries to make Google's concept of open-book learning easier. I found the quizzes challenging and believe that as I continue on to the next course, that concepts have built on each other which should help me move forward. Thank you for your instruction, and I look forward to learning more.

I am really enjoying the course so far, but the one problem that I keep running into is when I play the videos from wed page they won't finish, or the video will start to jump around. The work around that I do is to download the videos. When I download the video, the video won't perform the review questions, and also doesn't mark the video as being completed. So I have to go back to the video web page and move the video to the questions and then to the end so the progress tracker will mark the video as complete.

Some of the concepts are pretty basic, but there is a lot of very useful information. It's easy to breeze past the content you already know and I appreciate that it teaches aspects of the work outside of just technical skills and training. For example this course focuses a lot on how to ask the correct questions and how to deal with communication issues. This is the only data coursework I've seen that somewhat adequately addresses these concepts that make it relevant to the job and not just the academic field.

What I liked:

The class was an excellent introduction to problem-solving and other soft skills. It emphasized the six data analysis phases, which the instructors covered in the first class (Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere). The repetition is compatible with my learning style, along with the format of this class where I could read, listen, watch, and do hands-on training. 

What could be improved: 

The class jumped around a bit. It was relatively easy, and I finished it quickly. 

I am very grateful to have been able to take this course. My opinions are only oriented to improve it. There are many new concepts presented, which could be improved or deepened (power of data, metrics, structured thinking). It also seems to me that the exercises could be improved, especially the self-reflection ones. Some of them were not clear to me and I did not understand why I did them. Many thanks to the instructors and everyone who worked to develop this course.

The course is very helpful. The only thing that I'd like to recommend is to improve the mobile app. Sometimes, I'm required to take lessons on the phone and the mobile app isn't working well enough to let me take the test on the phone. And if they let me do so, the questions once in a way are displayed in properly such as missing a answering question to select or not showing the whole part of the question propperly.

But I do love the courses here, keep up good works!

Some of the material seemed targeted at students who have never had a job - basic communication & manners - that's not a bad thing but if you're changing careers or looking for job-specific skills, this course will feel unnecessary. Also - a couple of the grading results were subjective and (in my opinion) dependent on the situation - making the grading feel arbitrary. I can easily defend a couple of the answers I missed on the practice quizzes.

I found this course to be very informative and I loved the pace. Learning moe about the steps and processes of data analytics has been incredibly fulfilling. The only thing I would like to see more of would be some sort of practice section... perhaps a spreadsheet practice board where you could work on fixing errors and adding sums; that type of thing. Other then that I am very satisfied an look forward to moving on through the rest of the courses.

4 Stars for content. The instructor is fine and I could definetly work with her in the real world. But she has a tendancy to omit syllables. Example: she says " 'specially im-por-ant" instead of "especially important". This is distracting when you are learning about workplace communication skills. On one hand I get it, it is important to be aware of working in a multi-cultural environment. On the other hand, give her an easier script.

I found the course helpful overall, especially on the different types of questioning and how to ask questions effectively. The information about meetings, although common knowledge was good to brush up on.

Not five stars because I’m not sure why spreadsheets were a part of this course. It clearly should be in the next part, prepare data for exploration. Also I feel it jumped back and forth between topics too much, and repeated information.

I think this course helps me to think more analytically. Some of the contents are very beneficial if you are going to do SJT tests, behavioural tests, and business case studies. I did not give it five stars because in this course students need to use an extended website to finish some tasks, however, I cannot get my feedback within that website (maybe only me). Overall, it is a very interesting and helpful course.

I think that this course could have been more challenging. I think that the practice quizzes, weekly challenges, and in-video questions can be more difficult. I would like to see more opportunities to apply knowledge and have more hands-on experiences with the material. I thought that Ximena was great for this course section. She had a positive attitude and I felt like she was sharing from personal experience.