Analytics for Decision Making Specialization

The field of analytics is typically built on four pillars: Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Causal Analytics, and Prescriptive Analytics. Descriptive analytics (e.g., visualization, BI) deal with the exploration of data for patterns, predictive analytics (e.g., data mining, time-series forecasting) identifies what can happen next, causal modeling establishes causation, and prescriptive analytics help with formulating decisions. This specialization focuses on the Prescriptive Analytics (the final pillar). This specialization will review basic predictive modeling techniques that can be used to estimate values of relevant parameters, and then use optimization and simulation techniques to formulate decisions based on these parameter values and situational constraints. The specialization will teach how to model and solve decision-making problems using predictive models, linear optimization, and simulation methods.

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Simulation Models for Decision Making (Coursera)

This course is primarily aimed at third- and fourth-year undergraduate students or graduate students interested in learning simulation techniques to solve business problems. The course will introduce you to take everyday and complex business problems that have no one correct answer due to uncertainties that exist in business environments. [...]

Advanced Models for Decision Making (Coursera)

Business analysts need to be able to prescribe optimal solution to problems. But analytics courses are often focused on training students in data analysis and visualization, not so much in helping them figure out how to take the available data and pair that with the right mathematical model to [...]

Introduction to Predictive Modeling (Coursera)

Welcome to Introduction to Predictive Modeling, the first course in the University of Minnesota’s Analytics for Decision Making specialization. This course will introduce to you the concepts, processes, and applications of predictive modeling, with a focus on linear regression and time series forecasting models and their practical use in [...]

Optimization for Decision Making (Coursera)

In this data-driven world, companies are often interested in knowing what is the "best" course of action, given the data. For example, manufacturers need to decide how many units of a product to produce given the estimated demand and raw material availability? Should they make all the products in-house [...]