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Course Notes for Data Visualization

Nathan Garrett, PhD CPA

Department of Accounting and Information Systems

West Virginia University

This course introduces students to data analysis through visualization. Students will learn how to clean, understanding, and visualize data using Tableau and PowerBI. They will also learn foundational SQL concepts, as well as be exposed to Python.

Schedule

Week 1 - January 12, 2026

• dv00. File management
• dv01. EDA process
• tb01. Tableau interface and data

Week 2 - January 19, 2026

• DataCamp: Introduction to Tableau Parts 1 and 2
• dv20. Understand data values and structure
• tb41. Tableau basic charts
• tb42. Tableau basic features

Week 3 - January 26, 2026

• DataCamp: Introduction to Tableau Parts 3 and 4
• dv30. Pre-attentive attributes

Week 4 - February 2, 2026

• DataCamp: Analyzing Data with Tableau Parts 1 & 2
• tb43. Chart refinements
• tb44. Data refinements

Week 5 - February 9, 2026

Exam 1

• DataCamp: Analyzing Data with Tableau Parts 3 & 4
• tb45. Tableau maps
• dv11. Presentations

Week 6 - February 16, 2026

• DataCamp: Creating Dashboards with Tableau
• MLearn: Get Started 1/2 and 2/2
• dv35. Visual perception
• dv36. Colors
• tb46. Dashboards
• tb48. Tableau Table Calculations

Week 7 - February 23, 2026

• MLearn: Get data in PowerBI
• MLearn: Clean, Transform, and load

Week 8 - March 2, 2026

• bi01. PowerBI Introduction

Week 9 - March 9, 2026

Exam 2

• bi02. PowerBI Modeling

Week 10 - March 16, 2026

Spring Break - No activities

Week 11 - March 23, 2026

• bi03. PowerBI Vis

Week 12 - March 30, 2026

• dv10. Writing an effective report
• sql01. SQL Introduction
• sql02. SQL Select, From, Order By, Where

Exam 3

Week 13 - April 6, 2026

• sql03. SQL Functions
• sql04. SQL Aggregation
• sql05. SQL Joins

Week 14 - April 13, 2026

Python1

Week 15 - April 20, 2026

Python2

Week 16 - April 27, 2026

Project, Exam 4

Week 17 - May 4, 2026

Final Exam Week, May 4-8

Further Resources

Good examples:

• Names that switch gender

Workforce:

• What is life like as a Tableau Freelancer?

Free DataViz Courses:

• Andrew Heiss - Data Visualization with R
• Kieran Healy - Socviz - Data Visualization