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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Data Visualization and Dashboards with Excel and Cognos by IBM

4.7
stars
3,384 ratings

About the Course

Learn how to create data visualizations and dashboards using spreadsheets and analytics tools. This course covers some of the first steps for telling a compelling story with your data using various types of charts and graphs. You'll learn the basics of visualizing data with Excel and IBM Cognos Analytics without having to write any code. You'll start by creating simple charts in Excel such as line, pie and bar charts. You will then create more advanced visualizations with Treemaps, Scatter Charts, Histograms, Filled Map Charts, and Sparklines. Next you’ll also work with the Excel PivotChart feature as well as assemble several visualizations in an Excel dashboard. This course also teaches you how to use business intelligence (BI) tools like Cognos Analytics to create interactive dashboards. By the end of the course you will have an appreciation for the key role that data visualizations play in communicating your data analysis findings, and the ability to effectively create them. Throughout this course there will be numerous hands-on labs to help you develop practical experience for working with Excel and Cognos. There is also a final project in which you’ll create a set of data visualizations and an interactive dashboard to add to your portfolio, which you can share with peers, professional communities or prospective employers....

Top reviews

H

Jun 5, 2022

It is very constructive and very important course for the future of data analyst career. providing practical handin experience makes it the perfect self starter and motivational course.

Thank you

BW

Sep 4, 2022

Great Course! Still some gaps between what is expected to have learned and what was actually taught as far as a couple of the charts are concerned. But overall just an absolutely WONDERFUL course.

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51 - 75 of 580 Reviews for Data Visualization and Dashboards with Excel and Cognos

By Niroshan G

Mar 5, 2021

Very Good!

By Paul A

Feb 5, 2021

Excellent

By Kasi V

Oct 31, 2020

Thanks

By Yo'Av D

Jun 24, 2021

Good overall, but of much lesser quality than the first two courses in the Data Analyst certification program.

The Cognos bit was sort of rushed, and even though the labs provided guidance for the How-Tos, the Whys and Whats weren't always clear.

As for the Excel portion, the material was important and useful. However, while I understand why the labs are designed for the Web version, I think there should be greater emphasis on teaching how to accomplish the same tasks using the Desktop version too, because it's hard to say in advance what kind of version learners would proceed to work with. On several tasks, I noticed significant differences between Desktop and Web (I use Office 365), and even on the final assignment, I had to divide the work between the the two versions, because not all features were available to me in one (I first created the charts I need the Desktop version for, and then uploaded the workbook to Web to finish the assignment there with the features I could only use there).

Both Cognos and Excel bits should be updated to reflect current terminology and layouts. On multiple occasions, I found myself looking at something that didn't match the instructions, only to realize that feature had been moved or renamed. As for the peer-assessment, please consider it mandatory for reviewers to leave a comment to explain if they dock points - I'm always happy to give full marks where applicable, but I also leave a comment to explain what was missing if I rate it anything less than the maximum (I had a strange experience with someone docking random points off my assignment with no explanation, forcing me to resubmit and wait for a second opinion, only to then receive an almost-perfect score).

By Hans F B

Dec 20, 2020

The course provides a good foundation for Excel and Cognos skills. The only problem I encountered was with their support. For half a month, I couldn't access IBM Cognos and other lab instructions and thus couldn't complete the course. The support staff never replied to my concerns. Finally, I figured on my own that, for some reason, my ISP/country was being blocked by the IBM course and that a VPN solved my problem.

By Tanya H

Feb 16, 2021

I enjoyed the course but really struggled to create a pdf of my final assignment on Cognos Analytics at the end, which left me feeling hugely frustrated.

By Bhavya M

Feb 22, 2021

A very good course to learn and practice basics of data visualization. Only glitch is I was not able to download data files for some exercises.

By Steve C

Nov 21, 2020

I think the course should have had more hands-on learning projects, but otherwise good

By Shri H

Nov 26, 2020

Good course which covers all basics

By Deleted A

Jan 25, 2021

very good course

By Suraj G (

Jan 20, 2021

good course

By Maria S

Jan 8, 2021

While I learned how to navigate Excel and Cognos to make elegant visualizations, the videos and activities did not cover why I was completing the steps. The Hands-on activities should be more detailed. I recommend a single sentence for each visualization specifically justifying why the user would want to create each visualization in order to help their analysis.

By Ben

Nov 23, 2020

More labs if possible.

By Alan L

Sep 9, 2021

I think the videos and labs are OK, but the quizzes are basically worthless--in my opinion as a professional in higher education for 20 years. I believe the quizzes should cover the more important concepts presented in the videos rather than trivial details. What I truly dislike is the fact that there is no interaction with actual instructors. The final assignment is graded by peers and absolutely no feedback is given to explain their rationale for choosing a particular value on the assessment rubric. I suppose I should be happy with a 90 on the final assignment, but I should have made 100%. I am irritated that the peer reviewer chose the rubric item that stated some visualizations were incorrect without documenting which one(s) or explaining why they chose that rubric item.

By Jarosław K

May 11, 2022

The course was ok, though really basic. Just a glimpse of Excel and Cognos, not enough to really learn how to use them. More like a starting point, which is not bad if you don't aim for nothing more. However, the thing that I really don't like was low quality of video (viewpoints just look like they were made by amateurs, though the provided insights themselves were ok) and the quality of sound in Cognos videos. IBM, I am sure you can do better than that.

By Matt N

Dec 27, 2021

The peer review portion was painful. Self-grading with the rubric made me question why one of my "peers" was failing me multiple times. The content was good but this is the first round of peer grading where I feel I the "peer" was blatantly failing without following the grading standards. I would do away with peer grading completely since not everyone seems to be putting in the same standards and effort.

By Alexander R

Jun 1, 2022

Some of the information about Cognos is out of date and does not match the IBM website. The course does provide decent insight into building simple and meaningful dashboards in Excel and how to use and navigate Cognos.

By Donald S

Feb 16, 2021

Cognos is unresponsive and crashes frequently when attempting to do the in course examples. Tableau is a faster and more responsive visualization tool

By Mitchell L

Jan 8, 2024

the most boring basic crap ever the other courses by ibm are great but this is just boring

By Nour A

Nov 27, 2022

I need to cancel my registration this

course.

By Luis M A

Oct 25, 2022

This course needs and update

By Ons R

Jun 19, 2022

jjjjjjj

By Andika N P

Dec 13, 2021

This course is really good because it introduce me with powerful data visualization like IBM Cognos Analytics. But one thing to note that on week 3, the CSV file doesn't have the right data type when it gets uploaded to the Cognos Analytics. So, I have hard time to understand the instruction given in the Hand On Labs 4, 5, and 6. I hope this problem get fixed immediately. Overall, this course make me want to learn more about Cognos Analytics and other data visualization program.

By Yoscar O

Dec 5, 2021

The course is great for getting started with data visualization with Excel and Cognos. It is pretty basic and mostly requires following prompts to complete assignments. I would recommend it for those unfamiliar. I would recommend the course instructors revise some of the assignment instructions. Placing instructions that will be graded in "Hint" notes doesn't seem right. I saw this trick a few peers when I did my reviews.

By Yusuf “ G Z

Nov 29, 2021

This course was really intuitive and needed less effort to get comfortable at. I love IBM courses because of their organized structure, brevity and problem centric nature of the labs and final assignment. I was a very great experience overall and that applies to all their courses I have taken so far.

I think the peer review sections after marking by the first reviewer should be cross-checked by at least one more reviewer.