Excel for Evaluation | Emery Evaluation Walk through the analytical process one technique at a time. Newest Tutorials Import and Merge Datasets Learn how to import, export, and merge datasets in Excel by using features such as text to columns, vlookup, and hlookup. Organize Your Spreadsheets When you’re staring at a spreadsheet for hours on end, a little organization can go a long way. Clean Data and Recode Variables Before you can analyze your data, you’ll need to check for missing data and recode some variables. Explore Your Dataset Use exploratory data visualization techniques like color-coding and sparklines find initial patterns. Calculate Summary Statistics (with Formulas) Summarize your data by finding the mean, median, standard deviation, and other descriptive statistics. Calculate Summary Statistics (with Pivot Tables) Pivot tables are the fastest, most accurate way to analyze your data — and they’re easier than you think. Putting It All Together Learn intermediate and advanced spreadsheet skills. Extra Time-Saving Techniques
Introducing the Data Visualization Checklist | Evergreen Data This post has been a long time coming. Ann Emery and I knew some time ago that evaluators and social scientists had a thirst for better graphs, a clear understanding of why better graphs were necessary, but they lacked efficient guidance on how, exactly, to make a graph better. Introducing the Data Visualization Checklist. Download this checklist and refer to it when you are constructing your next data visualization so that what you produce rocks worlds. Use the checklist to gauge the effectiveness of graphs you’ve already made and adjust places where you don’t score full points. What’s in the Checklist? What’s Next? We will present the final checklist and our collection of visual examples at the American Evaluation Association’s annual conference in October. Our presentation will be so much cooler if we can get a bit of your help.
AEA365 Hello, my name is Jayne Corso and I am the Community Manager for AEA. As a community manager, I create weekly posts for AEA’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Although you can share similar content on Facebook and Twitter, your approach should be unique for each channel. I have put together a few tips for composing text for both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook: Hot Tip: Keep it to 80 characters The Facebook character limit is technically 63,206; however, when posting on Facebook, you should try to keep your text within 80 characters. Hot Tip: Don’t just post a link Facebook is a great channel for sharing blog posts or linking to external content, but don’t just post the link. Hot Tip: Use images Facebook posts that use images receive more engagement than posts without images. Twitter: Hot Tip: Keep it simple Twitter has a character limit of 140, but studies have shown that posts that are 120-130 in length receive better engagement. Hot Tip: Grammar is still important Good luck crafting your posts!
ExcelUser Home Page Mobile BI Design Framework: The Use of Colors - The Decision Factor Blog In mobile business intelligence (BI) design, the use of colors plays an important role because colors are some of the easier components to incorporate into our mobile assets. However, this ease of use often leads to misuse and, subsequently, ineffective design of our mobile solutions. I often find that the oversight happens not because we lack the knowledge or technical capability, but because we make the wrong assumptions. I always argue: simple is beautiful if we want our design to resonate with our customers (users). Here are five ways you can keep things simple when it comes to the use of colors in mobile BI design. 1. Avoid using anything other than the default color for all things that don’t require any highlighting. 2. This principle also applies to traditional BI projects and graphic design in general. The second piece involves elements on the page, such as charts and tables. 3. The more colors you have in the legend to list, the harder it gets to discern the key findings. 4. 5.
MN student testing faces big cuts after lawmakers slash budget Listen Story audio Minnesota students will see big changes in the number of statewide exams they take next school year after the Legislature chopped Minnesota's testing budget in half during the special session. Lawmakers repealed several required high school tests and stopped paying for all juniors to take the ACT college entrance exam, something they had ordered in 2013. This was the first year for those payments. Two weeks after lawmakers finished their work, the Minnesota Department of Education is still combing through the education bill to see how the changes ordered by the Legislature will affect statewide assessments. The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment GRAD tests in writing, reading and math will end. Gone as well are the Explore, Plan and Compass ACT tests, exams that helped students plan for college or a career. The MCA tests that students take every year in grades three through eight, and in 10th and 11th grades, will remain in place. Rep. State Sen.
How to Create an Excel Dashboard - The Excel Charts Blog The Excel Charts Blog Excel dashboards and executive reports are powerful, fairly easy to design and a great way to improve your Excel and data visualization skills. Because of its flexibility, you can virtually design any dashboard in Excel exactly the way you, or the users, imagined. And, best of all, you may want to implement it yourself or consider it a prototype and ask IT to implement it. Once you know what will the Excel dashboard be used for and what kind of metrics users expect, there are three major areas that you must address when creating it: how to bring data into your spreadsheets;how to manage the data and link it to the dashboard objects, like charts and tables;how to design the dashboard report. Let’s take a look at each of them. How to bring data into your Excel dashboard Yes, Excel is a very flexible tool, but to create an Excel dashboard you can’t just paste some data and add a few charts, can you? Usually, the data should not be entered directly into the spreadsheet. Named Ranges Macros
Every Number Can Tell a Story: The Art and Business of Data Visualization Statisticians look for clarity in numbers. Artists understand how color and shape appeal to, and influence, people. Marketing professionals can combine the clarity of numbers with the appeal of graphics, using data visualization (DV) tools. If you’ve ever used a spreadsheet or presentation program, you’re probably familiar with the simple graphic tools they contain for creating line graphs, bar charts or pie charts. A wide range of DV tools are now available for use. Data Visualization presentations can meet a wide variety of marketing needs Related Resources from B2C» Free Webcast: Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products Data Visualization Examples: - A marketing consultant combines his client’s equipment sales data with competitors across a national map. - A museum analyzed an e-mail publicity campaign’s penetration by creating a chart showing the demographics of return visitors who had received the message. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Provide your audience with ways to manipulate the data.
Overstretched school counselors would get state relief under new plan Listen Story audio Rosemount High School counselor Chad Terry helps students plan for college, work through emotional crises and pass their classes. Nearly 500 students depend on him. That's more than 100 students higher than the national average for secondary school counselors. Terry said he's overstretched and can't give students all the support they need. "I've met with 45 students in the last couple days, when I look back on my calendar." A proposal to fund grants for new support staff cleared its first legislative hurdle Thursday. Districts would match state funding for the first four years. Terry told a state Senate education committee the grants could help "close achievement gaps, educate and train students for jobs that are open now and in the future, and continue to work through the complications of an evolving mental health epidemic in our youth." Minnesota has one of the nation's worst student-to-counselor ratios. • More: Money for student counseling takes a back seat
Dashboards.ORG - A Practitioner's Guide to Business Intelligence - Dashboards.ORG Klares Reporting - Sexl, pmOne, Reporting, Finanz, Forecasting, Corporate Design, Grafik - Business Intelligence Magazine 17.06.2014, Stefan Sexl, pmOne AG Stefan Sexl, pmOne AG (pmOne AG) Die Lesbarkeit vieler Berichte in Unternehmen ist oft ein Graus. Vereinfachte Darstellungsformen sowie die Einführung einer einheitlichen, unternehmensweiten Nomenklatur stehen bei Weiterentwicklung der Reportingsysteme derzeit im Vordergrund des Interesses. Eine derartige Systematik fehlt noch in den Reportingsystemen der meisten Unternehmen: Grafiken, Tabellen, Farben und Darstellungsformen werden stattdessen mehr oder weniger willkürlich je nach Geschmack des Erstellers angewendet und sind abteilungsübergreifend völlig unterschiedlich. Dabei ist der Finanzbereich nur teilweise ein guter Repräsentant für unternehmensweite Standards. Es führt also kein Weg an einer breiteren Integration vorbei. Es empfiehlt sich, eine solche Guideline durch technische Hilfsmittel wie einfach konfigurierbare Templates zu ergänzen. Quelle: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE, www.bi-magazine.net © ProfilePublishing Germany GmbH 2010-2014.
Student support gets boost in Minnesota's supplemental budget School districts will have an opportunity to hire more social workers, counselors and other student support staff with a $12.1 million grant program included in the Legislature's end-of-session spending plan. Sen. Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury, has pushed for the funding for several years. Last year's $95 million proposal didn't make it into the final budget. This year, she scaled back the request to $13.1 million, but the Republican-controlled House countered with a proposal to study the idea without dedicating money. "The House had a much smaller target than the Senate did for education, and the fact that, I think, in the process of compromise that ours is pretty close to intact — I think it sends an important signal about how much this is valued," Kent said. Education experts say support staff can be critical to keeping students at risk of dropping out of school on track for graduation. • Related: Without support, Minnesota students left behind at graduation Sen.
Give Your Managers More Insight, More Quickly, Using Less Time and Money Windows & Mac Excel Tens of thousands of Excel users in at least 160 countries are using my dashboard reports to improve business insight and WOW! their managers. Here's why... Good Excel dashboards can save hours of time...when you update your reports, and when your managers and other VIPs read them. Excel dashboards can present data from any number of sources in one report. They're created and maintained by users, who understand what the information means, not by programmers, who usually don't. They're a spreadsheet solution, not a macro solution. They can adapt quickly -- often, in minutes -- to managers' changing information needs. They can trap errors that normal reports typically ignore. And, because you already own Excel, your dashboard software costs nothing extra...it's free! Unfortunately, few people know how to create useable Excel dashboards. The kit includes my e-book, Dashboard Reporting With Excel, and more than 20 Excel workbooks. An Overview of the E-Book 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.