Introduction to Analytics - BIA 5000, Fall 2023

Instructor: Yulia Kosarenko

Group assignment: Analytics Insights Project (Part I &

Part II)

Groups: 4-6 team members.

30% of the final grade total (10% for Part I + 20% for Part II).

Contents
1. Assignment description ....................................................................................................... 1
2. Assignment components ..................................................................................................... 2
3. Submission guidelines ........................................................................................................ 3
4. Assignment requirements – Part I (steps 1–8) .................................................................... 5
Week 3 steps: ........................................................................................................................ 5
Week 4 steps: ........................................................................................................................ 5
Week 5 steps: ........................................................................................................................ 6
Week 6 steps: ........................................................................................................................ 8
5. Assignment requirements – Part II (step 9–13) ................................................................... 9
Week 8-9 steps: ..................................................................................................................... 9
Week 10 steps: ...................................................................................................................... 9
Week 11-12 steps: ................................................................................................................10
6. Assessment criteria ............................................................................................................11
7. Assignment Rubric Part I ...................................................................................................12
8. Assignment Rubric Part II ..................................................................................................13

1. Assignment description
Students will work in teams to plan an analytics project. The goal is to solve a business problem
of an imaginary company using analytics. Teams will execute a sequence of assignment steps
based on the materials learned each week in class.

Part II will be a continuation of Part I: the teams will continue working on the same company and
the same business problem identified in Part I for the whole project, using their experience and
instructor’s feedback from Part I to improve and complete their final project and presentation.
2. Assignment components
Part I:
A. Part I report in Word Document or Google Docs format.
The report must be completed collaboratively and must capture all required assignment
steps in detail. Use the Final Report Template provided and submit the sections required for
Part I.

B. Team meeting notes. You must have at least one collaborative meeting per week to work
on your project together. Each team member will write meeting notes in turn. Send me your
notes on a weekly basis to yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca.

Part II:
A. Final report in Word Document or Google Docs format.
The report must be completed collaboratively and must capture all assignment steps in
detail. See Final Report Template provided.

B. Team meeting notes. You must have at least one collaborative meeting per week to work
on your project together. Each team member will write meeting notes in turn. Send me your
notes on a weekly basis to yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca.

C. Presentation slides submitted in PowerPoint format (see below for full requirements).

D. Team presentation during class.

3. Submission guidelines
Part I
a) Part I report must be submitted via Blackboard Group Assignment submission. The
report must include all steps from Part I.
See the Blackboard assignment for the due date & time.
Name the file as follows (include your team number in the file name):
Team X – BIA5000 Group Project – Part I Report

b) Meeting notes must be sent to me at yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca on a weekly basis.

Email subject (include your team number in the file name):
Team X – Week N Meeting Notes

c) Each student must submit a Peer Evaluation Form via email

(Yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca) (see the template provided).
The individual contribution mark (40% of the total for Part I) will be based on peer
evaluations.
Due at the same time as the Part I report.
Name the file as follows (include team number and your initials in the file name):
Team X - BIA5000 Peer Evaluation – Part I (Your initials)

All due dates will be posted on Blackboard.

Late submissions will be penalized (minus 5% from the team grade for every 12 hours).
Please adhere to all file naming conventions provided above to avoid deductions.

Part II
a) Final report and presentation slides (two attachments) must be submitted via
Blackboard Group Assignment submission. Final report must include all steps from Part I
and Part II and incorporate feedback from the instruction provided during Part I grading.
See the Blackboard assignment for the due date & time.
Name the file as follows (include your team number in the file name):
Team X – BIA5000 Group Project – Final Report
Team X – BIA5000 Group Project – Presentation

b) Meeting notes must be sent to me at yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca on a weekly basis.

Email subject (include your team number in the file name):
Team X – Week N Meeting Notes

c) Final team presentations must be presented to the class during Lesson 13 scheduled
class time. All team members are expected to participate in the presentations.

a. All teams will present during our last lesson (Lesson 13).

b. Each team’s presentation must be limited to 6-8 minutes.

c. Each team member must take a turn speaking.

 d. Team presentation should have the following sections (it is not required to cover
all the steps of the project in your presentation). Include:
• Introduction of each team member and their analytics project role(s)
• Brief description of your fictional company
• Business problem definition
• Analytics questions
• Key data entities (no need to include the attributes)
• Context model for your systems of record
• BI architecture diagram
• Overview of the BI and analytics solutions
• 2-3 lessons learned that you want to share with your class

d) Each student must submit a Peer Evaluation Form via email

(Yulia.kosarenko@humber.ca) (see the template provided).
The individual contribution mark (20% of the total for Part II) will be based on peer
evaluations.
Due by 9pm of the day when the teams are presenting.
Name the file as follows (include team number and your initials in the file name):
Team X - BIA5000 Peer Evaluation – Part II (Your initials)

All due dates will be posted on Blackboard.

Late submissions will be penalized (minus 5% from the team grade for every 12 hours).
Please adhere to all file naming conventions provided above to avoid deductions.

Citing sources and academic integrity

Ensure you cite all sources that you’ve used for research using Humber guidelines: APA
guidelines for citing sources.

For additional information, visit the Academic Misconduct section of Humber's Academic
Regulations and Humber's Academic Integrity Statement.

Grammar, punctuation, and visual presentation

The quality of your report will be assessed as part of the assignment, including grammar,
punctuation, and visual presentation. You may use free tools like Grammarly to assist you.

Reach out to Humber’s Math and Writing Centre for additional assistance

Conflict resolution
You may reach out to me if you are having trouble resolving disputes within your group.

For additional help, please contact Humber’s Dispute Resolution Clinic.

4. Assignment requirements – Part I (steps 1–8)
Week 3 steps:

Step 1. Identify a business problem

Select an industry that your group is familiar with, for example banking, healthcare,
telecommunication, or manufacturing, and think of a fictional company in this industry. For the
purposes of the project, all team members will work for the same company. Give your fictional
company a name. Describe your chosen industry and the company in 5-10 sentences.

Consider a business problem that your company needs to resolve using analytics. Describe the
business problem in 5-10 sentences.

Step 2. Ask descriptive and diagnostic analytics questions

You will need to formulate 5-7 analytics questions to help solve the business problem identified
in Step 1.

Start with at least 3-4 descriptive and diagnostic questions in this step (you will progress to
predictive and prescriptive analytics questions next week).

For each question, explain:

• What type of analytics you will use to answer the question?

• How will answering this question help to solve the business problem?
• What data will be required to answer this question?
• Is a prediction required to answer the question? What would be the response variable?
• What decisions could be made using these insights?

Week 4 steps:

Step 3. Ask predictive and prescriptive analytics questions

Using questions defined in step 2 as a foundation, define at least 3-4 predictive and prescriptive
analytics questions needed to help solve the business problem.

For each question, explain:

• What type of analytics you will use to answer the question?

• How will answering this question help to solve the business problem?
• What data will be required to answer this question?
• Is a prediction required to answer the question? What would be the response variable?
• What decisions could be made using these insights?
Week 5 steps:

Step 4. Main data entities and ERD

Discuss and agree what main business data entities will be important for your company
operations and for answering the analytics questions outlined in previous steps.

Name between 7-10 entities and describe them using 3-5 sentences for each data entity. Focus
on the data that is important to understanding and solving the business problem you selected in
Step 1.

For each data entity, list the attributes that you will be interested in (at least 3 attributes for each
data entity) and provide a brief description of each.

Create a simple Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) that represents these data entities,
capturing:
• Main data entities
• Data entity attributes
• Relationships between data entities including cardinalities (use crow’s foot notation)

You may use a free version of Lucidchart (lucidchart.com) or any other diagramming tool you
are familiar with. You may also draw it neatly on paper and take a photo of your drawing.

If you draw by hand, make sure your writing and all labels are in print (not cursive) and legible.

If you use Lucidchart, choose a free template called “Database ER Diagram (crow’s foot)”.

Step 5. Identify Systems of Record

Come up with between 3-6 systems of record that you imagine your company needs to support
its business, for example, a Customer Relationship Management System. Focus on the systems
of record that will store data relevant to the business problem you identified in Step 1. Ensure
that you have a system of record for all data entities identified in the previous step.

For each system, describe:

• Who uses the system (main users)?
• What do they use this system for (the purpose of the system)?
• Main sources of data
• What data entities from those identified in Step 3 will be maintained in the system?
Step 6. Systems of record - context model

Create a simple context model that shows data flows between your systems of record. What
data will each system need from other systems? Focus on the data flows required to operate
the business day-to-day.

See an example in Lesson 2 slides.

Use rectangles to depict each system and arrows to depict data flows.

Label each rectangle and each arrow.

Use data entity names to label the data flows. List multiple data entities separated by a comma
if necessary – do not draw multiple arrows in the same direction between the same boxes.

If the flow of data between two systems is bi-directional, use two separate arrows, one for each
direction, and label each arrow.

When you work on this question, keep in mind the business problem you identified in Step 1 and
the data required to investigate and solve this problem. Reference the SOR and data entity
descriptions and ensure the context model is consistent with those descriptions and helps to
clarify how all systems of record work together to supply your company with data needed to run
the business.
You may create your diagram in any tool – PowerPoint, Google Drawings, Lucidchart (use blank
template) or any other tool of your group’s choice. Make sure you can export it as a picture e.g.
PNG or JPEG so that it can be inserted into your final report. It is also acceptable to draw the
diagram neatly on paper and take a clear sharp photo.
Week 6 steps:

Step 7. Data Preparation and Data Wrangling activities

Review your work completed for Steps 1-5. Now that you better understand your business data,
SORs, and analytics questions, think of data preparation and data wrangling activities you might
need to do (beyond gathering or acquisition of data).

Describe between 3-5 activities that you would have to undertake to ensure you have good data
to generate the analytics. You may choose from data cleansing, profiling, enriching,
transformation, or restructuring. Describe:
• What is the goal of each activity?
• What data will it impact? Use specific data entities as examples.
• Which system(s) will the data be coming from?
• What issues you anticipate and will address with these activities?

Please include some examples of records, fields, or sets of records that you would target and
how they might be transformed as a result of these activities.
For each data wrangling activity, provide two snapshots of data: before and after data
wrangling, and highlight the rows, columns or values that are impacted.

You may use any table format, e.g. work in Excel/Google Sheets and include “snips” into your
final report, or create tables directly in your report.

Please only use “mock” data – do not use any proprietary, private, or confidential data in
your examples.

Step 8. Revise data entities and SORs

As you work through the steps of the project, you may discover at any time that you have
missed something: an important data entity, an attribute or even a system of record. You may
also need to adjust or modify your analytics questions.
For example:
Review the data entities you have noted so far. Are there additional data entities that you have
discovered? If so, add them to your list.
Then, consider the SORs you have listed. Will they be sufficient to supply the data you will need
to answer these analytics questions? Can you think of additional systems of records?

If you discover any gaps, go back and update respective sections of your work to reflect new
findings, research and discussions. Your end goal should be the ability to answer stated
analytics questions. Your report should show a logical step-by-step plan of how to do that.

.
5. Assignment requirements – Part II (step 9–13)
Week 8-9 steps:

Step 9. BI architecture diagram

Create a simple BI architecture diagram to support your solution. All teams will be assuming
hub-and-spoke architecture to design their solution, with a single Enterprise Data Warehouse
(EDW) that may feed one or more data marts required for analytics purposes.

Follow the sample diagram from Lesson 8 for multiple BI tools and indicate which data marts will
feed which BI and analytics solutions.

Simple boxes and arrows are sufficient to depict SORs, EDW, data marts, BI and analytics
solutions.
Each box must be labelled. Give a descriptive name to each data mart and each BI solution that
reflects its purpose and content.

Step 10. BI and analytics solutions description

Describe each BI and analytics solution you propose to build:

• its style
• what analytics questions will it answer
• who will be the main users

You will work on steps 8-9 for two weeks using materials and concepts from Lessons 8 and 9.

Week 10 steps:

Step 11. Plan the analytics project

Assign project roles to each member of your team. You may assign the same role to more than
one person, and one person can perform more than one role.

Create a simple project plan for building the solution to the analytics problem defined in Step 1.

Your project plan must include:

• Scope statement (what is the project supposed to achieve). Ensure the scope is clear.
• Main business stakeholders – business users that will benefit from the solution. What is
the interest of each stakeholder? When you indicate internal stakeholders (employees),
be specific – name departments or groups within your company – what is the particular
interest of each stakeholder group? How will they benefit from the solution?
• Name of each project phase.
• List key tasks in each phase.
• For each task, indicate project role accountable for the task
Note: you do not need to include dates or estimated elapsed time in your project plan, however,
list the phases and tasks in a logical sequence. The tasks that must be completed earlier should
be listed earlier.

Week 11-12 steps:

Step 12. Legal and ethical concerns

Identify legal and ethical concerns that you must keep in mind when working on this analytics
project. What data will you need to protect and how you will do it? What legal or ethical risks do
you need to take into account? What strategies will you use to deal with them?

Step 13. Lessons learned

List at least 7 lessons that you learned while working collaboratively on this project.
Focus on the lessons related to working on a group assignment as a team.
What was the most difficult?
What were your collaboration challenges?
Which of these challenges do you expect to encounter in real business projects, and why?
6. Assessment criteria
1. Does the report provide a clear and specific overview of the business problem and goals
of analytics?

2. Does the report identify key systems of records and business entities relevant to the
business problem, with clear descriptions?

3. Does the report demonstrate a thorough understanding and application of the course
concepts when articulating analytics questions and decisions that will be made using the
insights produced by analytics?

4. Were data preparation and data wrangling activities clearly described and illustrated?

5. Do the SOR context model and BI architecture diagram provide an accurate

representation of the concepts proposed in the report?

6. Do the BI and analytics solutions descriptions reflect and explain how each solution will
help to answer analytics questions?

7. Does the project plan follow the outlined requirements and utilizes lesson material to
propose a feasible plan?

8. Have appropriate legal and ethical concerns been indicated and described?

9. Has the team considered interim instructor feedback and Part I grading comments to
improve on their work?

10. Were lessons learned specific and relevant to the assignment?

7. Assignment Rubric Part I
Criteria Accomplished
81 - 100%
Overall report Strong demonstration
content of in-depth understanding of
40% course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Thorough and insightful execution of
each assignment step.
Report Logical and clear structure of the
structure and report with appropriate linkages and
presentation consistent content.
10% Excellent use of definitions,
descriptions, examples, tables,
diagrams, and other tools to clearly
articulate the conclusions. All
abbreviations defined. No grammar
or punctuation issues.
Team meeting Team meetings held and team
notes meeting notes captured and posted
10% on time and according to all stated
requirements.
Individual Will be determined based on peer
contribution evaluation from team members.
40%
Competent
61 - 80%
Good demonstration
of the understanding of
course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Thorough execution of assignment
steps.
Good structure of the report with
mostly appropriate linkages and
consistent content.
Good use of definitions,
descriptions, examples, tables,
diagrams, and other tools to
articulate the conclusions,
abbreviations are defined. Minor
grammar or punctuation omissions.
Team meetings held and team
meeting notes captured and posted
mostly on time, satisfying stated
requirements.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.
Developing
51 – 60%
Satisfactory demonstration
of understanding of some course
concepts through application to the
selected business problem.
Satisfactory execution of assignment
steps with some omissions.
Satisfactory structure of the report
with some linkages and partially
consistent content.
Application of definitions, descriptions,
examples, tables, diagrams, and other
tools articulates the conclusions with
some omissions. Usage of
abbreviations without definition.
Grammar or punctuation omissions.
Team meetings held and team meeting
notes captured and posted mostly on
time, satisfying stated requirements,
with some omissions.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.
Novice
0-50%
Poor or no demonstration
of the understanding of
course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Limited or unsatisfactory execution of
the assignment steps.
Poor and unclear structure of the
report with lack of linkages and
inconsistent content.
Limited use of definitions, descriptions,
examples, tables, diagrams, and other
tools that does not sufficiently support
the conclusions. Using irrelevant and
out of context segments. Grammar and
punctuation omissions.
Limited, irregular team meetings, team
meeting notes poorly captured or not
posted.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.
8. Assignment Rubric Part II
Criteria Accomplished
81 - 100%
Overall report Strong demonstration
content of in-depth understanding of
40% course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Thorough and insightful execution of
each assignment step.
Report Logical and clear structure of the
structure and report with appropriate linkages and
presentation consistent content.
10% Excellent use of definitions,
descriptions, examples, tables,
diagrams, and other tools to clearly
articulate the conclusions. All
abbreviations defined. No grammar
or punctuation issues.
Team Findings and conclusions from the
presentation report clearly and articulately
20% demonstrated in the team
presentation.
Presentation had excellent flow and
seamless delivery, clearly
demonstrating excellent team
member collaboration.
Team meeting Team meetings held and team
notes meeting notes captured and posted
5% on time and according to all stated
requirements.
Lessons Insightful and relevant lessons
learned learned outlined in the report and
5% articulated in the presentation,
providing excellent overview of
specific learnings from the group
project.
Individual Will be determined based on peer
contribution evaluation from team members.
20%
Competent
61 - 80%
Good demonstration
of the understanding of
course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Thorough execution of assignment
steps.
Good structure of the report with
mostly appropriate linkages and
consistent content.
Good use of definitions,
descriptions, examples, tables,
diagrams, and other tools to
articulate the conclusions,
abbreviations are defined. Minor
grammar or punctuation omissions.
Findings and conclusions from the
report well articulated in the team
presentation.
Presentation had good flow and
well-planned delivery,
demonstrating good team member
collaboration.
Team meetings held and team
meeting notes captured and posted
mostly on time, satisfying stated
requirements.
Relevant and well stated lessons
learned outlined in the report and
articulated in the presentation,
providing a good overview of
specific learnings from the group
project.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.
Developing
51 – 60%
Satisfactory demonstration
of understanding of some course
concepts through application to the
selected business problem.
Satisfactory execution of assignment
steps with some omissions.
Satisfactory structure of the report
with some linkages and partially
consistent content.
Application of definitions, descriptions,
examples, tables, diagrams, and other
tools articulates the conclusions with
some omissions. Usage of
abbreviations without definition.
Grammar or punctuation omissions.
Findings and conclusions from the
report articulated in the team
presentation with some omissions.
Presentation had satisfactory flow and
delivery with minor omissions,
demonstrating evidence of team
member collaboration.
Team meetings held and team meeting
notes captured and posted mostly on
time, satisfying stated requirements,
with some omissions.
Satisfactory lessons learned outlined in
the report and articulated in the
presentation, providing some evidence
of specific learnings from the group
project.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.
Novice
0-50%
Poor or no demonstration
of the understanding of
course concepts through
application to the selected business
problem.
Limited or unsatisfactory execution of
the assignment steps.
Poor and unclear structure of the
report with lack of linkages and
inconsistent content.
Limited use of definitions, descriptions,
examples, tables, diagrams, and other
tools that does not sufficiently support
the conclusions. Using irrelevant and
out of context segments. Grammar and
punctuation omissions.
Team presentation was difficult to
follow and did not provide a
satisfactory overview of the project
results.
Presentation was poorly panned and
executed, demonstrating lack of team
member collaboration.
Limited, irregular team meetings, team
meeting notes poorly captured or not
posted.
Lessons learned poorly stated,
irrelevant, or generic, and do not
demonstrate specific learning from the
group project.
Will be determined based on peer
evaluation from team members.