Pre-Skills Requirements for BUSI 630

To: First Year Students, Part-Time MBA Program

From: Dr. Shreevardhan Lele, Faculty Coordinator for BUSI 630: Data, Models and Decisions

Re: Pre-Skills Courses

Date: November 3, 2014

 

BUSI 630: Data, Models and Decisions (or DMD) is one of your required courses for Spring 2015.  This critically important course covers analytical tools and models for managerial decisions that are used extensively in managerial practice as well as in other subsequent courses in the Smith MBA curriculum.  As a part of DMD, you are required to take two online courses from Harvard Business Publishing titled Quantitative Methods (or QM) and Spreadsheet Modeling (or SM).

QM covers topics in probability, statistics and decision analysis that will be subsequently used in DMD.  Your performance in QM accounts for 5% of your grade for DMD.  SM covers advanced topics in spreadsheet analysis and modeling skills that are used (but not explicitly “taught”) in DMD.  Your performance in SM accounts for 5% of your grade for DMD. 

The rest of this memo explains QM and SM in further detail and includes instructions for taking these courses.

What is QM?

Quantitative Methods is an online course covering topics in probability, statistics and decision analysis.  The course is highly interactive and facilitates active student learning.  It is used in many MBA and Executive MBA programs either as a complement to regular coursework or as a substitute for regular coursework.  At Harvard Business School, all entering MBA students are required to take QM before starting their regular coursework.

The course consists of eight units covering the following topics:

  • Unit 1: Overview and Introduction 
  • Unit 2: Data Description
  • Unit 3: Sampling and Estimation
  • Unit 4: Hypothesis Testing
  • Unit 5: Regression Basics
  • Unit 6: Multiple Regression
  • Unit 7: Decision Analysis I
  • Unit 8: Decision Analysis II

How Does the Smith School Use QM?

Most of our entering MBA students have taken some kind of a statistics course previously; some may not have had any exposure to statistics at all.  By requiring QM of all our students, we create not only a level playing field, but also a higher playing field for our core course Data, Models and Decisions.  While some of the topics in covered in QM will be re-visited in DMD, it will be understood that every student in class has already encountered these topics in QM.  This allows DMD to focus more on the managerial issues in applying these tools. 

How is QM Different from MathCamp?

Some of you may have attended MathCamp before the start of the Fall 2014. MathCamp and QM are very different programs:

  • MathCamp is an optional program, although it is strongly recommended for anyone whose math skills are even slightly rusty.  QM is a required program for all students.
  • There is no overlap of topics between MathCamp and QM.  MathCamp covers basic business math.  On the other hand, QM is explicitly about managerial decision-making.
  • Topics covered in MathCamp are subsequently used in numerous courses in finance, business analytics, marketing, operations management and managerial economics.  On the other hand, QM is a part of one specific MBA core course, Data, Models and Decisions.

What is SM?

Spreadsheet Modeling is an online course covering basic to advanced skills in spreadsheet analysis and modeling.  Topics in this course include:

  • Relative and absolute addressing; named cell ranges; referencing by names
  • Excel functions: math, statistical, financial, logical, lookup and reference functions
  • Pivot tables and pivot charts
  • One-way and two-way data tables
  • Goal seek
  • Auditing spreadsheets; error trapping; evaluate-formula feature
  • Optimization using Excel Solver; configuring Solver
  • Three-dimensional formulas and the Table feature
  • Monte Carlo simulation

How does the Smith School Use SM?

Most of our entering MBA students have basic familiarity with Excel spreadsheets.  The DMD core course requires the use of fairly advanced spreadsheet skills such as those listed above.  However, the focus in DMD is not on software issues, but instead, on the analytical aspects of modeling the business decision and the managerial implications.  SM offers a way for all students to familiarize themselves with the spreadsheet software features that will be subsequently used in DMD. 

 

Taking QM and SM

Study Time Required

Go through the various units making sure that you constructively use the active learning method that is the basis of these online courses.  Your faculty instructor for DMD will be able to monitor your progress through the various parts of the course.

According to Harvard Business Publishing, it typically takes 20 to 25 hours to complete QM.  However, in my experience, students with little prior exposure to statistics have reported taking as many as 50 hours.

Harvard Business Publishing estimates that advanced Excel users will take 10 to 12 hours to complete Spreadsheet Modeling, while beginning users will take 17 to 20 hours.  In my experience, most students need 20 hours or more.

You are urged to register for QM and SM and begin studying the course material as soon as possible.  Past experience indicates that many students significantly underestimate the time and effort needed to complete these courses.

 

Performance and Due Date

QM has one Pre-Test and two Post-Tests.  SM has one Pre-Test and one Final Exam.  Your performance in the Pre-Tests is not counted toward your DMD grade. 

Your performance in QM’s Post-Test 1 accounts for 5% of your grade for DMD, while your performance in SM’s Final Exam accounts for another 5% of your grade for DMD. 

The deadline for taking QM’s Post-Test 1 and SM’s Final Exam is 6:00 PM on Sunday, January 25, 2015.

You will have only one chance to take Post-Test 1 in QM and the Final Exam in SM. 

Do NOT take Post-Test 2 in QM until you have been specifically asked to do so by your DMD faculty instructor.

  

Academic Integrity

You will be taking QM, SM and DMD under the University of Maryland’s Code of Academic Integrity (see http://www.shc.umd.edu/ for details).  Any violation of this code, such as receiving help from another individual in taking a Test, will result in an automatic “XF” on your transcript with the notation “failure due to academic dishonesty”.

  

For Technical Help

Please call the Harvard Business Publishing Technical Support Group at 800-810-8858 (outside U.S. and Canada, call 617-783-7700); or email techhelp@hbsp.harvard.edu. 

Instructions for Purchasing Harvard Business School Publishing’s Online Courses

HBSP’s online courses are to be purchased online using your credit card. 

Payment: Individually by student directly to HBSP. You will receive the Smith discounted price of $33.00 for the Spreadsheet Modeling course and $45.00 for Quantitative Methods course. 

HBSP online courses are internet-based and cannot be accessed off-line. You can use different computers to access the course as long as each computer satisfies the following requirements:

  • Computer with minimum 1024x768 screen resolution
  • High speed internet connection (DSL / cable modem quality)
  • Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 / Macintosh OS 10.x operating systems
  • Firefox 3.6+ / Safari 4+ / Chrome web browsers with JavaScript and cookies enabled. (Note: Internet Explorer is not recommended for students using Online Courses or Tutorials. Please use one of the other supported browsers instead.)
  • Microsoft Excel 2003 or higher is recommended for QM and is required for SM.