Announcing new Tableau Data Literacy curriculum for higher education

Working with data is a necessity for most jobs, and analytical skills can be a huge differentiator for success across all kinds of work—whether corporate, nonprofit, or academic. In my many years as a scientist, I mentored trainees in data analysis and witnessed frustration, anxiety, and even productivity loss in students who lacked foundational data skills. Without closing the data skills gap, these challenges would continue into their professional lives.

Those experiences not only informed my teaching, but it became a personal passion to bring foundational data skills to all. That’s why I was thrilled to join the Tableau Academic team, which understands the importance of bringing these data literacy skills to students. We define data literacy as “the ability to explore, understand, and communicate with data.” And we recognize that instructors need data literacy curricula that are accessible, engaging, and easy to use. 

Today, I’m excited to announce our Data Literacy Two course curriculum, available to academic faculty for free! This course follows Data Literacy One, which we released in February 2020. I designed these courses to help teachers and academics foster the next data-native generation by furthering students’ data skills in the classroom. These curricula augment our existing Tableau courses that cover additional topics, including data journalism and using Tableau Online in the classroom.

These two data literacy courses aim to provide foundational knowledge to students so they can understand, explore, and effectively visualize and communicate with data. These courses can serve as prerequisites for a variety of analytics, research methods, or data science curricula.

Both courses are designed to cover a typical ten-week course (one quarter) at an accredited university. Lecture slides, homework assignments, discussion board activities, Tableau demos, and test banks are included—instructors need only tailor the content to their class, as they like.

Data Literacy One focuses on the fundamentals of data, including variable types, how to structure data, how to summarize data, and an introduction of data visualization. Students will learn how to critically analyze data through theoretical and practical exercises. This course covers:

• The meaning of data literacy
• Proficiency in quantitative skills 
• Knowledge of basic statistical concepts
• Developing critical thinking competency
• Learning how to communicate with data 
• Introductory experience with Tableau

Data Literacy Two focuses on how to present data in a meaningful way to communicate information effectively. Visualization and design best practices are covered extensively in this course with opportunities to test the students’ learnings throughout. This course covers:

• Design principles
• Visualization best practices and methods
• Chart building skills and competencies
• Making visual comparisons using data
• Communicating with interactive stories
• Additional experience using Tableau
   

Get started with Tableau data literacy curricula today

Tableau Academic Programs have proudly provided free Tableau licenses to more than 1.5 million students and instructors around the world, leading the charge to improve data literacy among future generations.

If you’re an instructor at an accredited institution, visit the Tableau for Teaching page to request a free Tableau license and join our community user group to gain access to our curricula.

In addition to your free license, instructors and students get full access to Tableau eLearning—great for supplementing your data literacy course and for remote or self-paced learning. Finally, you’ve got the Tableau Community—the largest, most diverse data community in the world—offering unparalleled support at every step along your analytics journey.

For corporate trainers, a great place to start is with our free program, Data Literacy for All, which offers more than five hours of foundational data skills content based on the Data Literacy One curriculum. You can also check our eLearning and instructor-led training.
 

Prior to joining Tableau, Sue Kraemer taught Statistics and Data Visualization courses at University of Washington Bothell (UWB) and currently remains an Affiliate Faculty member in the Division of Nursing and Health Studies at UWB.