Introduction to Spreadsheets and Databases

Last Updated: Fall 2024

Offered during Fall and Spring Semesters each year.

1. Credits: 3 credit hours
2. Instructor's or course coordinator's name: Adisak Sukul, Ambrose Laing, and Wenting Xu
3. Textbook, title, author, and year: Available through Immediate Access
4. Other supplemental materials: Excel 2019, Access 2019

Course Information

1. Brief description of the content of the course: When students finish this course, they will have a thorough understanding of Microsoft spreadsheets and database software and in-depth hands-on experience with EXCEL and ACCESS projects. As a student in this course, you will embark on a comprehensive study of Microsoft Office EXCEL and ACCESS hands-on skills. Credit in Com S 113 may not be applied toward graduation in the COM S, S E, and CPR E majors.
2. Prerequisites or co-requisites: None

Specific goals for the course

Specific outcomes of instruction:

• Students will understand the most up-to-date Microsoft EXCEL and ACCESS database technologies frequently available on personal and corporate computers after completing this course.
• Students will also be able to deploy their understanding to store and query data and to model and analyze business and industrial problems.

Brief list of topics to be covered

• Use and create basic spreadsheets;
• Format a spreadsheet to augment the appearance and emphasize results;
• Use mathematical, statistical, logical, and lookup functions to perform quantitative analysis in a spreadsheet;
• Build applicable charts to depict data visually;
• Properly manage large spreadsheets;
• Execute What-If Analysis to examine how data variation affects outcomes in a spreadsheet;
• Summarize and analyze data utilizing subtotals and pivot tables;
• Import and export spreadsheet data;
• Design database tables, including creating proper table relationships;
• Find, sort, and filter database records;
• Perform queries to extract and update data in a database;
• Build and use professional database forms and reports;
• Implement proper data validation in a database.