Business Intelligence, Analytics And Data Visualization: A Heat Map Project Tutorial

Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) initiatives are helping countless organizations harness and interpret the vast amount of information available in the world today. The explosion of BI&A in industry has fueled the high demand for knowledge workers with advanced analytical skills. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a data visualization project tutorial for Information Systems (IS) education. The applied BI&A tutorial was designed to help students learn how to create and analyze a heat map using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Students learn how to make decisions based on large amounts of data by presenting it in visual form. This tutorial exposes students to the decision-making power derived from data visualization. Utilizing the 5E Instructional Model, the tutorial assists in the development of BI&A professionals who can quickly make sense of mass amounts of data, identify trends buried within data sets, and are skilled in making sound decisions that add value to organizations.