Data Science for Business

We offer discounts to past participants of select Harvard Online courses, who can receive 30% off the Program Fee on their next qualifying Harvard Online course. We also offer discounts on select courses to learners who work in nonprofits, government, military, or education, or are U.S. veterans.

You can find more information on discounts and eligibility here.

New modules will be released on a regular schedule. You will set your own daily or weekly schedule and adjust it as necessary, but you’ll need to complete modules within a pre-set timeframe as there are critical elements that require the cohort to progress at a similar rate.

These courses cover different topics related to data and analytics and do so in different ways.

Data Science Principles introduces key concepts in data science—such as prediction, causality, visualization, data wrangling, privacy, and ethics—but does so without coding or mathematical application. The course is intended for organizational leaders and managers to be prepared to act on data analysis and to decide whether data science applications are appropriate tools for their businesses or organizations. The course is also well suited for business operations specialists to understand the building blocks of basic data visualization.

Data Science for Business moves beyond the spreadsheet and provides a hands-on approach for demystifying the data science ecosystem and making you a more conscientious consumer of information. Starting with the questions you need to ask when using data for decision-making, this course will help you know when to trust your data and how to interpret the results. By the end of the course, you should understand how to create a data-driven framework for your organization or yourself; develop hypotheses and insights from visualization; identify data mistakes or missing components; and speak the language of data science across themes such as forecasting, linear regressions, and machine learning to better lead your team to long-term success. You will learn how to create a compelling story that uses proven, collected data to make core business decisions, and explore coding environments such as R and visualization software.

Once you've earned your Certificate of Completion, list it on your resume along with the date of completion:

Harvard Online

Certificate in Data Science for Business

[Cohort Start Month and Year]

List your certificate on your LinkedIn profile under "Education" as follows:

School: Harvard Online

Dates Attended: [The year you participated in the program]

Degree: Other; Certificate in Data Science for Business

Field of Study: Leave blank

Grade: Complete

Activities and Societies: Leave blank

For the program description on LinkedIn, please use the following:

Data Science for Business is an online course that focuses on data-driven frameworks for decision-making and includes developing insights from visualizations, identifying data mistakes or missing components, and speaking the language of data science across themes such as forecasting, linear regressions, and machine learning.

After the final deadline in your course, our team reviews all participant coursework. Once this is review is complete, you’ll be notified of your final eligibility via email. Certificates and credentials are currently available as Certified Electronic Credential and printed formats. Your Certified Electronic Credential will be delivered to your email address after this review of coursework is complete. Your complementary printed certificate will be shipped via United States Postal Service (USPS) First Class Mail and may take eight weeks or more to arrive at its destination. No tracking information is available for certificate shipments.

Yes! This course is particularly good for those who aren’t data scientists, but who need to work with them as managers, decision-makers, or colleagues.

This course requires the completion of a brief application. If you are new to Harvard Online, you will be required to set up an account before starting an application for the program of your choice.

Our easy online application is free, and no special documentation is required. All applicants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.

After submitting your application, you should receive an email confirmation from HBS Online. If you do not receive this email, please check your junk email folders and double-check your account to make sure the application was successfully submitted.

Updates to your application and enrollment status will be shown on your Dashboard. We confirm enrollment eligibility within one week of your application.

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Participants are expected to fully complete all coursework in a thoughtful and timely manner. This will mean meeting each week’s course module deadlines and fully answering questions posed therein. This helps ensure participants proceed through the course at a similar pace and can take full advantage of social learning opportunities. In addition to module and assignment completion, we expect you to offer feedback on others’ reflections and contribute to conversations on the platform. Participants who fail to complete the course requirements will not receive a certificate and will not be eligible to retake the course.

More detailed information on course requirements will be communicated at the start of the course. No grades are assigned for Data Science for Business. Participation will either be evaluated as complete or incomplete.

This course is designed to work on an internet-connected desktop or notebook computer running either the Chrome or Firefox browser. Tablet computers and smartphones are not supported for programs on the course platform at this time. A broadband internet connection is highly recommended to access the rich media in the program.

The course platform allows you to engage with the content and watch the course videos with bandwidth of at least 750 Kbps download speed. At this speed, you may experience video buffering and some slowness. Videos can be viewed in HD, or "high" quality with a minimum recommended bandwidth of 2 Mbps download speed. Your browser performance will also affect your experience on the platform. To avoid browser-based issues and to ensure the best experience, we recommend that you update your browser to its latest version.

Upon successful completion of this program, participants will receive a hard copy of a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online, as well as a Certified Electronic Credential. Certificates are delivered by mail to your home address six to eight weeks after you have been notified of your certificate eligibility.

You will have access to the materials in every prior module as you progress through the program. Access to course materials and the course platform ends 60 days after the final deadline in the program.

Data Science for Business focuses primarily on concepts, but a basic understanding of algebra and statistics will be helpful. For example, understanding the mean, or the difference between ordinal and continuous variables will be relevant.