Software Platforms and Services You Will Be Using

The MS Information Systems program is a 50%/50% balance between hands-on experiential learning and
business strategy development. The program cultivates an understanding of why and how technology is
changing every aspect of business coupled with direct experience working within software coding to build
information systems and extract meaningful insights from the data they produce.

The hands-on code-level work in this program changes from year to year so that the packages used remain
highly relevant to the changing expectations of employers. Careers that Smith students will move into at
graduation will increasingly require direct knowledge of specific software, frameworks, platforms and
application development methodologies. This is a guide to help you prepare ahead of the academic crunch for
what you will need to know.

This guide has three sections:

1. The Very Basics - Must Know Coding Skills that you will 100% need to have to contribute to the team
project assignments
2. Good to Know for Project Presentations. Software skills that will improve the quality and
professionalism of your project output.
3. Must Prepare In Advance - gaining familiarity with complex, advanced systems that are difficult to
learn. The most valuable and marketable hands-on skills you will develop in this program take time to
learn. Students are well advised to get an early start on gaining familiarity with the relevant tools and
systems before the crunch of coursework and job interviews begins.

The Very Basics - Must Know Coding Skills

Step 1: Go to http://lyndatraining.umd.edu/ and sign in with your UMD Directory ID
Lyndatraining will have resources for you on All of these topics. You must log into Lynda
through UMD in order to get access to the free unlimited tutorials. Below are other options to try
if Lynda is not working for you.

SQL - Basics
SQL Knowledge is foundational and a very basic component of all data analytics performed in this program.

SQL: Lynda.com
● https://www.lynda.com/SQL-tutorials/Learning-SQL-Programming/548044-2.html
● https://www.lynda.com/SQL-tutorials/SQL-Essential-Training/139988-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3asql%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance
%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2
● https://www.lynda.com/SQL-tutorials/SQL-Data-Reporting-Analysis/529631-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a2%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3asql%0apage%3a3%0as%3arelevance
%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2
SQL: W3Schools
 ● https://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp
SQL: Khan Academy
● https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/sql
A way to test your knowledge by going through challenges
● https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/sql/select

Python
Python experience is increasingly preferred by employers who are hiring consultants, technology analysts,
business analysts and data analysts out of graduate and undergraduate programs. It is becoming a core skill
requirement in more of our academic programming as a result.

If you have not had experience using Python before, you should familiarize yourself with the basics of Python
language and syntax, and also familiarize yourself with database interactions using Python.

1. Python tutorial in Lynda.com https://www.lynda.com/search?q=python&f=level%3a1%5eBeginner

2. Python Overview https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/
3. Python Basics @ LearnPython https://www.learnpython.org/en/Welcome
4. Python Install and Exercises using Datasets here

Django
Many of your project assignments will require building a web-enabled application that reads and writes data
from a data source. Django is a tool within Python to make the application development process simpler
because of its built-in functions. You will want to be able to work with code on your system in Django. To learn
the basics and get started, begin here: https://www.djangoproject.com/start/

Good to Know for Project Presentations

Tableau
Tableau is very useful for visualizing data in executive dashboards. It is a tool many Smith graduates use
frequently in their project work and immediately on the job once they graduate. To learn the basics of Tableau
go here: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/tableau/

Tableau: Lynda.com
● https://www.lynda.com/Tableau-tutorials/Tableau-10-Essential-Training/500540-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3atableau%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelev
ance%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2

One year free trial for students (can sign up with personal emails)
 ● https://www.tableau.com/academic/students
Official Tableau tutorials
● https://www.tableau.com/learn/training

Bootstrap
Many teams use Bootstrap in the development of live, web-enabled and interactive presentations of their work.
To become familiar with Bootstrap ahead of your projects a great place to start is here:
https://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/default.asp and to see a video explaining what Bootstrap can do for your
projects go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJlKos0gePQ

Try learning bootstrap here https://www.lynda.com/Bootstrap-tutorials/Bootstrap-4-Essential-Training/372545-

2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3abootstrap%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%
3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2

Javascript
Students will use Javascript in project work where live, working examples of systems developed are
demonstrated. Javascript is easy to learn and a great place to start is here:
https://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

Lynda.com Javascript training: https://www.lynda.com/JavaScript-tutorials/JavaScript-Essential-

Training/574716-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3ajavascript%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%
3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2

Must Prepare in Advance - Highly Marketable Skills You Will

Want
The following links provide online resources to practice working with software used in the MSIS program.
These are specific tools and technologies that employers who recruit MS Information Systems students are
expecting you to have experience working with. These systems take time to learn well enough to claim any
proficiency with. Investing time learning ahead of specific course assignments is highly recommended.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS and other processing platform experience is becoming increasingly necessary in jobs coming out of
graduate degree programs. As such, course content will include project work and in class assignments using
services like AWS to perform data analysis functions.
If you do not have experience working with AWS, you should familiarize yourself with setting up an AWS
account and running some basic data services on the platform.

1. Set up an AWS account here.

2. Try this tutorial on setting up a boto library using Python here.
3. Try this tutorial to run Spark and SparkSQL on Amazon Elastic MapReduce here.

R and RStudio
R is extremely powerful, but also has the reputation of being difficult to learn. Many of the jobs you may be
interested in pursuing upon graduation will expect experience using R for statistical analysis.

If you have not used it before, you should familiarize yourself with the software and the basic functions in
advance of classes. You will be expected to jump into performing statistical modeling and analysis very early in
the Data Mining course. Start with the Lynda.com R Course https://go.umd.edu/MSMA-R (link is external)

RECOMMENDED TEXT and Course Preparation:

Introduction to Statistical Learning with Applications in R, by James, Witten, Hastie and Tibshirani, Springer,
2013. [ISL] o website: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/

1. Download R to your computer.

R can be downloaded from one of the CRAN mirror sites listed at http://www.r-project.org/ (for
instance, you could choose http://watson.nci.nih.gov/cran_mirror/).
2. Download and install RStudio from http://www.rstudio.com/.
3. Download A FREE PDF copy of the text here
4. Download Datasets for the Introduction to R exercises here
5. Download the R Code for lab exercises here
6. Read Chapter 2 - especially 2.3 Introduction to R and 2.4 Exercises
○ 2.3.1 Basic Commands
2.3.2 Graphics
2.3.3 Indexing Data
2.3.4 Loading Data
2.3.5 Additional Graphical and Numerical Summaries
2.4 Exercises
7. Forecasting: Principles and Practice, by Hyndman and Athanasopoulos, 2012. [FPP] o This is an
open-access text available from: https://www.otexts.org/fpp.

R: Lynda.com
● https://www.lynda.com/R-tutorials/Up-Running-R/120612-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aR%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%
0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2
R: EDX courses (free online tutorials; students can pay for certificates)
● https://www.edx.org/course/foundations-data-analysis-part-1-utaustinx-ut-7-11x-0
● https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-r-data-science-microsoft-dat204x-
4https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/r/
An introduction to R notes
● https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-intro.html

2011 R Cookbook (more in depth; textbook pdf)

● https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9kjG65nUzfMWXRiV2s0TF9HLXc/view?usp=sharing

Big Data Tools

Coursework throughout the program will provide opportunities to apply statistical modeling techniques and
perform marketing analytics functions on large datasets. The Big Data Analytics course specifically uses these
tools in a hands-on manner in which all students will install Hadoop, Hbase, Hive, Mahout Spark, then grab
datasets from Social Media and other datasets. It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with
downloading and installing these tools.
Hadoop: Lynda.com
● https://www.lynda.com/search?q=hadoop&f=level%3a1%5eBeginner
MapReduce: Lynda.com
● https://www.lynda.com/search?q=mapreduce

Download and Install Big Data Tools:

1. Apache Hadoop Online Documentation: http://hadoop.apache.org/docs/current/
2. Apache Hbase: http://hbase.apache.org/
3. Apache Hive: http://hive.apache.org/
4. Apache Mahout - Scalable Machine Learning Library: http://mahout.apache.org/
5. Apache Spark: https://spark.apache.org/

Try This Tutorial: Simple WordCount Tutorial using Hadoop MapReduce https://dzone.com/articles/word-
count-hello-word-program-in-mapreduce

Other Useful Big Data Resources:

● Deep Learning: http://deeplearning4j.org/
● Stanford Large Network Dataset Collection: http://snap.stanford.edu/data/
● Some Time Series Data Collections: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~liu32/data.htm
● Mahout Testing Data: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAHOUT/Collections
● Collecting Online Data (Facebook Graph API and Twitter Stream API)
○ Facebook Graph API
○ Twitter Stream API
○ Quandl: financial, economic and social datasets
○ http://kevinchai.net/datasets
● Big Data Project Challenges
○ Kaggle: http://www.kaggle.com/competitions