In this assignment, you will perform a time series analysis in Tableau.

Unit 4 Assignment Time Series Page 1

Unit 4 Assignment: Time Series

In this assignment, you will perform a time series analysis in Tableau. You will choose a dataset to

analyze based on the requirements provided. Once you select your time series, you will build a forecast

to predict future trends. Next, you will tell a story using the story feature in Tableau. You will record a

video presentation outlining your findings. Finally, you write a one-paragraph summary. Provide the link

to your video and the one-page paragraph to your faculty. Submit the link in your Unit 4 Assignment

submission folder. You will be graded according to the rubric. You will also share this link with your

classmates for the discussion in the next unit. You will view other classmates' videos and provide

feedback in a discussion in the next unit.

The steps in this assignment will be:

1) Choose a time series data set from the provided links that fit the requirements.

2) Make your forecast to predict future trends using Tableau.

3) Create your story in Tableau.

4) Create and record your video presentation. 5) Write a one-paragraph summary.

Choose your Time Series

A time series is a series of data benchmarked to a particular point in time; for example, the closing price

of the stock of XYZ Corporation on December 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 would comprise a time series of five data

points.

Your time series should have the following characteristics:

1. It must span at least ten to twenty roughly equivalent time periods. A period may be a day, a

week, a year, or some other unit of measure that makes sense for what you are measuring.

2. It needs to leave room for you to make a prediction for some time period in the future based on

the available data in your time series. For example, if you choose the years 1910, 1911, 1912,

1913, and 1914 to measure cigarette smoking behavior in Americans, your future prediction

must be after this year. So, you would predict behavior for next year over a data gap that spans

almost 100 years. A more sensible choice of years for this would be 1930, 1950, 1970, 1990, and

2010, which leaves you plenty of room to predict for 2030.

3. It needs to have at least three other variables for your data. These must have occurred in the

same time frames but might be from different sources. In the example below, our main time

series is the stock's closing price, and the three additional variables were from other data

sources.

Year Stock closing

price

Variable 1 –

number of

employees

Variable 2 –

annual rainfall

Variable 3 –

number of

patents granted

1 $10 50 5 " 0

2 $15 100 7 " 0

3 $13 150 5.5" 10

Unit 4 Assignment Time Series Page 2

4 $21 103 8" 11

5 $25 115 5" 15

We have provided a link to potential data sources for this assignment in the classroom.

Make Your Forecast

• Review the learning resources in the classroom on time series and forecasts.

• Review Milligan Chapter 9 section on forecasting.

• Use the default forecast estimates in Tableau – don't try setting any options manually. You are

welcome to use whatever forecast (linear, log, exponential, seasonal) feels right to you for your

data set. Note the forecast type in your presentation – i.e., "I used a linear trendline…"

• Ensure to include confidence intervals (the little funnel-looking things out to the right.) They are

called 'estimates' in the forecasting methods video.

• Only use Tableau: do not use Excel, R, Python, or any other software to forecast.

• State your confidence in the forecast. It's perfectly acceptable to state, "Tableau is forecasting a

value of 100 for July. I have low confidence in this forecast because {state your reasons here.}"

Create your Story

Determine what the story in your data is. A good story has

• A narrative with a research question at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. Examples of

good narratives include, "Is the US crime rate really increasing?" or "What is happening to the

crab population in Maryland?"

• Each graphic will support some aspect of your story.

• Each aspect of the story will be one brief caption or sentence. This will go on the top of your

Story Point for your presentation.

• A good test of your narrative is to see if you can give it to somebody not taking this class. Do

they understand what you are claiming?

Key points to consider as you craft your story:

• Background of the data set – what motivated you to study this?

• Description of the time series and trends you see

• Any interactions or explanations from background factors? For example, if you are doing CO2

emissions, can you include average global temperatures to support or debunk global warming?

• Use annotations to elaborate on your story. (Milligan Chapter 7) Create your Presentation

• Using your research, create a visually appealing Tableau story presentation outlining your

findings.

• Read the learning resources provided on creating a story in Tableau.

• Make sure to include at least three (3) time series graphs. A time series graph has the time (such

as years) on the x-axis and the data you are graphing (such as world population) on the y-axis.

Unit 4 Assignment Time Series Page 3

Usually, these are line charts. Review the learning resources to find the best ways to display the

data.

• Include up to five graphs from Tableau best representing the research results. I will view Graphs

1 through 5, and Graph #6 will not be read or graded. You may have more than five slides (for

example, your introduction and bibliographic references). Just no more than five graphs.

• Each graph should have a reference number – for example, "Figure 1: {what you want to say

about Figure 1}."

• If you include three (3) time series graphs, that leaves room for two other graphs (say, a pie chart

and a bar chart.) That's a total of five graphs.

• Duration is up to 5 minutes long. (I will stop watching after 5 minutes.)

• This video needs to be a screen capture of yourself talking to us through your Story Points

presentation. You can use any screen capture software you like. We provided links to potential

software in the classroom. Be sure to use a microphone for good audio quality. (If you use a free

trial, it's fine if the free trial notation appears on your screen.)

• This video should NOT be o A PowerPoint

o A hand-held video of your computer screen, shot using your phone o

Anything shot using the webcam of your computer

• Your presentation should start with an introduction, which should contain o Your name

o The presentation titles o This class name and number and section (for

example, "DATA 625 9040, Fall 2024") o Your professor's name and the institution

name (for example, "Professor Carrie Beam,

UMGC.”)

▪ You can do this introduction using a separate slide you make through your video

production software. You can also do this using one large text box within a

Tableau slide.

• Your presentation should end with a references page, which should contain o A citation to the

source of your data (with the web link if applicable).

Write a One-paragraph Summary

• Write a one-paragraph (250 words or fewer) summary of your presentation.

• It needs to be an Executive Summary: if a busy reader only reads the first sentence, s/he should

know your results. Don't say, "We analyze trends of Beanie Baby purchases." Say instead,

"Beanie Baby purchases are trending upwards sharply, and we forecast sales of XXX for next

quarter."

• The best summaries contain a hook. Why should the reader continue to read the paragraph?

After reading the paragraph, why should the reader want to view your video?

Share your Video

• Upload your video to YouTube or create a public link through your screen capture software.

Make sure it is set so the link will work for your classmates and for me.

Unit 4 Assignment Time Series Page 4

• You will share this presentation with your classmates and publicly because you will be posting it

on YouTube. This can be excellent job exposure; several previous students have linked their

LinkedIn accounts to their presentations as an online resume.

• You will also be commenting on some of your classmates' presentations.

Submit your Deliverables

• You have two deliverables for this assignment (your one-paragraph summary and your video).

You will submit both deliverables in two places.

• First, submit both your one-paragraph summary writeup and the link to your video to the

Assignments Folder under Unit 4 Assignment.

• When you submit your one-paragraph writeup, paste its text into the submission box. Do not

attach a Word or .pdf document that we need to click on to open before we can read it.

Unit 5 Discussion

• In the Unit 5 Discussion, submit your one-paragraph summary writeup and the link to your video

to our class Discussion Forum for this assignment.

• When you have submitted your video, review two presentations from classmates. Do try to

spread your feedback around a bit; if somebody already has two reviews, try to review a

presentation which doesn't have much feedback yet.

Ideas for finding potential data sets for Unit 4 Assignment

• Stock price of your favorite company https://www.google.com/finance/?hl=en • Population estimates of cities or countries

https://www.census.gov/popclock/print.php?component=counter or https://databank.worldbank.org/source/population-estimates-and-projections

• Google Trends searches on keywords (https://support.google.com/trends/answer/4365538?hl=en)

• Health measures of items like the flu or longevity (https://data.cdc.gov/browse) • Some data set from your own company or life. You need to have permission from your employer.

If this is your personal data, please know your presentation will be publicly accessible. • Tableau has compiled a list of great publicly available data sets at

https://www.tableau.com/learn/articles/free-public-data-sets • The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a fascinating time

series available for just about any activity you could like, from watching TV to working. You can pull easily from a few top categories or select your own at https://www.bls.gov/tus/labstattips.htm#FF (scroll down till you get to Data Extraction Tools / Top Picks.)

• MovieLens https://old.datahub.io/dataset/movielens . This data set contains 10000054 ratings and 95580 tags applied to 10681 movies by 71567 users of the online movie recommender service MovieLens.

• Reddit's List of Data Sets https://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/ (this can get pretty wild!) • KD Nuggets' List of Governmental Data Sets https://www.kdnuggets.com/datasets/government-

local-public.html • And last, but not least, Awesome Public Datasets https://github.com/awesomedata/awesome-

public-datasets (yes, that's really its name … awesome!)

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