B10 - Self-Study Materials

We suggest you try to work through the numbered exercises below in order (1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.2.1...). In addition to the material set out below, we suggest trying these on-line courses offered through the library. Access to these tools is fairly limited (to 20 concurrent users), but they are well worth taking a look at if you are just beginning to learn these tools. If you prefer a book, a very good textbook to accompany this on-line set of tutorials is “Business Productivity Tools”, Second Edition. Mike Splane, 2008, Kendall Hunt. ISBN # 978-0-7575-5879-5.

The links below will take you to a variety of self-study material including some ‘hands-on’ exercises in which you can put what you learn into use. The collaboration lab (BBC 304) on the third floor of the classroom building is open from 7am to 10pm and is a good place to go if you don’t have Microsoft Office. If you get stuck and need some help, try the Tutorial Center. Should you need help, Li HuiXin will be there on Wednesday mornings from 10:30-11:45 to assist you with any MS Office related problems you may have.

You will need to be able to open PDF files. In Linux and OSX, software comes with the operating system to do this; in Windows you may need to install Acrobat Reader (it's free) from this URL.

Which software program to use?

The most widely installed set of business productivity tools is Microsoft Office. The most recent version was released in 2010, but the 2007 version, the version installed on all the College of Business computers, is very similar in terms of function and the look and feel of the user interface (UI). This training module has been tailored towards Office 2007 because it is on all of the college computers. However, you can achieve the same results using older versions of MS Office like Office 2003, or if you have Mac Office 2010 or Office 2008 for Mac.

If you don’t want to use MS Office, you can use OpenOffice, an open source project started by Sun and now looked after by the Apache Foundation. It runs on all three major operating system (Windows, OSX and Linux), is free, and can be downloaded here.

For what we will be doing here it is identical in terms of spreadsheet and document functionality to MS Office. However, because of differences in the programming language ‘behind the scenes’ the self assessment tools will only run on Windows machines. You can do the formatting in Linux or on the Mac using either OpenOffice or MS Office, but the scoring button which lets you know how you are doing won’t work.

Opening the links to the self assessment exercises

Sometimes computers ‘forget’ things, like which program to use to open a particular type of file. If you click on a link to one of the exercises and it doesn't open into Excel (or Word), try right clicking on the link and taking the ‘Save Link As’ option from the context menu. Remember where you saved it, open Excel (or Word), choose File->Open from the menu, navigate to the folder in which you saved the file, and open it that way.

Module # Topic Readings / Tutorials / Activities / Exercises
Section 1 - Microsoft Excel
1.1 Cells, sheets, references, and formatting Reading 1.1.1: An Introduction to Excel 2007, by Patricia Kwan

Tutorial 1.1.2: Get to know Excel 2007: Create your first workbook *

Tutorial 1.1.3: Formatting cells, by Ted French
Self-assessment exercise† An exercise on formatting a worksheet:
Excel 2007, Excel 2003, OpenOffice

This exercise should take no more than 15 minutes.

NOTE: you will need to have macros enabled for the scoring to work.

An image of what your finished sheet should look like in Excel 2007, Excel 2003 or OpenOffice

1.2 Mathematical operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing) Reading 1.2.1: Writing Simple Formulas, by Patricia Kwan

Tutorial 1.2.2: Get to know Excel 2007: Enter formulas *

Tutorial 1.2.3: Basic Formulas, by Ted French
Self-assessment exercise† An exercise on Excel formulae:
Excel 2007, Excel 2003, OpenOffice

This exercise should take no more than 15 to 20 minutes.

NOTE: you will need to have macros enabled for the scoring to work.

An image of what your finished sheet should look like in Excel 2007, Excel 2003 or OpenOffice

1.3 Visualizing data with charts Reading 1.3.1: Only 4-clicks to Create a Chart, by Patricia Kwan

Tutorial 1.3.2 Charts: How to create a chart in Excel 2007 *

Tutorial 1.3.3: Excel Pie Charts, by Ted French

Tutorial 1.3.4: Excel Line Graph, by Ted French

Tutorial 1.3.5: Excel Column Charts, by Ted French
Self-assessment exercise† An exercise on creating charts in a worksheet:
Excel 2007, Excel 2003, OpenOffice

This exercise should take no more than 20 minutes.

NOTE: you will need to have macros enabled for the scoring to work.

An image of what your finished sheet should look like in Excel 2007, Excel 2003 or OpenOffice.

Section 2 - Microsoft Word
2.1 Basic document formatting Tutorial 2.1.1: Get to know Word 2007 I: Create your first document *

Tutorial 2.1.2: Get to know Word 2007 II: Edit text and revise your documents *

Tutorial 2.1.3: Get to know Word 2007 III: Make documents look great *

Self-assessment exercise† An exercise on formatting a Word document:
Word 2007, Word 2003, Open Office

This exercise should take about 30 to 45 minutes.

NOTE: you will need to have macros enabled for the scoring to work.

A PDF of what your finished document should look like

Section 3 - Microsoft PowerPoint
3.1 How to design an effective presentation Reading 3.1.1: Planning to Create a Good Presentation

Slides 3.1.2: Some Do's and Dont's

Tutorial 3.1.3: Tips for creating and delivering an effective presentation
3.2 Using the software to create a presentation Tutorial 3.2.1: Create your first presentation

Tutorial 3.2.2: Create and print handouts

Tutorial 3.2.3: Demo: Preview and review a presentation

The Business Productivity Tools Assessment test

The seven links below will take you to the Business Productivity Tools Assessment test.

You must be logged into D2L for these links to take you directly to the test. If you aren't you will be asked to log in and will then be dropped unceremoniously onto the D2L landing page. Of course, you can navigate to the D2L Dropbox from there but logging in first should be easier.

Section 1 - Professor Roy Blitzer, Wednesday 18:00-20:45
Section 2 - Professor David Gilliss, Tuesday/Thuresday 13:30-14:45
Section 3 - Professor Richard Kepple, Tuesday/Thursday 10:30-11:45
Section 4 - Professor David Gilliss, Monday/Wednasday
Section 5 - Professor Richard Kepple, Tuesday/Thursday 09:00-10:15
Section 6 - Professor David Gilliss, Monday/Wednasday 09:00-10:15
Section 7 - Professor Richard Kepple, Monday/Wednesday 12:00-13:15
Notes
† The scores from the self-assessment exercises are NOT recorded. They are indented only to give you feedback on your own learning and are not part of the skills assessment. You will still need to complete the on-line take home exam to demonstrate your familarity with these tools.
* These tutorials are provided by Microsoft and unfortunately the audio commentary sometimes doesn’t run properly, particularly on computers not running Windows or Internet Explorer. However, since they have a written version of the explanations, this is not a show stopper.
If you have any difficulty opening any of the self assessment documents please skype simonrodan or call on 408 418 8457.