Report of the Three-Day Online Workshop on MS-EXCEL and Its Application in Economics

Organized by the Department of Economics and Department of Computer Science and Approved by IQAC, The Bhawanipur Education Society College

Convenors: Dr Ivy Das Gupta (Department of Economics), Ms Runa Ganguli (Department of Computer Science)

Online Platform: Google Meet Video Conferencing

Dates: 13th to 15th July, 2020, 3pm – 5pm

With an aim to introduce the undergraduate students of  Economics Honours to the various uses and functionalities of  the software MS-EXCEL, the Departments of Economics and Computer Science jointly organized a  Three-Day Online Workshop on MS-EXCEL and its Application in Economics  from July 13th to July 15th, 2020.   The Workshop was conducted with the intention to bridge the gap in computer knowledge and link it with the CBCS syllabus for undergraduate Economics of University of Calcutta for Semesters 3 to 6.  The resource materials were shared with the students by the concerned faculty on the preceding days of their lecture over Telegram online group for their easy reference. On each day, two faculty members of the Department of Computer Science conducted classes over Google Meet Video Conferencing from 3pm to 5pm.

Day 1: 13.07.2020 Monday 3pm – 5pm – Convenor, Dr Ivy Das Gupta initiated the workshop at 3pm with a welcome address. The Workshop was inaugurated by Teacher-in-Charge, Dr Suchandra Chakravarty who highlighted the need for the workshop and appreciated the faculty of both the departments of Economics and Computer Science for undertaking this joint venture for the benefit of the students.

Video Day 1

The first session on Day 1 was conducted by Ms Priyanka Banerjee, faculty of Computer Science Department. Beginning with a brief introduction of MS-EXCEL and its importance in data handling, Ms Banerjee introduced the use of simple functions like sum, average, product, division, max, min, text functions and various ways of formatting the entered data,  explaining lucidly with the help of the dataset she had shared with the students last day.

The next session on Day 1 was taken by Ms Shawni Dutta, who extended the discussion on the use of standard operators like AVERAGEIF, COUNTIF, and mathematical and statistical functions, which helped work out a number of problems from the data set. She also taught the various paste special techniques that are available with EXCEL.

Day 2: 14.07.2020 Tuesday 3pm – 5pm – The first session on Day 2 was taken up by Mr Akash Mehta who elaborately explained with examples the use of logical functions, array functions and date and time functions. His session was followed by the lecture of Mr Sanjib Halder who taught the various ways of sorting and filtering large data sets and also the working of the lookup functions. Real life examples of predesigning templates for cash memos in shops, searching patient’s identity from hospital records using mobile numbers, made the lectures very interesting. The students were highly benefitted by both the lectures which formed the prerequisite to handling of big data.

Video: Day 2

Day 3: 13.07.2020 Wednesday 3pm – 5pm – The third and final day started with the lecture of Ms Runa Ganguli who lucidly explained the various uses of Data Validation and Pivot Tables in EXCEL. The last session was conducted by Mr Utsab Mukherjee who took up the topics of creating charts and slicers, how to protect an excel worksheet and also the various tools of data analysis in EXCEL.

Video Day 3

On conclusion of the lecture of Mr Utsab Mukherjee, Dr Ivy Das Gupta shared the google form link for the Quiz on MS-EXCEL with the students who were allotted a time of 30 minutes to submit the answers. Soon after, the answers were evaluated, and the students were intimated their secured marks. Also, the link for the feedback form was shared with the participants. The e-certificates were distributed to them within a couple of days.

The concluding speech on Day 3 was deliberated by Dr Samir Kanti Dutta, Vice Principal (Sc), who expressed appreciation for the faculty of both the departments of Economics and Computer Science for this joint venture solely meant for the benefit of the students.

Thus ended the Three-Day Online Workshop on MS-EXCEL and its Application in Economics, with immensely positive feedback. It served its prime objective to introduce and expose the undergraduate Economics Honours students to those tools of MS-EXCEL that are necessary for data handling, data entry and data analysis in the field of Economics in future.

Glimpses of the Three-Day Online Workshop on MS-EXCEL and Its Application in Economics

Organized by the Department of Economics and Department of Computer Science and Approved by IQAC, The Bhawanipur Education Society College on 13th to 15th July, 2020