Data Visualization with Looker Studio & Free Tools Professional Certificate

This professional certificate course teaches you how to turn spreadsheet data into clear charts and simple dashboards using free tools: Google Sheets or LibreOffice Calc for preparing data and building charts, and the standard version of Looker Studio for interactive dashboards. It is written for staff and volunteers of small NGOs and community organisations, and for students, who need to present programme information honestly and clearly. No earlier experience with data is required.

The course has six modules and 23 written lessons. You will learn how to choose the right chart for a question, avoid misleading charts, prepare tidy data, use simple formulas and pivot tables, apply design and accessibility principles, connect a Google Sheet to Looker Studio, build scorecards, charts, filters and date ranges, tell a data story for a report or a donor update, and protect beneficiary data. All examples use fictional data labelled as illustrations. Menus and screens change between software versions, so you will learn ideas that you can apply to the equivalent options.

Each module ends with a quiz, and the course finishes with a 12-question final examination and a capstone project in which you build a one-page dashboard from a small fictional programme dataset. Activities can be done with pen and paper or with free tools, and several are designed for learners with limited devices and low bandwidth. Plan for about 20 hours at your own pace.

When you complete the course you receive a Bang Ti Lenydoor certificate of completion. It is not an accredited qualification, and the course does not promise jobs, income or funding. It aims to build practical skills that you can use in your own work and learning.