Excel instructor seeking good DEMO data sources

[micklebt]

Greetings all -

For some Excel courses I teach at the beginning and intermediate levels...

I am hoping to get some files with LARGE amounts of data to incorporate as teaching examples. Textbook data sets are usually woefully inadequate for instructing pivot table and database features in Excel (and Access).

Any help pointing me to online data sources, or if any of you folks are willing to share real data, would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Brian

 

[xenou]

Well, the Northwinds database is part of Access installations, I thought ...
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HA010546951033.aspx

Other schemas are available but you might need sql server express to create the databases (not sure):
http://www.codeplex.com/MSFTDBProdSamples/
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/express-starter-schemas.aspx

I've not seen other sample databases - though sometimes they "come" with certain books.

I'm not sure I find you argument convincing as to the need for large amounts of data. The presence of 10 records or 1,000 records probably doesn't change the way you perform a function, or alter the fundamental concepts - except insofar as large datasets make some solutions impractical.

ξ

 

[Norie]

Brian

Why not generate the data yourself?

It would probably only be a one time deal, mind you I've got to agree with xenou.

It's not the amount of data that's important it's how representative it is and how well it can be used to illustrate the functions/methods you want.