How to Install
Tableau is available on macOS and Windows. The trail can be downloaded and installed on Tableau's trail page. Afterwards, you'll need a license.
Students
All students can get a 1-year free student license on Tableau's academic students page.
Faculty
Faculty can get course keys for themselves and their students at Tableau's teaching page. Please note that use of its free license is limited.
How to use
Tableau's "getting started" video is excellent. Watch it & your start up time will be shortened. While it is a point-and-click data visualization software, it is also a complex interface. More learning resources can be found under Resources > Learn Tableau on their website.
Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep
Tableau Desktop was originally designed to help business analysts quickly analyze a variety of data sets and make interactive visualizations and dashboards without having to spend too much time learning. However, all of the traits the software has that make it good for people in the industry with little training also make it ideal for giving students the tool they need to make attractive visualizations easily without having to dedicate too much class time for teaching software.
Tableau Prep is a newer product designed to help tidy data before it gets into Tableau.
Licensing Information
Students and Faculty are responsible for getting their own licence for Tableau. There are usage restrictions listed on their copyright and trademark page.
Note: Any data published on Tableau Public is public. Please do not work with any sensitive information (data in unpublished studies or private institutional data) on Tableau Public. Carleton does not have an institution-wide license for any Tableau product.