The text for the course is Michael J. A. Berry and Gordon Linoff (2000), Mastering Data Mining, The Art and Science of Customer Relationship Management , John Wiley & Sons, New York, ISBN 0-471-33123-6.
This book is readily available at Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. so you should be able to purchase it if you are not now at DU. The course covers Data Mining without special emphasis on Customer Relationship Management. The title of the text is a bit misleading because the text is less focused on CRM than its title would lead one to expect.
Software for the course is XLMiner, an Excel Add-On obtained at URL http://www.resample.com/xlminer
This software is installed on the Computation Lab machines. There is no need to purchase it unless you want a personal copy.
The preassignment is to read Thomas H. Davenport, "Competing on Analytics," Harvard Business Review, January 2006, and these pages from the text: Pages 7--11, What is data mining, what can it do. Pages 16--18, 48--53, Data storage, sources, preparation. Pages 61--64, Assumptions of data mining.