[AISWorld] your ideas for a 'data scientist' course

Wed Oct 24 17:56:36 EDT 2012

Thank you both for the links!
If I may clarify a bit, the title "data scientist" is one I've just noticed popping up in industry over the past six months or so.  These people might have been previously called BI analysts or something similar.  The new title reflects a growing emphasis on the use of data and models to theorize and argue about business problems.  Employers have identified this as a weak area in many technical graduates: they can analyze data but don't understand how it relates to the business. Therefore, rather than teach a course specifically on infographics or data mining algorithms, I'd like to mix some of the technical skills with a bit of economics/finance and a dash of logic/rhetoric so that students learn to (1) explore and analyze some data evidence, (2) connect it to business consequences via a model, and (3) make an evidence-based case for or against a decision or strategy.  At least, that's my idea.

// joseph w. clark , phd , visiting research associate
\\ university of nebraska at omaha - college of IS&T
 Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:17:56 -0400
From: giles at ist.psu.edu
To: aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
Subject: Re: [AISWorld] your ideas for a 'data scientist' course

    I believe this is what Joseph is referring to:

    http://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century/ar/1
    Courses in this area are sometimes listed under the phrase "big
    data". Sloan already

    has an executive education course:

    http://executive.mit.edu/openenrollment/program/big_data_making_complex_things_simpler/49

    Several I schools have already such courses or will offer them soon.
    Here's one

    at Berkeley

    http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/courses/290-abdt

    Hope this helps. 

    Best

    Lee Giles

    On 10/24/12 3:47 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote:

      Hi Joseph,

I have not heard of that name before but certainly, the topics are well covered already. The course description you provide is one that we already deliver under the Bachelor of Computing and Information Sciences (BCIS). This is the principal undergraduate degree for our school. All the topics you listed are covered in the various papers that are offered by our school. In particular, the  Bachelor in Mathematical Sciences (BMathSc) and a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in applied mathematics are where students can specialise more closely, mathematically and statistically.

I am not certain this would be an effective programme of study for MIS students. As it is, the range of subjects is sufficient to warrant majors in these degrees. I would doubt that an undergraduate programme of study could incorporate such a diverse range of topics as an adjunct for business students doing an MIS degree.

Please refer to our academic calendar for regulations and paper listings: Academic Calendar 2012<http://www.aut.ac.nz/_media/intranet/pdfs/services--and--operations/academic-quality-office/academic-calendar-2012/Academic-Calendar-2012-Final.pdf>
BCIS p351
BMathSc p414
BSc p422

Kind regards
Alan Litchfield
--
Dr Alan T Litchfield
Programme Leader, Masters in Services Oriented Computing
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies
Auckland University of Technology
http://www.aut.ac.nz/cms/
Ph +649 921 9999 x5217

On 24/10/12 7:39 AM, "Joseph Clark" <joeclark77 at hotmail.com<mailto:joeclark77 at hotmail.com>> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,
I'm currently trying to develop a course to equip our MIS undergraduate students for careers as "data scientists" (this is the fashionable new title that business intelligence analysts have lately been adopting) and I'd like to ask for your input.  I envision a course that will teach the students to be problem-solvers with data, to employ data visualization and statistics purposefully and to identify business value.  The course will  give the students some technical skills (e.g. R programming) without being strictly a technology course, and I'd like them to leave with a completed analytical project they can show off and add to their professional portfolio.  It might include special topics like GIS or big data analytics.

This would complement a standard course on business intelligence which covers the infrastructure supporting analysis (ETL, data warehousing, dashboards, etc) and some more technical courses (statistics, data mining, computer science), and should not replace or overlap too much with these others.

Do any of you have experience teaching this type of class, especially at the undergraduate level?  I would appreciate recommendations for syllabi, textbooks, assignments, or course-long projects.

// joseph w. clark , phd , visiting research associate
\\ university of nebraska at omaha - college of IS&T

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