ANALYTICS EDUCATION
There has been an explosion in the amount of data available, which organisations can use to add value. Data has become so important that data analytics has emerged as a decisive competitive asset and a core element in the decision-making process of various industries. The right kind of data along with technology and tools is helping industries in building strategies for the improvement of their business. As a consequence, the demand for data scientists and artificial intelligence (AI) experts has grown exponentially in the last two decades.
The demand for data analysts has motivated universities to initiate various programmes on data/business analytics. Universities are focussing on creating a curriculum which not only includes the concepts of mathematics, statistics and computer science, but also offers the skills of handling real data sets and extracting useful information from unstructured data. However, the challenge is to build a curriculum which is a perfect blend of concepts, technology, information and business contexts. Further, the path to data science is being directed by artificial intelligence. Analytics has gained momentum in boarding AI into business enterprises.
This round table article first discusses the main aspects of analytics education that are necessary to provide the required knowledge and skills to excel in the field of analytics. This is followed by a panel discussion among leading practitioners and educationists in the field who address questions such as the challenges in the field of analytics education, the skills required for a data scientist and how educationists can contribute in building the data science ecosystem. They stress the need to develop an ecosystem with a focus on educating students and working professionals who can demonstrate the knowledge and capability to solve real world problems in this field, and to build a curriculum that has to continuously align with the needs of the users.