Skip to main content

Towards an Interdisciplinary Master’s Degree Programme in Big Data and Data Science: A South African Perspective

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
ICT Education (SACLA 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 642))

Abstract

Many businesses see Big Data and Data Science as a catalyst for innovation. The problem is that many of these businesses are hesitant to embrace these new technologies mainly because of a shortage in skilled manpower. On a global level, higher education institutions are in the process of developing curricula for graduate degree programs relating to Big Data and Data Science. Developing such curriculum has its own challenges. For example: What level of knowledge is required from disciplines such as Computing and Statistics? What underlying foundations in Mathematics are required? This paper presents a framework for the design of an interdisciplinary Big Data and Data Science curriculum on the Master’s level.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Data munging’ refers to mapping data from one form to another.

References

  1. Anderson, P., Bowring, J., McCauley, R., Pothering, G., Starr, C.: An undergraduate degree in data science: curriculum and a decade of implementation experience. In: Proceedings 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2014), pp. 145–150 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bollet, G.: Identifying the difference between knowledge and skills (2015). http://elearningindustry.com/difference-between-knowledge-and-skills-knowing-not-make-skilled

  3. Data Science Community. http://datascience.community/colleges

  4. Dhar, V.: Data science and prediction. Commun. ACM 56(12), 64–73 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Faundeen, J., Burley, T., Carlino, J., Govoni, D., Henkel, H., Holl, S., Hutchison, V.B., Martn, E., Montgomery, E., Ladino, C., Tessler, S., Zolly, L.: The United States geological survey science data lifecycle model: U.S. geological survey open-file Report 2013–1265, Techn. rep., U.S. Geological Survey, (2013). doi:10.3133/ofr20131265

  6. Hall-Holt, O.A., Sanft, K.R.: Statistics-infused introduction to computer science. In: Proceedings 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2015), pp. 138–143 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Harris, J.G., Shetterley, N., Alter, A.E., Schnell, K.: The team solution to the data scientist shortage. Techn. rep, Accenture Institute for High Performance (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Holtz, D.: 8 skills you need to be a data scientist (2014). http://blog.udacity.com/2014/11/data-science-job-skills.html

  9. Jacobs, R., Hayes, H. (eds.): Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Design and Implementation. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  10. King, J., Magoulas, R.: 2014 Data Science Salary Survey. O’Reilly, San Diego (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Kroeze, J.H.: Transdisciplinarity in IS: The Next Frontier in Computing Disciplines. All Sprouts Content. Paper 489 (2012). http://aisel.aisnet.org/sprouts_all/489

  12. McAfee, A., Brynjolfsson, E.: Big data: the management revolution. Harv. Bus. Rev. 90(10), 60–66, 68, 128 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Pandor, G.N.M.: The Higher Education Qualifications Framework. Government Gazette, South Africa, October 2007

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ramamurthy, B.: A practical and sustainable model for learning and teaching data science. In: Proceedings 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education (SIGCSE 2016), pp. 169–174 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Sosa, R., Connor, A.M.: !orthodoxies in multidisciplinary design-oriented degree programmes. In: Proceedings of 2015 IASDR Conference: Interplay, November 2015

    Google Scholar 

  16. Spelt, E.J.H., Biemans, H.J.A., Tobi, H., Luning, P.A., Mulder, M.: Teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education: a systematic review. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 21(4), 365–378 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Data scientist: the engineer of the future. In: Mertins, K., Bénaben, F., Poler, R., Bourriéres, J.P. (eds.) Enterprise Interoperability VI: Interoperability for Agility, Resilience and Plasticity of Collaborations. Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences, vol. 7, pp. 13–26. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Wu, X., Kumar, V., Ross-Quinlan, J., Ghosh, J., Yang, Q., Motoda, H., McLachlan, G.J., Ng, A., Liu, B., Yu, P.S., Zhou, Z.H., Steinbach, M., Hand, D.J., Steinberg, D.: Top 10 algorithms in data mining. Knowl. Inf. Syst. 14(1), 1–37 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Marshall .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Marshall, L., Eloff, J.H.P. (2016). Towards an Interdisciplinary Master’s Degree Programme in Big Data and Data Science: A South African Perspective. In: Gruner, S. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 642. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47680-3_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47680-3_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47679-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47680-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics