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A Survey of Data Scientists in South Africa

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ICT Education (SACLA 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 730))

Abstract

Academic programmes at South African Higher Education Institutions have predominantly educated students in managing and storing data using relational database technology. However, this is no longer sufficient. South Africa as a country will need to educate more students to manage and process structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. The main purpose of this study was to examine the status of data scientists, a role typically associated with managing these new data sets, in South Africa. The study examined the skills, knowledge and qualifications these data scientists require to do their daily tasks, and offers suggestions that ought to be considered when designing a curriculum for an academic programme in data science.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Example answers included: “transforming and shifting data”, “processing of large volumes of data (ETL/data pipeline)”, “data preparation for statistical models”, as well as “data warehousing, reporting, ETL development”.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to all respondents who made this study possible. Thanks to Anelize van Biljon for her helpful comments on drafts of this paper. Last but not least thank the anonymous reviewers of SACLA’2017 for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Informatics, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Eduan Kotzé

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  1. Eduan Kotzé
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Correspondence to Eduan Kotzé .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. North-West-University , Potchefstroom, South Africa

    Janet Liebenberg

  2. University of Pretoria , Pretoria, South Africa

    Stefan Gruner

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Kotzé, E. (2017). A Survey of Data Scientists in South Africa. In: Liebenberg, J., Gruner, S. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 730. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69670-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69670-6_12

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