Call for Short Position Papers on “Big Data and Analytics Education Conference 2013” 1st Big Data and Analytics Education Conference, Las Vegas, Nov. 2-3, 2013

Big data and analytic capabilities are increasingly important to organizations worldwide. The explosion of information, or big data, provides greater potential to unlock insights for scientists and businesses and government and more. Analyzing growing amounts of data, leveraging data as a core business strategy, and managing data through its lifecycle while ensuring security and privacy as well as compliance with government regulations are major challenges.

This unprecedented growth in the importance of big data and analytics has created a situation where the demand for relevant skills is outpacing the ability of educational institutions to keep up. Making the most of big data and analytics requires a comprehensive approach that spans literacy needs across different disciplines and specialized career paths including:

• Business Strategy and management
• Data science and business analytics
• Data strategy and architecture
• Data policy
• Informatics for every professional field

  Given the broad reach of big data and analytics, the need for skills training encompasses basic understanding that begins in K-12, deepens during baccalaureate and post-graduate education, and continues through ongoing education during ones’ professional career.

  In order to explore the challenges related to delivering big data and analytics education, we are sponsoring the Big Data and Analytics Educational Conference (BDA EdCon), which will take place prior to the start of the IBM Information on Demand Conference (IOD – http://www.ibm.com/software/data/2013-conference/). BDA EdCon will be held on Saturday, November 2, 2013 and Sunday, November 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fee of $795 includes full conference access to the IBM IOD conference, which runs from November 3 – Nov 7, 2013.

  BDA EdCon 2013 solicits position papers focused on development of and experience with educational programs designed to develop skills in all areas of Big Data and Analytics. Programs can be K-12, undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate and can focus on education and/or training. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Experience with teaching introductory BDA concepts at college or university;
• Experience with developing degree and certificate programs in BDA. (What are the

  required knowledge & skills? What strategies are used for defining and developing new

  programs?);

• Lessons learned in creating programs based on BDA or in teaching BDA at any level;
• What challenges are being faced in building advanced courses around decision

  analytics, modeling, logarithms, machine learning, and visual analytics? What other

  advanced topics need curriculum development?

• What does it mean to be a data scientist? Should data science be a formal profession

  like an attorney, medical doctor, or professional engineer?

• Should all students be trained in information ethics?
• How should using data as a business strategy be addressed?
• How is the need to train data policy professionals such as data curators and stewards,

data security and privacy professionals, data quality, master data management for

example being addressed?

• How should information systems programs adapt to the world of big data and

  analytics?

• How are big data and analytics impacting the professional fields? How should it be

  addressed within curricula?

• Novel approaches to teaching big data and analytics concepts;
• Empirical evaluations of big data and/or analytics skills, training, education or needs

  analysis;

• Teaching big data & analytics through massive online open curriculum;
• The need for and delivery strategies of ongoing professional development;
• Experience with teaching Big Data and Analytics in the K-12 system;
• The use of specific software for teaching BDA.

  Submissions must not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. These will position papers and should not, in general, exceed 4 pages.

  All accepted papers will be published as online proceedings and receive a presentation slot. Additionally, authors of selected papers will be invited to give a longer presentation of their materials. Based on the papers submitted, the committee is prepared to select certain submissions and invite the authors to submit extended papers as chapters of a book to be published after the completion of BDA EdCon.

  *** IMPORTANT DATES *** Submission: June 30, 2013 Acceptance Notification: July 31, 2013

  Submission Website: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/submission_new.cgi?a=4369251

Workshop co-Chairs

Gregory Richards, MBA, Ph.D, FCMC Professor of Performance Management Telfer School of Management University of Ottawa Richards@telfer.uottawa.ca

Susan Dischiave
Associate Professor
School of Information Studies Syracuse University sadischi@syr.edu