edsa-project.eu

Bridging the Data Science Skills GapDr. Alexander Mikroyannidis

The Open University, UK

edsa-project.eu

Digital/Big Data Skills Gap (UK)• 750,000 tech vacancies by 2017, according to a recent prediction by O2.• The UK is already losing a potential £2 billion per year from unfilled roles requiring

digital skills.• Only 1/3 of ICT teachers have the relevant qualifications.• Tenfold increase in Big Data staff demand over last 5 years:

– 41% increase in the past year – 77% of Big Data roles were “hard-to-fill” – 160% increase in demand for Big Data specialists 2013-2020 to 346,000 new

jobs

edsa-project.eu

The Modern Data Scientist

edsa-project.eu

What is the EDSA about?

ESTABLISH A EUROPEAN COMMUNITY OF EDUCATORS, LEARNERS, PRACTITIONERS, AND POLICY MAKERS ON DATA SCIENCE

edsa-project.eu

EDSA Activities

• Surveys• Interviews• Dashboards

Landscaping

• Modular, media-rich, multiple languages

• Core, domain-specific, and technology-specific topics

Curriculum and

courseware

• Video lectures• Professional training• MOOCs• eBooks

Courses and learning analytics

edsa-project.eu

Initial Version of Module

Final Module: eBook & Course

Webinar – Final Recording

Webinar – First Recording

Collection ofModule Materials Slides – First Version

Slides – Final Version

Stakeholder CommunitiesIndustrial Advisory Board

Demand AnalysisReflection

Module DisseminationOnline & F2F

Learning Analytics

CurriculaEDSA Analytics

Dashboard

Reconfiguring & Repurposing

LearnersLearning Delivery

End-to-End Approach

edsa-project.eu

Survey Response Data

edsa-project.eu

Displaying Demand: Dashboard• http://edsa-project.eu/resources/

dashboard/

• Tracking the pulse of the European data landscape

• Visual analysis of job postings– Skills required in each country– Number of jobs per country

and per city– Training courses

edsa-project.eu

Curriculum

Foundations• Foundations of Data

Science• Foundations of Big

Data • Statistical /

Mathematical Foundations

• Programming / Computational Thinking (R and Python)

Storage and Processing• Data Management

and Curation • Big Data Architecture • Distributed

Computing • Stream Processing

Analysis

• Essentials of Data Analytics and Machine Learning

• Big Data Analytics • Process Mining

Interpretation and Use

• Data Visualisation • Visual Analytics • Finding Stories in

Open Data • Data Exploitation

edsa-project.eu

The EDSA courses portfolio• The EDSA courses portfolio consists of a wide range of Data Science

courses adopting a variety of pedagogical models, as well as employing different delivery channels and formats in order to address different learning contexts and audiences.

• The EDSA courses cover all types of pedagogies, from the traditional face-to-face pedagogical model, to the more recent trends in online education (MOOCs and OERs).

• Course categories:– Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)– Online courses (e.g. OERs)– Face-to-face courses– Blended courses

edsa-project.eu

Delivery channels• The EDSA courses employ different delivery channels and formats in order

to maximise the impact of the EDSA learning materials on the community and bring them closer to as many students and practitioners as possible.

• In particular, the EDSA courses are available: – Via the EDSA online courses portal– Via the EDSA eBook

edsa-project.eu

Faceted search interface

edsa-project.eu

Course metadataThe following metadata are recorded for all EDSA courses and used for finding courses via faceted search:

– Category (e.g. blended, face-to-face, etc.)– Level (i.e. basic, intermediate, advanced)– Institution offering the course– Target sector– Target audience– Gained skills– Location– Language– License (Creative Commons)

edsa-project.eu

The EDSA eBook• The EDSA eBook offers an

additional delivery medium for the project’s courses, targeting primarily tablet devices and mobile phones.

• The eBook contains the textual and image/video learning resources of the EDSA self-study courses, as well as self-assessment exercises in the form of quizzes.

• In order to widen the audiences reached via different platforms, the EDSA eBook is available both in the iBooks and ePUB format.

edsa-project.eu

FeedbackQualitative and quantitative feedback is collected about the EDSA courses via:• Learning Analytics

User interactions with the EDSA learning materials are recorded as xAPI statements and stored in the Learning Locker LRS (Learning Record Store).

• QuestionnairesMeasuring the ease of use and learning effectiveness of the EDSA learning materials. Mainly comprised of a set of statements to which the learner is requested to record their level of agreement via a 5-Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Open-ended questions ask about the things that the learner has enjoyed most about the EDSA learning materials, possible improvements, as well as any additional comments.

edsa-project.eu

Next steps• Designing a curriculum that covers

data science is an inherently difficult task that faces a number of challenges, most notably the speed at which this field is changing.

• We will carry out revisions to the curriculum and the associated learning resources throughout the duration of the project, in order to reflect the most up-to-date needs of the community and the latest cutting-edge techniques for making sense of data.

edsa-project.eu

Join us• Help shape an evolving data science curriculum endorsed by the

European Commission through its Horizon 2020 programme.• Improve the quality of data science training available across the EU by

reusing EDSA learning materials.• Help create the next generation of world-leading data scientists by

delivering co-branded training.• Develop the community around data science training and education

together with other EDSA members.

More info: http://edsa-project.eu