About
Businesses and organizations across all industry sectors, both small and large, are increasingly looking for ways to leverage the era of big-data to make strategic, marketing, sales, and other operational decisions. This shift to data-driven decision making is creating a growing workforce demand for Data Science and Analytics (DSA) professionals. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Handbook 2018 projects that jobs in the DSA field will grow by 34% by 2026. Also, The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), in collaboration with PwC, report Investing in America’s Data Science and Analytics Talent: The Case for Action, states that by 2021, almost 70% of businesses will give preference to job applicants with data skills. Additionally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently created a new category for Data Scientist, code 15-2051, in the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification System, which reflects the increased demand in this emerging field.
Additionally, there is a need to focus on training data enabled or data savvy professionals. The response of higher education to the increasing demand for DSA professionals mainly addresses the need for high level DSA talent. According to The Quant Crunch, data enabled professionals and data-driven decision makers will comprise up to one third of the future data analytics job market. A recent Indeed search for Data Analyst jobs within a 50-mile radius of County College of Morris generated over 10,000 unique listings. Only 1,960 of those positions are senior level, while 1,830 of the listed positions are classified as entry-level, and over 5,000 as middle level. Furthermore, within 25 miles of CCM, there are almost 1,000 open positions for data analysts, with more than half at the mid-skill level.
County College of Morris (CCM) will help to add to the pipeline of qualified data science professionals and will provide opportunities for individuals to enter the data science field at an earlier point in their academic careers, through the Advancing Curriculum in Data Science program.
Goals
Goal 1
To support establishment of a college credit certificate in data analytics
Goal 2
To build institutional capacity for high quality data science instruction through faculty development
Goal 3
To increase representation of women in STEM fields through recruitment into the certificate tracks and participation in data science fields.
Goal 4
To meet industry demand for employees specializing in data science through the development of pathways for regional employment.
Information About ATE
The National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program has been funding innovation at two-year colleges for over twenty years. With a focus on the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation’s economy, and strong partnerships between academic institutions and industry, ATE promotes improvement in the education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary school levels.
To learn more about ATE, please visit the NSF ATE program home page.