The good news for academe is that the “Age of Big Data” means rising demand for training and certification. A 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that the “big data” initiatives of US firms will require 140,000-190,000 knowledge workers with “deep analytical” skills plus some 1.5 million “data literate” managers. (For comparison purposes, in fall 2008 some 196,000 students were enrolled in graduate programs in engineering, physical sciences, and mathematics; US colleges and universities awarded 1.6 million bachelors degrees in A/Y 2008-09. Source: US Dept. of Education, Digest of Education Statistics 2010, Chapter 3.) The demand for big data skills could be a catalyst for the launch of dozens (hundreds?) of new courses, and as well as new certificate and degree programs at colleges and universities across the country. (The McKinsey report, Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity, is available in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from the McKinsey web site.) The bad (less good?) news for higher education is that (a) colleges and universities sit on huge amounts of untapped archival and transactional data about student learning and campus operations; and (b) academic organizations do not have a great history of using data to aid and inform decision-making.
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/digital-tweed/actionable-analytics
