Experiences with Business Analytics Curriculum Implementation Ina Markham, Susan Palocsay, & Scott Stevens James Madison University

BSAN Admissions Process Prerequisite competency courses: One introductory calculus course One statistics course One introductory management science course Grade of B- or higher One economics course BSAN minor application form Recommendation letter from MS instructor Cohort of 30 juniors selected each fall

Analyst Definitions (Davenport & Harris, 2007) Analytical champions Executive decision-makers who depend heavily on data analyses to make business decisions Analytical professionals Create advanced analytical applications to be used by others in the organization Analytical semi-professionals Apply the models and algorithms developed by professionals for routine or specialized decision-making Analytical amateurs Knowledgeable consumers of analytics who can apply analytical insights to their work (70-80% of an organization’s analytical talent)

Analytics Talent Needed (McKinsey Global Institute, 2011 & 2016; Cegielski & Jones-Farmer, 2016) Data scientist Deep knowledge analyst with training in advanced mathematics/statistics/OR IT support specialist Technology skills for hardware & software associated with big data Business translator Data-savvy with industry/functional expertise Link data science team and practical business applications Demand for 2-4 million in US over next decade

Categories of Analytics Descriptive Predictive Prescriptive Information What happened? What could happen in the future? What is the best course of action? Actions Prepare & analyze historical data, identify patterns, and report Predict future probabilities & trends, find hidden relationships in data Evaluate & determine new ways to operate, balance constraints, and target objectives Insight How and why did it happen? What’s the next best action? What’s the best/worst that can happen? Techniques Data modeling and visualization Data mining and forecasting Mathematical optimization and simulation

Business Analytics Minor Required Courses: COB 191-Business Analytics I (statistics) COB 291-Business Analytics II (management science) BSAN 391-Quantitative Business Modeling BSAN 392-Descriptive and Predictive Analytics BSAN 393-Predictive Analytics and Data Mining One Elective: CIS 463-Business Intelligence CS/ISAT 344-Intelligent Systems ECON 385-Econometrics FIN 475-Financial Modeling and Risk Analysis MATH 322-Applied Linear Regression MKTG 482-Marketing Analytics

BSAN Courses BSAN 390: Statistical Modeling for Business Analytics Data visualization, inferential statistics, regression analysis, and ANOVA BSAN 391: Decision Modeling for Business Analytics Optimization, sensitivity analysis, multi-objective decision analysis, and simulation BSAN 393: Data Mining for Business Analytics Supervised and unsupervised machine learning and statistical techniques

BSAN Minor Graduates 2014-17

BI/BSAN Framework [adapted from Klimberg and Miori, 2010]

BSAN Major? BBA degree with business core CIS courses BSAN courses Principles of Programming (Python) Intermediate Programming (Java) Database Design and Application Business Intelligence BSAN courses Decision Modeling Statistical Modeling Data Mining New courses? Open to ideas Capstone

Challenges Students for BSAN minor Teaching classes in computer labs Limited quantitative capabilities Strong job market without BSAN Teaching classes in computer labs Finding additional course materials Business data sets for statistics/predictive analytics BSAN major Job placement? Student enrollment? Faculty resources?