Toward a Model Undergraduate Curriculum for the Emerging Business Intelligence and Analytics Discipline

Abstract

Business intelligence (BI) combined with business analytics (BA) is an increasingly prominent strategic objective for many organizations. As a pedagogical subject, BI/BA is still in its infancy, and, in order for this to mature, we need to develop an undergraduate model BI/BA curriculum. BI/BA as an academic domain is emerging as a hybrid of disciplines, including information systems, statistics, management science, artificial intelligence, computer science, and business practice/theory. Based on IS 2010's model curriculum constructs (Topi et al., 2010), we explore two curricular options: a BI/BA concentration in a typical IS major and a comprehensive, integrated BI/BA undergraduate major. In support, we present evidence of industry need for BI/BA, review the current state of BI/BA education, and compare anticipated requirements for BI/BA curricula with the IS 2010 model curriculum. For this initial phase of curricular design, we postulate a preliminary set of knowledge areas relevant for BI/BA pedagogy in a multidisciplinary framework. Then we discuss avenues for integrating these knowledge areas to develop professionally prepared BI/BA specializations at the undergraduate level. We also examine implications for both AACSB and ABET accreditation and describe the next phase of applying the IS 2010 concept structure to BI/BA curriculum development.

A Framework for Evaluating the Business Analytics Maturity of University Programmes

“…Technical skills were correlated with technical knowledge for each level of analytic maturity, making a more complete model than the matrices for technical skills proposed by Miller and Hughes [8], without providing the associated necessary knowledge. The presented model addresses a broader range of BA jobs, unlike Kim and Lee in [28] where knowledge and technical skills are identified only for the data scientists. Several models of analytical maturity have been developed in the industry in recent years, but they are inappropriate for university courses, as they include many aspects related to company specific processes or organization structures.…”

“…In order to structure and analyse the educational offer of these programmes, we started from the idea that students' training for jobs in BA field should focus on 4 domains: Data Analysis, Databases, Data Warehousing and BA [3,[27][28][29][30]. According to Turel and Kapoor [18], the degree to which economic universities cover these areas defines their BA maturity level and essentially determines whether students are prepared for BA jobs.…”

Predictors of Choosing Business Analytics Concentration and Consequent Academic Performance

“…The demand for BAN professionals, however, exceeds supply in all business sectors (Davenport 2013a, b;Solomon 2014), and therefore there is a need to train more individuals with the skill sets required to enter this workforce. Toward this end, colleges and universities have introduced business analytics courses in existing and new specialized programs and concentrations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels that provide the requisite quantitative and analytical training to give students a deep understanding of the relevant topics in the domain of business (Gupta et al 2015, Mitri andPalocsay 2015). A recent study examined conditions under which Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs' BAN concentrations increase graduates' employment success in terms of salary and job placement (Ghasemaghaei et al 2019).…”

Experiential Learning: Beyond the Classroom and Connecting with the Industry

“…The authors clearly articulate a case for reengineering of the existing CS curriculum. A model curriculum has also been proposed to incorporate the emerging areas of business intelligence and business analytics [4]. This curriculum encompasses a hybrid academic domain of disciplines including statistics, management science, computer science and business information systems.…”