Practice Module for Business Analytics Practice

Objectives

The objective of the practice module is twofold:

1. Firstly, to expose participants to real world problems so that they may practice the use of the knowledge and skills they have learned during the component courses in a coherent manner.
2. Secondly, to enable participants to demonstrate their proficiency across all of the skills and practical knowledge that they have learned in the courses.

Intended Audience

This practice module is targeted at participants who wish to complete the certification process for the Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics Practice.

Prerequisites

Participants must have successfully completed all four component courses:

1. Statistics Boot Camp
2. Data Analytics Process and Best Practice
3. Predictive Analytics - Insights of Trends and Irregularities
4. Text Analytics

Components

There are two parts to the Practice Module.

1. Practice Project:

   Participants are required to undertake one comprehensive project in groups of 3 to 5 members to gain practical experience and demonstrate their understanding and mastery of the skills taught in the four component courses. The practice project will require each group member to expend an estimated 10 days of effort. These days are not expected to be contiguous and may stretch over many weeks.

2. Examination:

Each participant is required to sit for an examination on a stipulated date and time.

The overall grade for the participant will be based on the Practice project and Examination.

Requirements for Practice Project

1. Project proposal submission

   Participants must identify a business challenge pertaining to objectives of this graduate certificate in Business Analytics Practice as described in the above paragraphs. Participants must form their own project team and collectively submit a single comprehensive project proposal using a provided template. Your proposal will be reviewed and assessed by ISS lecturers for relevance, complexity, business impact and scope. Your project proposal must demonstrate your deep understanding of the identified business challenge together with a sound analytical solution approach that is supported by the choice of techniques and methods taught in the courses. You must be given an approval before you commence work on the project.

2. Data Sources

   Project teams can access any data required for project from public sources, company sponsors, research articles, websites or any other legal sources. It is your responsibility to ensure that all data are legally obtained and approved for use in your project.

3. Presentation of project

   After completion of project milestones, teams are required to present their work to a panel of assessors consisting of ISS instructors and industry professionals where required. You are expected to clearly articulate your solution strategy, the analytical techniques and methods used in structured manner. Presentations will be followed by Q&A. Each team will be provided with 20 minutes to present. All team members are expected to participate during presentation. A copy of your presentation material must be submitted to ISS.

4. Report Submission

Project teams are expected to submit a comprehensive report that contains complete details of their project work. Typically, this will be an expansion of your presentation material to incorporate detailed discussion and justification of the technical work done and the sound interpretation of the results obtained.

Note: NUS-ISS reserves the right the change the requirements of the practice project as deemed appropriate and necessary.

Sample of Problem Definition:

A regional airline company is concerned about its falling revenue for the last 2 years. The company executives have some intuition on what is causing this trend. However, they are interested in a data driven approach to arriving at a solution that can effectively help the company stem the revenue decline and improve the company’s profit. The airline business is a complex one. There are many factors that must be considered such a routes, aircraft capacity, demand-supply cycles, number of flights, flight connectivity, competitive airline fares, etc. These data are already captured and can be used for analytical purposes. Moreover, the airline has collective a fair amount of qualitative data from passenger surveys and flight crew feedback regarding routes, flight timings, competitor airlines and inflight service satisfaction. The airline also has data about its competitor fare information. The senior management of this airline desires a complete analytical view of their business using both structured and unstructured data. They are keen to discover insights so that they can improve profitability by identifying lucrative routes and connectivity while at the same time taking into consideration the satisfaction of travellers.

Application (For Stackable Students)

• Participants are only allowed to take the practice module after completing all courses in the Grad Cert.
• Participants who wish to take the practice module concurrently in the same semester with the courses in the same Grad Cert must write to ask-iss@nus.edu.sg citing reasons by the application deadline. Email requests received after the deadline will not be considered. Requests will be reviewed after the deadline and approved on a case-by-case basis.
• Participants who miss the application window will have to apply for the practice module in the next semester.
• Participants who do not attend the briefing will be withdrawn from the practice module.