Designing Customisable Data Science Curriculum Using Ontology for Data Science Competences and Body of Knowledge

Abstract

Importance of Data Science education and training is growing with the emergence of data driven technologies and organisational culture that intend to derive actionable value for improving research process or enterprise business using variety of enterprise data and widely available open and social media data. Modern data driven research and industry require new types of specialists that are capable to support all stages of the data lifecycle from data production and input to data processing and actionable results delivery, visualisation and reporting, which can be jointly defined as the Data Science professions family. The education and training of Data Scientists requires multi-disciplinary approach combining wide view of the Data Science and Analytics foundation with deep practical knowledge in domain specific areas. In modern conditions with the fast technology change and strong skills demand, the Data Science education and training should be customizable and delivered in multiple form, also providing sufficient data labs facilities for practical training. This paper discusses approach to building customizable Data Science curriculum for different types of learners based on using the ontology of the EDISON Data Science Framework (EDSF) developed in the EU funded Project EDISON and widely used by universities and professional training organisations.