香蕉秀

By Stephanie M. McPherson

Humans produce more than 2.5 million terabytes of data every day. From social media use to scientific studies to financial transactions, every action that is digitally recorded is a piece of data that can be used to learn or optimize or better understand how the world works.

Data scientists take that unfathomably large amount of data and make sense of it. Doing so requires knowledge of not just computer science, but of information science, machine learning, statistics, social science, and whatever specialty the data is being derived from.聽聽

Boston College has approved both a Master鈥檚 and a minor in Data Science to prepare students for this challenge, while also imbuing the education with the 香蕉秀 mission of doing good. The Master鈥檚 degree, which will launch in Fall 2024, will be offered by the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and the minor, which launched in Fall 2023, is a collaboration between the Computer Science and Mathematics departments.聽

鈥淧rovost David Quigley wanted to create a uniquely Boston College vision for how we would teach and think about data science,鈥� says Laura J. Steinberg, Seidner Family Executive Director of the Schiller Institute. 鈥淗e asked me to lead a committee that would incorporate a variety of perspectives about the role of data science in society and how various academic programs on campus could contribute to a data science curriculum.鈥澛�

The online-only Master鈥檚 targets mid-career professionals looking to hone their skillsets. The minor hopes to attract students from any major hoping to better understand how to harness the data from their field. Both programs, though administered respectively by the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and the Computer Science and Mathematics departments, are truly and broadly Boston College educational experiences aiming to produce independent thinkers who will use data science skillsets to affect change in the world.聽聽

鈥淒ata science is interdisciplinary,鈥� says George Mohler, Daniel J. Fitzgerald Professor of Computer Science and the minor's program lead. 鈥淧retty much every school at 香蕉秀 has data scientists working on their faculty in some capacity. Having that expertise on the committee was helpful in designing the overall curriculum.鈥澛�

Discussions began in fall 2022. The 15 committee members interrogated each aspect of the program proposals. For example, were certain prerequisites necessary, or were they preventing non-computer science and math students from accessing the opportunity? Or, what would a class on ethics and bias in data science look like?聽聽

鈥淥ne reason why the committee was successful is that it fostered creativity,鈥� says Melanie Hubbard, Head of Digital Scholarship & Data Services at 香蕉秀鈥檚 O'Neill Library, a committee member who also co-created a data ethics and representation module for use in one of the minor鈥檚 core classes. 鈥淚t was a setting where people could freely share and without concern and being criticized. It was a very fluid creative situation where people could just speak openly and that was a major part of its success.鈥澛�

A branch of data science education that both programs will pull from, called human-centered data science, focuses on understanding and mitigating the built-in biases inherent in data created by people. But the 香蕉秀 programs will take this one step further by encouraging the students to actively apply what they鈥檝e learned to projects that can make a difference. To that end, committee members will share data from their global health, climate change, or education access projects, for example, for students to process and analyze through a capstone project.聽聽

The creation of the Schiller Institute provided a unique opportunity for Boston College to pull together an interdisciplinary, well-rounded approach to data science education.聽聽聽

鈥淭here were these scattered pockets of expertise, and slowly we realized as we came together that the seeds of something bigger are here,鈥� says Brian K. Smith, The Honorable David S. Nelson Chair and Associate Dean for Research in the Lynch School and the program lead for the Master鈥檚. 鈥淲ith this cross-香蕉秀 curriculum, we will produce students who are not just doing what they're told or following convention. They will be critically thinking, with the consideration of ethics and bias and doing good playing a major role.鈥�