Data Analytics Technician Advancement (DATA) Program

The State of Ohio's workforce-development agency, JobsOhio, has identified Information Technology (IT) as a continuing high-growth industry. Career prospects across the eleven-county central Ohio region are expected to be bright for well-educated data analysts and related IT specialists. By 2024, central Ohio employers in manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, insurance, banking, retail, and government will need 1,794 additional data analysts (a 20% growth rate). Despite the high demand for data analysts, higher education has been slow to integrate data analysis into the curriculum. The Data Analytics Technician Advancement (DATA) project serves the national interest by addressing this workforce issue. The project will use a region-wide approach to develop a data analytics career pathway to meet the needs of regional employers. The comprehensive DATA Pathway will have entry points for high school graduates and incumbent workers and multiple exit points. The new innovative curriculum with an embedded internship and articulation with area high schools and universities will include significant outreach efforts to serve military veterans.

The goal of the project is to establish a DATA Pathway in the central Ohio region to increase the supply of qualified data analytics technicians. Multiple entry and exit points will offer maximum flexibility to address the shifting needs of industry employers and accommodate the diverse interests and experiences of students of different ages and life stages. Project deliverables will be based upon input from an Industry Leadership Team that identified query languages, database fundamentals, visualization and presentation, business intelligence, data structures, and fundamental programming languages as the six key skills and abilities needed for data analytics technicians. The deliverables, which will be evaluated and disseminated nationally, include: (1) a new industry-led curriculum in data analytics that will include three new courses resulting in a new DATA certificate that is stackable toward an Associate's Degree in Information Systems & Analytics; (2) 2+2+2 Data Analytics Technician Advancement (DATA) Pathway to coordinate and facilitate the education pipeline from high school to the community college to a university; (3) an internship guide for data analytics technicians working with the EDC; (4) learning modules that educate students on the foundational aspects of data analytics, adaptable for contextualized courses within other non-computer science programs; and (5) an outreach plan for veteran populations to attract active and former military into the DATA program.