According to the Student Conduct and Academic Integrity office, there has been a steep increase in academic integrity violations, in particular, cheating and plagiarism, since moving to a virtual learning environment.

On one hand, the increase may be attributed to the ease of cheating in an online testing environment and easy access to unauthorized materials. On the other hand, the increase may have been due to the technology that detects suspicious cases, such as test monitoring software or automated plagiarism checking tools.

But, it could be partly true that students’ unawareness of the code of student conduct played a role. Hence, you are encouraged to check out the university policies and procedures available at https://scai.uncc.edu/academic-integrity in order to avoid unintended violations and consequences.

It is also important to note that increased stress during the pandemic may have been a contributing factor. The university has great support services, such as free counseling, and you can find more information about these services at (click on resources):

Graduate students enrolled in dual-degree programs are initially billed tuition increments for both programs. However, SDS and our partner programs have agreed to waive one of the increments per term. Students are responsible for contacting the appropriate program to request a waiver for one of the tuition increments each semester, ideally at the time of registration.

After we forward the waiver request to student accounts, the charges for both increments will remain on the student’s account until the add/drop deadline has passed, but the student's registration will not be dropped for nonpayment of the waived amount.

Welcome one and all. We have a lot of special events scheduled across the campus for our new and returning, graduate and undergraduate students.

All new students are encouraged to register and attend the UNCC Graduate School Virtual Orientation.

Attend to hear a welcome message from the Graduate School Dean and Associate Dean, learn more about services offered by the Center for Graduate Life, and join a Q&A with a panel of continuing graduate students. Please click HERE to be directed to the information and registration page.

The School of Data Science invites all new and continuing DSBA and HIA students (Masters, Certificate, and Distance Education) to this virtual session. During this session, students will learn about how to prepare for the first semester, class expectations and other aspects of each program along with a Q & A session with the school’s faculty and staff. You will learn more about the in-person social and professional networking events planned for the Fall semester.

Save the date and stay tuned for Zoom link information.

Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fall-2021-virtual-orientation-town-hall-tickets-156948239409

We are excited to bring back the annual in-person tradition of New Student Convocation. All students from the class of 2024 (sophomores), our incoming class of 2025 (freshman), and new transfer students are invited. New Student Convocation is a day dedicated to welcome and introduce new undergraduate students to UNC Charlotte and learn what it means to be a 49er. The event presents the traditions of the institution, the Noble Niner Honor Code, a faculty keynote address, and a performance by the Pride of Niner Nation Marching Band.

The School of Data Science is holding a Data Science Meet and Greet as part of the Goldrush events welcoming new undergraduate and graduate students. The event will be held in the Bioinformatics second floor lobby. The event is a casual affair for students to grab a slice of pizza and some SDS swag and create recognition for the program.

We have several electives and two special topics courses offered this fall including:

Graphs or networks are ubiquitous structures that appear in a multitude of complex systems like social networks, biological networks, knowledge graphs, world-wide-web, transportation networks, and many more. Real-world networks are massive and unstructured, apart from dynamic and multi-modal. Many existing domains can benefit from data analysis modeled as network-driven problems that provide many computational and algorithmic challenges. This course covers recent advances in the structure and analysis of large networks, and machine learning models and algorithms that abstract their basic properties.  Network Science can forecast growth trajectories and develop predictive and descriptive applications. The course will explore how to practically analyze large-scale network data and how to reason about it through models for network structure and evolution using techniques from data mining and machine learning. The course will also feature several guest lectures from thought-leaders at LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter, They will discuss possible internship opportunities for students adept in network science. Open to HIA and DSBA students

Provides a systematic understanding and experience of foundational concepts and techniques for data integration in healthcare. Topics include: heterogeneous data sources in healthcare, health data interoperability, health communications standards, health data standards, health data integration architecture, and health data integration models and techniques, including data preparation, health data integration tools, and health information exchange. Open to HIA and DSBA students

Business Intelligence is a collection of computer-based techniques used to extract, identify and analyze data. Analytics is key in the transformation of the healthcare industry. Healthcare business intelligence can provide organizations with the ability to improve quality of care, increase financial efficiency and operational effectiveness, conduct innovative research, and satisfy regulatory requirements. Business Intelligence provides better access to information. It provides current and predictive views across the enterprise. Common functions of BI are reporting, data mining, analytical processing, knowledge management, and data visualization. Topics include: elements of business intelligence, business analytics, data visualization, data mining, data warehousing, and business performance management. Open to HIA and DSBA students

Today’s personal data is aggregated at large scales, increasing the risk of privacy violations or breaches in critical sectors (e.g., health care, automation, and finance). Current laws such as HIPAA and GDPR protect personal data in the United States and around the world. The course will cover privacy-enhancing technologies from data de-identification to state-of-the-art differential privacy research (e.g., deployed at Apple and the Census Bureau). We will also include broader discussions around topics such as data governance, ethics, and algorithm fairness. The material will touch on issues and methodologies from data mining/machine learning, databases, cryptography, distributed systems, law, policy, medical informatics, and statistics. Open to HIA and DSBA students

This course covers general computational techniques for analyzing large amounts of text data as well as basic techniques for information retrieval. By introducing text mining (TM) and information retrieval (IR) in a unified framework, this course emphasizes the importance of integration of IR and TM needed to build the two major types of text information systems, i.e., search engines (such as Google, MS Bing, etc) and text analytics systems, for text information access and text analysis. This course intends to provide a systematic introduction to many of these approaches, such as word association mining, text classification, text summarization, probabilistic topic modeling, and opinion mining. Students are expected to have basic knowledge about computer science, particularly some programming languages, and be comfortable with some basic concepts in probability and statistics such as conditional probability and parameter estimation. Open to HIA and DSBA students

REQUIREMENTS TO BE ELIGIBLE TO GRADUATE

The deadline to apply for summer graduation has passed. All students (Master’s or Certificate) who plan to graduate this fall must apply for graduation by no later than Wednesday, September 22, 2021.

To be eligible to apply for graduation students:

More information on the DSBA process can be found HERE.

More information on the HIA process can be found HERE.

Give your professional image a boost on LinkedIn with a headshot. Having a professional headshot gives strength to your personal brand. There's no charge for the headshot program, and it is open to all current UNC Charlotte students, faculty/staff, and alumni.

All three of the current SDS boot camps (Python, Statistics, and Introduction to R) were reviewed this spring. Registration for the Fall Semester SDS Boot Camps will open for students on Monday, August 2nd. These training modules are open to all students actively enrolled in the DSBA or HIA programs. These online courses were created as a free resource for students. They are intended to be utilized as introductory or foundational review tools. Please share this with your students. More information about the courses can be found here:

Burtch Works is an Executive recruiting firm that produces regular research and insights on trends in the data science marketplace. They specialize in marketing research, marketing science, credit and risk analytics, data science, and direct and digital marketing for a wide range of businesses and industries.

Check out their latest reports on Data Science & Analytics Salaries, Hiring Research, & Market Trends.

This summer student’s in John Tobias’ Sports Analytics course partner with several local teams and ESPN gaining valuable “on-the-field” experience. You can watch the students as they work with the Carolina Panthers and ESPN.

The University Career Center will host a Virtual On-Campus Job Fair for student employment jobs on Tuesday, August 3rd. The virtual job fair is an opportunity for students to find on-campus positions, and partake in a virtual fair before returning to campus. There will be FWS (Federal Work-Study), STW (Student Temp Wage), UPIP (University Professional Internship Program), and Graduate Assistant positions.

Event: Virtual On-Campus Job Fair

Date: Tuesday, August 3rd

Event Time: 11:00AM-2:00PM

Location: Virtual Career Fair Platform

Registration: On-Campus Job Fair, Click RSVP on Hire-A-Niner, then Select from I want to attend: As A Job Seeker

Join us Thursday, August 19 at 9-10 AM for a dynamic and interactive virtual session featuring Martha Gleason as you learn presentation strategies to ignite speaking impact during these changing times:

This panel discussion will include students and faculty. The focus will be on identifying and securing a spring 2022 internship placement. Dr. Hague and Dr. Odum will present on do’s and don’t of the internship proposal process.

The Career Center has developed a special aggregating tool for Data Science students looking for internships or full-time placements. All postings in Hire-a-Niner that mention analytics or data science can be found with one click. There are a few odd postings, but in the main, there is a rich stream of HIA, DSBA, and DS postings to be found.

Graduate Life Ambassadors (GLA) are volunteers who help plan Center for Graduate Life (CGL) events, promote events/programs to fellow students, and suggest new initiatives for the CGL.

As a GLA you will:

NORC at the University of Chicago is seeking a talented Research Scientist to support a growing portfolio of high-profile health informatics projects within its Health Sciences Department.

Successful candidates may come from a wide range of professional backgrounds including research, policy analysis, consulting, health care administration, health informatics, academia or health care delivery. Successful candidates will have familiarity with health systems such as electronic health records, health information exchange, consumer health informatics, and clinical decision support, and/or significant experience in social research on health IT adoption and policy.

This position is responsible for providing direction and task leadership in all aspects of project work which could include the development of analytic approaches, questionnaire design, data collection strategy, acquisition of existing data, data analysis, and/or preparing study conclusions and developing high-quality reports.

The Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program is administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The PMF Program is a leadership development program at the entry-level for advanced degree candidates in STEM fields. As such, students in the DSBA and HIA PSM programs are well-positioned to apply for this program. The Program attracts and selects the best candidates possible, but is really designed with a more narrow focus - developing a cadre of potential government leaders. It provides some sustenance during the first years of employment and encourages the development of leadership capabilities. The PMF Program inculcates a lasting bond as well as a spirit of public service, ultimately encouraging and leading to a career in the government.

The PMF Program Office has announced the dates for the upcoming PMF Class of 2022 Application:

These dates have been posted here: https://www.pmf.gov/become-a-pmf/2022-application/. PMF Class of 2022 Finalists will be announced approximately six weeks after the application closes. Please monitor the webpage for updates.

For the 2022 PMF application cycle, a revised assessment has been introduced to improve the process in a variety of areas including addressing concerns around equity. PMF is also enhancing recruiting efforts with greater outreach to diverse communities, including expansion of their engagement with Minority Serving Institutions, enhanced recruitment through the alumni network, and use of strategic recruitment platforms.

The updated “PMF Applicant Handbook” is posted on the PMF website. The Handbook details the annual application process, explains eligibility requirements, required documentation, and provides an overview of the online assessment process, all with the goal of preparing prospective applicants to submit successful applications.

SIA Partners, a global consulting firm, has been tasked to develop a new AI/ML and NLP tool(s) to support regulatory reporting and automate their regulatory testing which is very manual today. In addition, they are looking to support their Structured Credit Products team as well as their IA/ML and Analytics team. Apply by no later than Friday, August 6th.

DegreeWorks is a web-based planning tool that provides an accurate display of required coursework and helps students monitor their progress towards graduation. Students can access their real-time audit in DegreeWorks via my.uncc.edu and should routinely check their progress towards degree completion.

For any required courses that are in the Fall Through or Not Counted sections of DegreeWorks, submit an Academic Petition that requests the courses be counted towards your program requirements. If you believe your audit contains errors or the requirements do not match the catalog, students should contact:

Josh Hertel: jhertel@uncc.edu

Brenda Bradrick: bbradric@uncc.edu

If you began in the Certificate program and transferred to the Master’s program, please review your DegreeWorks for both your certificate and master’s program and complete an application to graduate from both programs.

All new students please set up an advising appointment before registering. Carly Mahedy, Director of Student Services, is on leave for the Summer and will return in the Fall.

Catalog/Curriculum: